Dan Hart, longtime Las Vegas political consultant, dies at 66

Originally from Boston, Hart came to Nevada to work on the Las Vegas mayoral campaign of Jan Jones Blackhurst, the first woman to serve as mayor when she was elected in 1991.

“I never would have been mayor if it hadn’t been for Dan,” Jones Blackhurst said. “Some of the best speeches I ever gave, he wrote.”

Among other things, Hart worked with casino magnate Steve Wynn on a get-out-the-vote campaign that the state hadn’t seen before, and rescued what Jones Blackhurst said was a flagging effort. “We were drowning,” she said.

“Dan, he was a brilliant mind,” Jones Blackhurst added. “And he was an outsider.”

Hart also worked on Jones’ first unsuccessful campaign for governor, which pitted her against then-incumbent Gov. Bob Miller, a fellow Democrat, in 1994. As she was preparing for that contest, Jones Blackhurst recalled a group of establishment powerbrokers trying to coax her out of the race with promises of other offices. Hart counseled her simply, “Don’t believe it,” she said.

In politics, Hart told her, you have to decide which one person you’re going to listen to. “He was the one person,” she said.

Teachers union

More recently, Hart worked for the Nevada State Education Association on a statewide campaign to impose a margins tax on business in 2014. Despite an intensive campaign, that effort failed. But the following year, the Legislature passed the commerce tax, the state’s first tax on business revenue.

“I firmly believe that because of the hard work of Dan and the NSEA, the silver lining that came out of that was the commerce tax,” said Ruben Murillo, the now-retired former president of the association.

Murillo said Hart’s children attended public schools, so his work for the association was close to his heart. “He knew that his fight for public education was the right thing because he experienced that on a personal level,” Murillo said.

Hart also knew how to work in a strategy session: “Whenever he was in a meeting, he had this Cheshire cat grin on his face,” Murillo said. He’d listen to the comments and then figure out how to move an issue forward.

“That’s the one thing you could always say about Dan: He was always looking for a way,” Murillo said.

Loyal and affable

Former Assemblywoman and Clark County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani recalled that Hart represented Jones in 1994 when her late husband, fellow political consultant Gary Gray, represented Miller. Despite marital loyalties, Giunchigliani said she was for Jones.

“He just had that kind of low-key, affable nature about him,” Giunchigliani said. “He was very thoughtful. He thought inside his head. You could see his blue eyes moving.”

Hart always represented Democrats, but they ranged from progressives such as Jones Blackhurst to more conservative Democrats. In 2006, he represented then-Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson in the Democratic gubernatorial primary over liberal Dina Titus, who was then the longtime state Senate majority leader. Titus proved more popular with the Democratic base, however, and beat Gibson handily.

Hart also represented former casino executive and 2004 Congressional District 3 candidate Tom Gallagher, who recalled Hart took an outsized role on the campaign. “Dan was the key guy,” Gallagher recalled. “He was funny as hell. He would make these pithy statements about who was doing what and how.”

Toward the end of that campaign, Gallagher said he and Hart disagreed about the timing of when to start negative advertising. Hart prompted the decision by asking Gallagher directly if he was ready to do it or not, Gallagher said.

Hart was known to enjoy a good steak, and was always ready to talk politics. In a tweet sent Tuesday night, former Global Economic Alliance President Tom Skancke wrote, “He loved life, scotch, Jameson 1780 and his kids. Lots of laughs with Dan over the last 30 years.”

Contact Steve Sebelius at SSebelius@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0253. Follow @SteveSebelius on Twitter.