<mediadc-video-embed data-state="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000161-3486-d333-a9e9-76c6fbf30000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b93390000"},"cms.content.publishDate":1658777870159,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"00000177-ab1c-dfb6-afff-bf5d00c50003","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"cms.content.updateDate":1658777870159,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"00000177-ab1c-dfb6-afff-bf5d00c50003","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"rawHtml":"
var _bp = _bp||[]; _bp.push({ "div": "Brid_58775412", "obj": {"id":"27789","width":"16","height":"9","video":"1060425"} }); ","_id":"00000182-36dd-d636-adc7-f6fd8d0f0000","_type":"2f5a8339-a89a-3738-9cd2-3ddf0c8da574"}”>Video EmbedRep. Steven Horsford (D-NV) is facing political headwinds as he vies for reelection in what is shaping up to be a strong Republican year — even in his own home.
In March, Horsford’s wife tweeted about her frustration that the congressman is running for another term even after he admitted to a long-running affair with a former intern for the late Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Dr. Sonya Douglass said at the time that she had already stayed silent for nearly two years since her husband told her about the affair, “AFTER already speaking to his staff and attorneys.”
“And that he would choose to file for re-election and force us to endure yet another season of living through the sordid details of the #horsfordaffair with #mistressforcongress rather than granting us the time and space to heal as a family,” she wrote. “This election cycle, I will not be silent.”
Whether voters care about the congressman’s messy personal life remains to be seen. But it’s bound to be an issue, along with high gas prices and the worst inflation in 40 years. Horsford’s Republican opponent, Air Force veteran Sam Peters, is bringing up those problems daily, trying to tie the incumbent to President Joe Biden, whose approval ratings have sunk in recent months.
It’s a message Peters’s campaign thinks will resonate with recession-weary Nevadans. Peters has endorsed curtailing illegal immigration, cutting taxes, resuming oil drilling, and taking a tougher eye on foreign trade details. Peters has aligned himself in this regard with former President Donald Trump. Peters also is targeting Horsford’s voters for the Biden agenda on environmental policy, curtailing oil drilling, and increased government spending.
Recent polling in the district has been sparse. But a poll from July 7 by Emerson College of 2,000 people who were evenly divided between Democratic, Republican, and nonpartisan found Horsford with 41.7%, to 38.7% for Peters, and 15.1% undecided.
The majority of the respondents were over the age of 30 and white, while 43% were of other races. Another poll in March of Republican voters showed that most were primarily concerned about the economy, followed by illegal immigration. The majority, at 39%, said they were Trump Republicans.
Joyce Beatty, Frederica Wilson, Sheila Jackson Lee, Hank Johnson, Joe Neguse, Steven Horsford, Jim Clyburn
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Horsford so far has tried to tie Peters to Trump as much as possible.
“Sam Peters and Trump Republicans are a dangerous threat to our state,” Horsford tweeted regarding Trump’s claims of voter fraud in the last presidential election. “They have repeatedly promoted the Big Lie and sought to discredit our country’s system of free and fair elections. Nevadans won’t stand for their divisive fear-mongering.”
But Peters has stayed focused on the economy and quality of life issues.
“Despite the lies from @StevenHorsford and Joe Biden, inflation has proven to be long-lasting and devastating. Inflation has jumped from 5.4% in June of 2021 to 9.1% today,” he tweeted.
For the first time in memory, Las Vegas shut down during a 2020 COVID-19 lockdown that lasted three months. It put the economy in a tailspin, as the city was closed to tourism, the state’s lifeblood.
Hotels are once again full, and unemployment is no longer a problem, but the prices are high, and economists worry that the state will once again regress as people can no longer afford vacations.
“I get people are turned off right now. It’s been hard between the pandemic, the recession that followed, the war in Ukraine, the cost of living — this is what the average person is focused on. They’re not top of mind and thinking, ‘Oh, I got to go vote,’” Horsford told the Washington Post.
He said the high gas prices were the fault of Big Oil executives who kept record earnings rather than the Republicans’ contention that Biden caused the crisis by shutting down drilling.
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Peters has seized upon this along with Trump-favored House members who have endorsed him.
“We have the solution but the bureaucratic politicians are CHOOSING to force Americans to endure crazy price hikes and impending shortages,” he tweeted.
Horsford does have some built-in advantages. In the new 4th Congressional District, Democrats hold a 10.5-point voter registration advantage over Republicans. But that may not be enough in an election cycle in which Republicans are on the offense, needing only a net gain of five House seats in the 435-member chamber to win a majority for the first time since 2018.
The 4th District stretches through parts of northwest Las Vegas, the city of North Las Vegas, and the entire northern half of Clark County into rural central Nevada. The district’s boundaries stretch from the state lines of California to Utah. But 91% of district voters live in Clark County. And more than half of the district’s voting-age population is composed of people of color, including the largest share of black residents of any of the state’s congressional districts.
Horsford is Nevada’s first, and so far only, black member of Congress. He first won a Las Vegas-area House seat in 2012, was swept out in the 2014 Republican wave, and then won an open seat in 2018.
