Sin City's main event: Porter vs. Titus

WASHINGTON – Sin City has never been short on entertainment. And if the fights at the MGM Grand weren’t enough, this fall Las Vegas will be home to one of the most hotly contested House races in the country, a matchup featuring two political heavyweights that is likely to produce more than its fair share of fireworks.

In one corner is Dina Titus, a minority leader in the state Senate who is coming off a narrow defeat in the 2006 gubernatorial race. In the opposite corner is U.S. Rep. Jon Porter, a three-term incumbent who after fending off a stiff challenge last cycle has earned a reputation as a political survivor. The arena: a House seat in a district that is evenly splits between Democrats and Republicans.

In an interview at a Capitol Hill coffee shop this week, Porter readily admitted the seat was up-for-grabs. But, he said, it came along with the nature of the district.

“It will be a difficult race but every race has been difficult. And I knew that when the district was drawn – it was drawn to be fairly evenly split – that every race would be difficult,” he said.

Porter’s battle this cycle could well be his toughest one yet, and that is in no small part due to the changing makeup in voter registration in the district. As of this month, Democrats for the first time have a registration edge. Clark County registrar of voters Larry Lomax suggested in an interview that January’s hotly contested Democratic presidential caucus was a big factor in the new 25,000 Democratic voter plurality. The party added around 13,000 voters at the time of the caucus.

“There’s no question that Democrats have out-registered the Republicans this year,” said Lomax.

Standing outside the U.S. Capitol during a recent trip to Washington D.C., Titus was quick to point to her prior electoral success in the 3rd Congressional District, and she predicted the new registration numbers would provide a bump for her on Election Day.

“The district is good. It’s now got 25,000 more Democrats,” she said. “When I carried it in the governor’s race it was it was almost even. So that’s a huge swing.”

Republican strategists say the new figures pose a problem for Porter. “The tremendous increase in Democratic voters in the 3rd Congressional District does give an advantage, at least on paper, to Sen. Titus going in,” said Jim Denton, a longtime consultant to Gov. Jim Gibbons (R-Reno) who worked to defeat Titus in 2006.

The steep rise in voter registrations in the district – Lomax said 190,000 registrations have been put through the system this year; at this time in 2004 103,000 had been processed – has led some to question the actions of ACORN, an organization that has been working aggressively to sign up low income voters in the area. Earlier this month the Las Vegas Review-Journal published a nearly 1,700-word article probing the group’s tactics and questioning just how many of its registrations were authentic. Lomax told PolitickerNV.com that this year ACORN had submitted about 70,000 registrations, with “one in every five or six or seven” having irregularities such as invalid addresses or Social Security numbers.

Potential problems with ACORN notwithstanding, Porter acknowledged the surge in Democratic voters would pose a challenge.

“I think Democrats have done a better job of getting people registered to vote,” he said. But Porter also noted that, while the opposing party had achieved a small edge in registrants, the district’s population had ballooned to 1.1 million people and said there would be plenty of Republicans turning out to vote.

“If there are 1.1 million people there are ample Republicans and ample Democrats who are going to vote in this election,” said Porter. “It’s a challenge but we’ll overcome that because there are ample Republicans.”

Porter is coming off a hard-fought 2006 victory over Democrat Tessa Hafen, a former press secretary for U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Searchlight). Hafen hit Porter hard on the hot-button issues of Iraq and ethics. But Porter fought back, characterizing her as a rookie. In the end, Porter’s financial advantage of $1.5 million helped lead him to a 4,000-vote victory.

But in Titus, Porter is facing a challenger who is unquestionably stronger, said one Democrat who was intimately involved in the 2006 race.

“With Dina, she’s run for office for a while and been in office for a while,” said the Democrat. “She goes into it with a name and a record.”

The Democrat also pointed to the Hafen campaign’s financial shortfall and said Titus was unlikely to have fundraising difficulties. Since entering the contest in February, Titus has raised an impressive $575,000.

Titus’s side believes it can gain traction in the race by characterizing Porter as a creature of Washington.

“It’s not difficult to make an argument that this guy has not been independent at all at a time when voters are looking for someone who is going to be independent,” said John Anzalone, a pollster for the Titus campaign.

But Republicans argue that Titus has her fair share of flaws as a candidate, and they say they have fertile ground in portraying her as a tax-raising liberal. Republicans point to Titus’s votes in support of bills to increase taxes on everything from real estate to live entertainment to cigarettes and alcohol. They also say she voted to increase fees on everything from hunting and fishing licenses to marriage licenses.

In taking aim at Titus’s record on taxes, Republicans are taking a page of out Jim Gibbons’ 2006 playbook.

“We painted her as the largest tax-increaser in state history,” recalled Gibbons campaign manager Robert Uithoven. Gibbons’ first general election ad was entitled “Is it Dina Titus or Dina Taxes?”

“The key issue in the race came down to taxes,” said Uithoven. “And we didn’t just identify that contrast, we shoved it down people’s throats.”

Uithoven argued that, with the Las Vegas economy sagging and the area’s highest home foreclosure rate at one of the highest in the country, the tax issue would have particular resonance this year.

Porter signaled he was ready to take on his opponent’s record on the subject. “She thinks that the way to solve problems is to raise taxes. I think that the way to solve problems is to return to families and especially small businesses the monies they are generating…”

Titus isn’t likely to sit back and watch as her opponent aims to define her. Even her Republican foes say she is an aggressive campaigner.

“I think Sen. Titus is a very tenacious campaigner,” said Denton, the Gibbons consultant. “She is the strongest candidate, I believe, the Democratic Party could have put up against Porter.”

“I’m a candidate who’s going to take it to ‘em. And I’ve got a record to stand on to do that,” said Titus.