Incumbents bounced in Assembly primary

Wednesday, Sept. 4, 2002 | 9:32 a.m.

In addition to longtime Assemblyman Bob Price, D-North Las Vegas, two Assembly incumbents from Clark County lost their bids Tuesday to return to Carson City.

Primary challengers credited door-to-door campaigning for their success.

The biggest nail-biter was the Democratic primary in District 11, where incumbent Assemblyman Doug Bache, D-Las Vegas, was ousted by a mere 11 votes.

The winner, Bob McCleary, seemingly came out of nowhere to win the three-way race with 359 votes, compared with 348 for Bache and 224 for George "Jorge" Cantu. At one point late in vote tabulation, Bache and McCleary were tied at 336 each.

McCleary now faces Republican David Adams in November.

In District 2, Dr. Garn Mabey knocked off incumbent Assemblywoman Merle Berman, R-Las Vegas, in the Republican primary. Mabey now faces Independent American candidate Brian Barnes. No Democrat filed for the seat.

The District 11 race was viewed in some political circles as a battle between Bache and Cantu, with Cantu courting Hispanic votes. But McCleary, a 41-year-old parts manager for Findlay Toyota, took the primary victory despite being outspent by Bache more than 4-1.

"I spent $14,000 and Bache spent more than $60,000, but he didn't work for it," McCleary said. "I won by knocking on doors and I didn't see Cantu knock on any doors."

Bache, a 50-year-old teacher and six-term assemblyman, chaired the Assembly Government Affairs Committee and served on the Elections, Procedures and Ethics and Natural Resources, Agriculture and Mining committees.

"Labor didn't come out for me," Bache said. "I had five mailing pieces compared to none for Cantu and one in part of the district for McCleary. I got caught between two candidates, with Cantu to the left of me and McCleary to the right."

Bache blamed at least part of his defeat on the lack of any high-profile Democratic primaries in the 1st Congressional District that could have provided him a coattail. He said it is too early to tell whether he will take another stab at elected office.

Cantu, a 66-year-old site administrator of the Community College of Southern Nevada's Western High Tech Center, was perplexed at what he viewed as low voter turnout among Hispanics in the heavily Democratic district.

"On first blush, our strategy was to work on trying to get the Hispanics to turn out," Cantu said. "Either I was the wrong candidate for the Hispanics or they didn't turn out. My sense is that the Hispanics didn't turn out.

"We need to do some real soul searching. We have to analyze why we're not turning out the vote," he said.

In District 2 Mabey and Berman both courted members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the heavily Republican district that includes Summerlin and Sun City. But Mabey, an OB/GYN who won with 53 percent of the vote, was endorsed by Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev.

"It was a grass-roots effort," Mabey said. "I knocked on about every door in Sun City, which is a heavy voting group. Instead of going to the gym or eating at the cafeteria during lunch, I went to Sun City to knock on doors. Then I knocked on doors in Summerlin at night."

Berman, a 56-year-old real estate developer first elected in 1996, could not be reached for comment.

Her legislative assignments included seats on the Assembly Constitutional Amendments, Government Affairs and Health and Human Services committees.