In Republican-dominated Nye County, the political mudslinging came to a fever pitch ahead of Tuesday’s June 14 primary election, where there was fierce competition in the GOP race for District 4 county commissioner between incumbent Leo Blundo and one of his two challengers, businessman Ron Boskovich.
The feud has played out with heavy spending from both on political billboards, attack ads in newspapers and negative messages on online streaming platforms.
At times, the political campaigns have been nasty and personal.
The votes are still being tallied, but on Wednesday morning Boskovich was leading the incumbent with more than 54% of the total vote count. Blundo had 33.8% and Patino Quintero Nurmara had 11.64%. If no candidate receives 51% of the votes in Tuesday’s primary, the top two vote-getters will face off in November’s general election.
In May, Boskovich’s campaign uploaded footage on his YouTube channel called NyeCorruption from deputy body cameras that show the hostile interaction between Leo Blundo and officers who responded to his home at least two times in the past three months to investigate allegations of abuse against his wife.
Blundo can be heard in that footage calling his wife expletives.
Additional body camera footage uploaded to Boskovich’s YouTube channel earlier this month shows a Nye County deputy interviewing Blundo’s wife after he was dispatched to their home again in May. During the recording, Blundo’s wife claimed that the commissioner had hidden secret cameras in their house that captured her naked. She told deputies that the commissioner shared naked images of her on the Internet without her consent, and also used them to entice others to join their “swinger lifestyle.”
Blundo pushed back last week in a full-page ad in the Pahrump Valley Times, singling out Boskovich’s past marriage to Brett Waggoner, the county’s planning director, and referencing shady business deals in which Blundo claims the couple were involved. Blundo took jabs at his opponent’s daughter in the advertisement, before defending himself against Boskovich’s online smear videos.
“My opponent is using these deceptive videos to distract you from the fact that he is a dishonest, Left coast liberal,” Blundo’s advertisment states in part. “We do not take kindly to that woke attitude in Pahrump. My opponent claims that he is running to ‘rid Nye County of corruption.’ Well, I’ll tell you, if he had his way, he would run the county through his pay-for-play family business.”
Boskovich’s campaign erected a billboard near the main polling station in Pahrump that features a headline taken from a critical Las Vegas Review-Journal article that reads: “Leo Blundo accused of choking woman over stolen cash.”
A photo of the commissioner appears prominently on the billboard.
On Tuesday afternoon outside the Bob Ruud Community Center polling station in Pahrump, Blundo had no further comment about the political attacks from his opponent.
What political analysts say
Negative campaigning is not unique to rural politics, according to University of Nevada Las Vegas assistant professor Kenneth Miller, who says it represents a dynamic of what’s occurring within each party at a given time.
“There seems to be more [infighting] with Republicans in Nevada, but that’s only because they’re the ones that are having the competitive primaries,” Miller said.“They need to select their nominees to run against these incumbents. The Democratic Party has a bunch of incumbents and so they don’t have these competitive primaries.”
In Nye County’s primary this year, there were little to no Democratic incumbents in local races. Republicans outnumber Democrats here nearly 3-1. But there is a widening rift in the local GOP, as evidenced in the campaigns of local races.
“The divisions that we’re seeing in the Republican Party right now, a lot of that stuff is hinging on this axis of…
Read More: POLITICAL MUDSLINGING: Smear campaigns a sign of political divisiveness among Nye County GOP