Clark County GOP chair faces challenger

Clark County Republican Party Chair Jesse Law faces a challenger for his seat, a longtime Nevada Republican who says she hopes to bring unity to the party.

Jill Douglass, president of the Battle Born Republican Women of Southern Nevada, is running against Law in the election slated for July 18.

Douglass, a Florida native who moved to Nevada in 1994, has more than 30 years of experience as a financial services advisor and manager.

Although she has been a Republican since she could vote at 18, she became more active in the party in the last few years after retiring. In the last election, she knocked on thousands of doors, made calls and attended events for candidates down the ballot, she said.

“I just really decided that I wanted to be more involved, that our country, that our state, that our county needed people to kind of get off the bench and get in the trenches,” Douglass said.

Douglass says she can fix the county party, which she called “dysfunctional.”

Law did not return the Review-Journal’s requests for comment.

Douglass thinks the county party failed to implement precinct-level strategies, highlight down-ballot races, get its message out or send out fliers combating misinformation, she said.

“Most of our candidates did not feel the level of support,” Douglass said. “I think there were things that could have been done on the county level.”

The Nevada and Clark County Republican parties drew fire internally after the 2022 midterms when many Republicans failed to beat incumbent Democrats who were considered vulnerable.

Drew Johnson, for example, lost his race for Clark County Commission to Democrat Justin Jones by 336 votes. Johnson criticized the Nevada Republican Party for leading voters to believe the election was rigged, resulting in fewer Republicans voting with mail ballots.

Douglass wants to encourage more Republicans to vote, and to do that, she will stop the party from “looking in the rearview mirror.”

“We can change nothing that’s happened in the past, right? We have to look through the windshield, we have to stay forward focused,” she said.

Republican candidates in county races also did not feel a level of support from the county party, Douglass said. She did not see county party leadership knocking on doors for candidates like Johnson, Douglass said.

She surmised the 2022 strategy was to focus on electing top candidates, and then “the votes are going to flow down” to smaller races. But that was not the case, she said. Her priority would be races like the Clark County Commission, she said.

Douglass said she has a lot of ideas regarding fundraising. If elected, she would hold continuous fundraising events and reconnect with big donors who have stopped supporting the county, she said.

Douglass also said she would continue to be heavily involved in party organizing at the ground level, from knocking on doors to making calls, she said. She would also continue participating in the legislative process and sharing her thoughts on proposed bills during public comments.

“I believe you lead by being in the trenches,” Douglass said. “I believe you lead by never asking someone to do something that you yourself haven’t done and won’t continue to do.”

Clark County Republican Party members can hear from both Douglass and Law at a luncheon hosted by the Nevada Republican Club on July 11 at the Ahern Hotel.

Contact Jessica Hill at jehill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @jess_hillyeah on Twitter.