Who survived Nevada’s primaries and the fight ahead

Thanks for having me.

We've both had you on the show to talk about your election predictions, but now the dust has settled.

Jeremy, what surprised you the most?

You know, not too much surprised me.

I think what's interesting is what this election clarifies about how Nevada politics and national politics work.

A lot of people were surprised that David Flippo did so well.

You know, if you've been following the political science research, which I'm sure all your listeners have been, it wasn't that surprising.

Republican primary voters over the past few decades have shown a real preference for candidates who don't have political experience.

And the endorsement from Trump obviously mattered a great deal.

I think it's just really clarifying about who sort of the Republican establishment is in Nevada, right? We think about all the...

Nevada politicians that endorse Settlemyer, but it was really the national groups that got David Flippo on the radar and probably on Trump's radar at the starting point of this campaign.

So in terms of him emerging from that field, it was a big field.

But if we think about what we know about how Republican Party politics work, how Republican Party politics have evolved over the past few decades, maybe his emergence wasn't so surprising.

Why do you think voters are interested in these candidates that don't have a lot of political experience?

You know, having a record is often challenging, especially in Republican primaries.

We saw this with Settlemyer, where his votes over a decade ago, a dozen years ago, were brought up as issues by Flippo.

And whether or not those stuck is a question.

But there's this idea, and Donald Trump sort of exemplifies this, that You need outsiders to shake things up.

And even though, you know, he's been on the political scene for over a dozen years at this point, that message and that sort of perspective, I think, has imbued itself within the Republican Party.

And they have a preference for candidates like Flippo.

And on the flip side, we see the Democrats aren't identical.

Right.

We often think the parties are the same.

But Teresa Benitez-Thompson, who has a lot of deep roots in this community, was in the state legislature, ran away with that primary.

So in this way, we have Democrat and Democratic and Republican primary voters preferring different things.