After 20 Years of Democratic Control of Clark County Commission, April Becker Sees Opportunity

After Democratic Commissioner Ross Miller recently announced that he will not seek reelection, Republican candidate April Becker, with the endorsement of Governor Joe Lombardo and a shrinking Democratic electorate, sees opportunity to break the Democratic control of the powerful Clark County Commission.

District C was narrowly won by Ross Miller after defeating then-GOP candidate Stavros Anthony by approximately 10 votes in a controversial election marred by an expensive recount, paid for by Anthony, and a commission that decided to seat Miller despite the County Registrar advocating for a special election.

During his successful campaign for Lieutenant Governor, Anthony told The Globe:

The election was stolen from me in 2020. You can write that down. The election was stolen from me when I ran against Ross Miller for Clark County Commissioner in District C.

I was the Republican nominee for that district. There hadn’t been a Republican Commissioner in 15 years. I ran a good campaign. A great campaign. The day after election day I was up 1,700 votes. I thought that was the end of it. But, the next 10 days after the election, they counted the mail-in ballots. Every day I lost 60/40 of those ballots. When it was finally said and done, 10 days later, I lost by 10 votes out of 150,000 votes cast.

“Canvassing the Election” happens in every election. Clark County Registrar, Joe Gloria and the County Commissioners have this meeting to review and certify the numbers. But during this particular meeting, Gloria came in and said “All the elections are fine except for District C. I have 139 ballots and I don’t know who these people voted for.” Gloria then asked for a special election. The Commissioners voted 6-1 in favor of a special election. Commissioner Justin Jones was the only one who voted “No.”

Then, two weeks later they voted 7-0 to certify the election in spite of the prior vote. So, we decided to do a recount and I was charged $85,000 for it. The recount took a week. In the middle of the recount, Joe Gloria said I lost by 30. At the end of the recount, he said I lost by 15 votes. So, I went to court–but judges don’t want to get involved so they dismissed the case.

They don’t want a discussion on the county commission. They want to silence people. They have a super majority, a cabal, and that is exactly what they want–absolute power.

In her campaign announcement, Becker said, “I’m running to restore honesty, transparency, and accountability to Clark County’s commission. I look forward to getting results for the people who call our community home and bringing leadership with integrity to our county commission.”

Becker is no stranger to running in Democratic districts. In 2020, she narrowly lost her bid for congress, defeated by Democratic incumbent Susie Lee (CD-3).

In just a few years, Democrats are losing their advantage in District C. According to reports, in 2020, Democrats had a 6.4 percent registration advantage. Today that advantage is only 2.35 percent.

Nevada Democrats have yet to announce a candidate to challenge Becker.

Today, Becker told The Globe, “Governor Lombardo is working hard to elect Republicans up and down the ballot in Nevada. I am proud to stand with him and look forward to being the first Republican elected to the county commission in nearly 20 years.”