LAS VEGAS (AP) — A former Nevada congresswoman and a current Las Vegas City Council member have emerged from a primary field of 14 candidates to become the first mayor not named Goodman in 25 years in Nevada’s largest city.
The winner in the November runoff will be sworn in next January to replace term-limited Mayor Carolyn Goodman, whose three terms followed her husband, former three-term Mayor Oscar Goodman. He was a former mob lawyer who won the job in 1999 and cultivated a flamboyant tourism-boosting image with a martini in one hand and a showgirl on his arm.
Shelley Berkley, a former attorney and Democratic state Assembly member who served 14 years in the U.S. House, drew more than one-third of the votes cast in Tuesday’s nonpartisan primary, but didn’t reach a 50% threshold to win outright.
She’ll face Councilwoman Victoria Seaman, a former Republican state Assembly member who drew almost 30% of the vote in unofficial results. Seaman lost a bid for state Senate before she was elected in a 2019 special election to represent a mostly residential area west of downtown and the Las Vegas Strip.
Berkley, whose campaign emphasized her community involvement dating back to being student body president at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said Wednesday she was pleased with the vote results and noted that some mail ballots still were to be counted. She also praised the other candidates for “commitment and passion” to the election process.
Seaman, in a statement, called the primary a “first step towards protecting Las Vegas.” She said she wants to prioritize public safety, address homelessness and a shortage of affordable housing, encourage “a business-friendly environment” and expose “the darkest corners of city government.”
The city of Las Vegas does not include the resort-lined Strip, which is in unincorporated Clark County and falls under the jurisdiction of a county commission.