LAS VEGAS, NV — After a slew of state and local elections in November saw a number of Democrat wins across the country headlined by Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani winning the New York City mayoral election, more progressive candidates are sure to follow in the near future.
Before the wins in early November, several state legislature candidates for Nevada had already made their plans to continue the trend headlined by the Mamdani mayoral campaign in New York, the trend of progressive candidates running in state and local elections with a focus on affordability and fighting for the working class.
Five of the Nevada candidates are doing so under the banner of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), like New York City’s mayor-elect. These upcoming progressive candidates include Democratic Socialists Val Thomason running for the 10th Assembly District, Tamara Taylor running for the 22nd Assembly District, Mack Gledhill running for the 1st Assembly District, and Tyler Cavey running for the 35th Assembly District.
Multiiple other progressive candidates also announced their candidacy for state legislative seats up for election next year. Two of these candidates, who are not running under the DSA banner, is union-endorsed candidate Alexis Esparza, who is also running for the state’s 1st Assembly District, and Dayton Vasquez who is running for the 42nd Assembly District.
‘Having a public voice behind the platform’
The candidates have very similar platforms across the board, with a broad focus on affordability and quality-of-life improvements for working class constituents, largely through similar policies. Multiple candidates’ platforms include supporting access to healthcare for all, rent control, improving public transit, raising minimum wage, and supporting workers unions.
Though some of them have a slightly different focus than the others, like Thomason focuses more on capping rent increases and securing free childcare for Nevadans, Gledhill focuses on supporting students through funds generated by a state lottery, and Taylor focuses on everyday affordability for working families.
Multiple candidates said they ran to give their neighbors, members of their communities a voice, and their platforms are an extension of that.
“I believe that having public power, having a public voice behind the platform that we’re pushing is really the key to making our representatives represent us,” Taylor said. “As a person that’s lived in that district for 30 years, I have not felt adequately represented, so much so that I had to go and run for an office. And it shouldn’t have to be that way.”
‘Our legislature is very, very bought by corporations.’
All of these progressive candidates cite corporate powers and their involvement in the state’s politics as the cause for the struggles facing working-class Nevadans.
“It’s basically become almost impossible for a working-class person to continue living in Nevada,” Thomason said, “and we believe that the reason this is happening is because our legislature is very, very bought by corporations. Our Democrats aren’t even Democrats, I would say that they’re moderate Republicans at best.”
All of the aforementioned candidates acknowledged that the current political establishment in Nevada’s legislature is a major obstacle to passing laws within their platforms.
While many of the candidates plan to cooperate and compromise with fellow legislators to pass policy within their platforms, multiple DSA candidates have a plan to more effectively push their platforms forward into policy. Thomason and many of her fellow DSA candidates plan for enough of the progressive candidates to be elected into the state legislature to form a progressive caucus.
Whether or not the plan to form a caucus is successful, many of the progressive candidates also will lean on their skills in community organizing to push their cause forward as well.
Thomason pointed out that organizing is especially effective for state representatives because members of the Nevada legislature have relatively low voting populations that elect them into office. That means it does not take very many votes to remove them from office, so crowds of support for issues and policies are especially effective.
“The plan is to build a caucus, a Progressive Caucus, to try to legislate,” Thomason said. “But if we don’t achieve that, then we are going to be relying on organizing the community to show up. Once we introduce a bill and it’s not just hidden behind the scenes, then we can organize people to show up for it.”
Mark Credico is an independent journalist working in Southern Nevada. He covers subjects including government accountability, homelessness, workers' unions and the environment.
