Before wrapping up this series with a look at the State Assembly, let’s dispel the myth that money automatically wins elections.
Exhibit A: District Court Judge, Eighth Judicial, Dept. 30, in Clark County.
Incumbent Judge Jerry Wiese vs. challenger Josh Santeramo.
According to the last campaign finance report through September 30, 2026, Santeramo raised just $13,400 for a countywide race.
Judge Wiese reportedly raised $428,235.
And lost.
At last count, Santeramo got just over 51% of the vote and Judge Wiese got just under 49%.
Judge Wiese was a fine judge. Whoever the consultant(s) was on that race should be sued for malpractice.
Onward…
STATE ASSEMBLY
This was butt-ugly.
Going into the 2026 election, Democrats had a 27-15 majority in the State Assembly – one seat short of a super-majority.
The only GOP seat that should have been in play for Democrats was Assembly District 35, where incumbent Republican Rebecca Edgeworth was up for re-election in a swing, Democrat-majority seat that she flipped two years ago.
And money wasn’t the problem in defending the seat. Her October campaign finance report showed the campaign raised almost $350,000. That’s more than most state senate races.
By comparison, her Democrat opponent raised half that much.
And yet, Edgeworth got slaughtered, per unofficial results, 59-41%.
And who was her consultant?
According to campaign finance reports, Greg Esposito of GE Consulting.
And according to campaign finance reports, as well as his own profile, Esposito’s a hard-core union operative whose roster of clients include Democrats Marilyn Kirkpatrick, Steven Wolfson, Shelley Berkley, Elaine Marzola, Duy Nguyen, David Orentlicher, Erica Mosca, Howard Watts, Jo Cato, Jovan Jackson, the Assembly Democratic Caucus and the ballot initiative to bring “ranked choice voting” to Nevada.
What’s the old saying about sleeping with dogs and getting fleas?
Oh, but the Assembly Republican wipe-out was worse. Much worse.
Republican Assemblywoman Heidi Kasama (District 2) decided to run for the Clark County Commission rather than re-election (and lost).
AD2 is a Republican-majority district. Drew Teitelbaum was a credible candidate who raised a respectable $113,000. But lost the seat, 52-47%.
Hang on. It still gets worse.
Republican Assemblywoman Lisa Cole (District 4), also representing a GOP-majority district, went down 53-47% – despite raising over $202,000, and not including a treasure chest of independent expenditure money.
Rock bottom? Not even close.
Republican Assemblyman Brian Hibbetts (District 13) – who’s also the Assembly GOP Caucus Whip and representing a GOP-majority district which no Democrat had won dating back to 1982(!) – went down in flames, 53-45%.
And now the nail in the coffin.
Republican Assemblywoman Melissa Hardy (District 22) – who’s also the Assembly GOP Assistant Minority Leader who enjoyed a 3,578 Republican registration advantage – appears to have blown her race by around 77 votes (unofficial total).
That’s almost as embarrassing as Dave Flippo losing CD2.
Who was her consultant?
Hang on. That’s important. Let’s take a look…
According to her campaign finance reports, it was Desert Strategy Group, operated by Omar de la Rosa, the former political director for the Assembly Republican Caucus who also teamed up with liberal blubber-blogger Jon Ralston to develop Poli Lit, an archive of campaign mailers and door hangers.
And according to those same campaign finance reports, guess which other races de la Rosa ran?
Drew Teitelbaum and Brian Hibbetts.
This guy is the Rory McShane of GOP legislative races.
All of which means Republicans found a way to not only lose enough Republican seats to put them in the super-minority in the Assembly but lost two of its three top caucus leaders.
How the heck does that happen?
And now the only Clark County Republicans left standing in the Assembly are freshmen Jason Patchett (District 19) and Denise Fanning (District 23) – and the entire caucus can car-pool in a Prius.
So what will Republicans learn from this electoral disaster? Probably all the wrong lessons, if any at all.
GOP leaders and consultants who oversaw this debacle will point to the blue tsunami, throw up their hands and declare, “There was nothing we could do.”
So they’ll do the same things next time. Rinse, lather, repeat.
But as the old saying goes: “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.”
What will Nevada Republicans do now?
P.S. I want to end on a high note…
Republican underdog Shannon Nordstrom defeated trans-Republican Luke McCarthy by 136 votes (unofficial total) for the Las Vegas City Council Ward 2 seat.
Congrats to Shannon and her consultant Ronni Council on this huge upset.
