2 Republicans challenge appointed Harris in Senate District 11

Two Republicans have filed in the state Senate District 11 primary for the opportunity to challenge incumbent Democratic Sen. Dallas Harris in November.

Edgar Miron Galindo, an ex-corrections officer pursuing his undergraduate degree in criminal justice, faces Joshua Dowden, a financial advisor.

Galindo, who is listed as the candidate on the Nevada Senate GOP website, did not reply to two emailed requests to schedule an interview. As of May 5, his website did not list any information on specific issues.

Harris was appointed to the seat after her predecessor, Aaron Ford, was elected attorney general in 2018. The district covers parts of southwest Las Vegas.

Dowden cites Nevada’s near-the-bottom state ranking in education and a state shortage of doctors and nurses among his chief concerns. He embraces characteristic Republican goals of fostering a business-friendly climate, limited government and lower taxes. Besides education and health care, he expressed deep concern for how Nevada will rebound from the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We’ve got a very difficult road ahead of us,” Dowden said in an April 17 interview. “We are going to face challenges that the rest of the nation doesn’t face. We’re a very large service industry and we really need tourism to come to the state and that’s not something that’s going to be easily cured.”

He said tourists and visitors are not “just going to start flooding to our casinos” as travel bans and quarantines are lifted.

“We need to diversify away from just being dominant in a service industry,” Dowden said. Though that sector is “incredibly important to our economy,” the state will be “looking at a very significant slowdown for a reasonable amount of time, and we need to tackle that issue right away.”

Education and health care were the issues that made him decide to run for office back in January 2019, he said, and he has spoken to state and county GOP party leaders. He said he approached health care “from a provider and business perspective,” and advocated finding incentives for health care professionals to stay and practice in Nevada after they graduate.

But the single father of two, who’s lived in Las Vegas for 20 years, spoke at greatest length about education, criticizing a Democrat-driven plan approved by the Legislature in 2019 to rewrite the state school funding formula.

Senate Republicans are challenging how that plan was enacted. Regardless, Dowden said the phased-in plan was too slow-moving.

If the funding formula can’t get change right off the bat, then we need to change how the funds are being directed,” Dowden said. “I don’t think that we’re looking at it from a perspective of where are the funds best utilized and which funds are being wasted right now.”

Contact Capital Bureau reporter Bill Dentzer at bdentzer@reviewjournal.com. Follow @DentzerNews on Twitter.