Real estate broker hopes to be Nevada’s first female GOP senator

Despite a crowded GOP primary for Senate, one candidate hopes to defeat the others with deeper pockets and become Nevada’s first female Republican senator.

Stephanie Phillips, a real estate broker, thinks she is the person who can defeat Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen in November 2024.

Unlike other candidates in the race, such as Jim Marchant and Sam Brown, she does not have a previous failed campaign, she said.

“I think that Nevada, we have done the same thing and put some of these same candidates forward cycle after cycle after cycle, and guess what?” she said. “We keep losing. So until Nevada decides to do something different, we’re going to keep losing.”

Phillips believes she is different from the others. She is a mother who raised her children in the state, and her business is in Las Vegas. As someone who has been in the real estate business for 30 years, she has interpersonal skills including negotiating and mediating, she said.

She considers herself more accessible to the people. Her phone number is on her campaign site, and anyone can call her, she said. She also will host regular virtual town halls where everyone is welcome to ask anything they want, she said.

“A lot of politicians, sometimes, they make it more difficult to get in touch with them,” she said. “And they don’t want to be this close because they are not sure about what questions they’re going to be asked.”

The 30-year Nevada resident has been planning her run for Senate since the COVID-19 pandemic, she said. She did not like it when businesses were shut down and when the government was mandating COVID-19 vaccines and telling people to wear masks.

Some of her biggest priorities include children, veterans and border security. Since efforts to expand school choice are failing in Nevada, she wants to provide families vouchers for school choice on a federal level. She plans to allocate more federal dollars to task forces that combat sex trafficking, and she wants to secure the southern border and initiate peace talks between Russia and Ukraine instead of sending more money to Ukraine.

Phillips believes there are important social issues to fight against, such as “them trying to put boys in the girls’ sports and their locker rooms” — a reference to transgender children — and graphic material in school curricula. She also believes “they’re trying to erase the female mom names” by calling them a “birthing person” instead of “mom.”

With the news that nonpartisan voters now make up the largest voting bloc in Nevada, Phillips thinks she can win them over.

“Because we have a lot of the same belief systems. We believe in freedom and liberties, and self-responsibility, and we believe in American values, and so I think that I easily reach those voters,” she said.

On the issues:

On water: Phillips understands that Nevada has been good on water conservation but wants to make sure the state is protected as it continues to grow. She mentioned wanting California to have desalination plants so they can take less water from the Colorado River.

On whether she would support national restrictions on abortion if she were elected: Phillips said she doesn’t think “it’s ever going to come to that.” She said there also will be exceptions for rape, if the mother has health issues or if the child is not viable. She did not say whether she would support national restrictions.

On the economy: She wants to audit federal departments to find wasteful spending, and use that money to feed children and rescue them from sex slavery and help homeless veterans.

When asked if the 2020 election was free and fair, she said cheating has occurred in elections for decades and “not just the 2020 election.” She is in support of a national voter ID law and repeated unsubstantiated claims of insecurities with voting machines. She also called the indictments against former President Donald Trump “political persecution.”

On global warming: Phillips said she does not believe it is a crisis, but she thinks an inexpensive solution that could help is to plant more trees to absorb more carbon dioxide. She does not want the country to rely on electric vehicles.

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