(Muth’s Truths) – As noted in Part 1 of this series, I have both political AND personal reasons for particularly wanting to see Democrat Rep. Dina Titus defeated next year.
And in Part 2, I laid out the reasons why she is probably more vulnerable this election cycle than she’s ever been.
However, you can’t beat somebody with nobody.
So let’s look at the current field of announced Republican candidates who are expected to vie for the GOP nomination in the primary next June (filing for office doesn’t open until next March).
The bottom line I’m looking for isn’t who the most conservative candidate is, or who has the most experience, or who checks off various “identity” boxes.
Titus is the pits. And the only thing I’m interested in is who would have the best shot at taking her down in the general election.
Of the announced GOP candidates so far, Michael Boris, Roy Gurner, and Gavin Solomon aren’t ready for congressional prime time and should instead look at running for a lower office at the local or state level.
Then there’s Jim Marchant (ugh).
In 2016, Marchant won a state Assembly seat in a swing district after RINO Republicans screwed the pooch in 2015 by shoving the largest tax hike in Nevada history down our collective gullets.
He defeated Democrat Sean Lyttle with 52.5% of the vote and chalked up a solid conservative voting record in the 2017 legislative session.
He scored over 90% in Nevada Policy’s ratings for his votes supporting limited government and business-friendly legislation. But it’s been all downhill from there.
First, he forgot to get re-elected in 2018. Oops.
With visions of grandeur dancing in his head, Marchant began focusing on all manner of side issues and races instead of campaigning in his own district.
He also went hard right in his rhetoric and agenda while the voters in his district were solidly in the middle. As a result, he lost narrowly to Democrat Shea Backus, 50.2% to 49.7%.
After losing his Assembly seat in 2018, Marchant foolishly decided that meant he should run for a bigger seat and more expensive race.
So in 2020, he ran for Nevada’s 4th Congressional District seat . . . and lost the general election to Democrat Steven Horsford, 50.7% to 45.8%.
Afterwards, Marchant became a well-established election conspiracy theorist.
He advocated for overturning his defeat by suing for a new election based on unsupported fraud claims, which were ultimately rejected by the courts.
He also got himself tied to the QAnon conspiracy theorists, raising even more questions about his judgment and suitability for higher office.
But that didn’t stop him.
After losing both his comparatively small Assembly race and a race for one of Nevada’s four congressional seats, Marchant naturally thought that qualified him to run for a much bigger and more expensive STATEWIDE race for Secretary of State.
He went on to lose in the general election to Democrat Cisco Aguilar, 48.9% to 46.8%.
And what a disaster that gave us.
Aguilar has turned out to be perhaps Nevada’s worst secretary of state in history, who has consistently blocked every legitimate effort to clean up the state’s dirty voter rolls and better secure our elections.
Thanks for nothing, Jim.
But he wasn’t finished with failing upwards.
After losing his re-election campaign for the Assembly, losing his congressional campaign in CD4, and losing his statewide race for SOS, the growing gadfly decided that qualified him to run for a much more expensive statewide race for U.S. Senate in 2024.
He didn’t even make it out of the primary in that race, coming in third behind Sam Brown and Jeff Gunter with just 6.5% of the vote.
Now, following his historical pattern of failing upwards, you would expect Marchant to run for president in 2026. But that seat’s already taken by a proven winner and there’s no presidential race next year anyway.
So he’s forced himself to set his sights a little lower by again running for Congress; this time for the 1st congressional district – where, I don’t believe, he even lives – which has a longtime incumbent and a strong Democrat majority.
If the question is, “Who has the best shot at beating Dina Titus?” . . . the answer decidedly is NOT Jim Marchant.
Which leaves us with two candidates – barring any credible, viable late entries.
State Sen. Carrie Buck and Bobby Khan.
And I’ll start to analyze and assess those two candidates and their campaigns in the next exciting episode of “Toppling Titus: Finally Mission Possible.”
Mr. Muth is president of Citizen Outreach, publisher of Nevada News & Views, and founder of CampaignDoctor.com. You can sign up for his conservative, Nevada-focused e-newsletter at MuthsTruths.com. His views are his own.
