Most Clark County, Nevada judges plan to run for re-election

A handful of local and state judicial seats are up for grabs in 2016, but don't expect much turnover come November.

Almost all of the 14 incumbents and appointed incumbents last week confirmed plans to seek re-election to the Nevada Supreme Court, state Court of Appeals, Clark County District Court or Las Vegas Justice Court.

And incumbent judges almost always get re-elected, according to election results in recent years.

Filing for the 14 seats starts today and ends Jan. 15. That's two months before the start of filing for all the other offices up for election in the June 14 primary.

Of the 14 judges whose seats are up for election, 12, including current Supreme Court Chief Justice James Hardesty, said they would submit their paperwork during the two-week filing period. Appeals Court Judge Abbi Silver and Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Suzan Baucum did not return phone calls seeking comment.

This will be the first election for the three seats of the Appeals Court, which was formed in 2015 to hear appeals from district courts throughout the state and cut down on the Supreme Court's heavy workload. The three incumbents — Michael Gibbons, Jerome Tao and Silver — were each appointed to two-year terms by Gov. Brian Sandoval in December 2014.

Joe Hardy and Eric Johnson are the only Clark County District judges up for re-election this year because, like the Appeals Court judges, they were appointed after the 2014 election. Most District Court seats will be up for election in 2020.

Incumbents, especially in judicial races, hold nearly all the power in elections.

In the 2014 general election, 23 out of 25 judicial elections in the county saw the incumbent come out ahead. Only Family Court Judges William Gonzalez and Kenneth Pollock failed to retain their seats, losing to Denise Gentile and Rena Hughes, respectively.

Supreme Court incumbency seems to completely scare off the competition, with no justices in the past three elections being challenged.

The last election that saw a contested high court race was in 2008. Incumbent Justice Mark Gibbons got 54.8 percent of the votes, more than doubling challenger Thomas Christensen's 25.2 percent.

The other Supreme Court race was also contested but had no incumbent since Bill Maupin chose to retire instead of seek re-election. Kris Pickering won the election by a narrow margin, defeating Deborah Schumacher by just 3 percentage points.

The period for candidates in all nonjudicial races to file starts March 7 and ends March 18. The early-voting period for primary elections will run from May 28 to June 10, and the primary election will be held on June 14. The early voting period for general elections will run from Oct. 22 to Nov. 4. The general election will be held Nov. 8.

Contact Colton Lochhead at clochhead@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4638. Find him on Twitter: @ColtonLochhead.