Nevada’s Third Congressional District takes in the south western side of the Las Vegas metro area then takes a jog westward as well as south along the state’s borders so the district shares a border with both Arizona and California. The district derives most of its population from The Vegas Metro area and takes in one of the largest Vegas suburbs of Spring Valley. It is home to a variety of athetes and entertainers from Carrot Top, to tennis stars Andre Agassi, Steffi Graf, NASCAR drivers Kurt and Kyle Busch and former Chicago Cub Kris Bryant. Parts of the beautiful Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area are also in the district.

The GOP challenger in this race is April Becker who won an impressive primary victory getting 65% of the vote in a 4 way race she was endorsed by Kevin McCarthy and Nikki Haley. Becker is a lawyer by trade in Las Vegas and does pro bono legal work to those in need on the side. She does a good job focusing on kitchen table issues like inflation, gas prices and the price of food. She is also attacking her opponent for the bill that adds 87,000 new IRS agents. She does a good job breaking issues down and sounds like a normal person, she can however rely too heavily on the more Fox Newsy talking points.

She has been attacked for her pro life stance, which is to support life except in the cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother and to leave the issue up to the states. Nevada’s law currently is quite permissive allowing abortion up to 6 months.

Susie Lee is the democratic incumbent in this seat. She was like many of the other tossup seat reps, elected in the 2018 wave year for democrats. In 2020 she underperformed Biden by 10,000 votes. Like a lot of Nevadans she is originally from somewhere else, Canton, Ohio, and touts her humble beginnings there working a paper route as a kid and coming from a family that “didn’t have much but had enough.” Her (now former) husband is in the casino business as an executive and she was greatly helped being able to match or outspend her opponents.

She has done plenty to help those less fortunate founding an after school program, and a homeless shelter. She also has introduced legislation to limit class sizes.  Her family owns 17 homes (14 of which are rented) as well as a private plane. Unsurprisingly she has been labeled as out of touch.  

Lee studiously avoids being seen as liberal and avoids using talking points that might make her seem so. While her economic and social liberal voting records are more mixed (56% and 51% respectively) according to the almanac of American Politics, she has voted with Biden 100% of the time and has a 100% pro abortion rating from NARAL.

On the financial side of the race, Susie Lee has a sizable spend advantage from the first part of the year topping Becker $4.3 million to $1.38 million, her cash on hand advantage presently is much less formidable only topping Becker’s $603k with her own $1.2 million stack.

According to Politico the district itself has gotten slightly more pro-democrat in the redraw increasing from a Biden +0.2 district to a Biden + 6.7 district. However, Fox News, Real Clear Politics and the Cook Political Report all have this race listed in their tossup columns, there has been polling in this race but the most recent is from all the way back in July, but it had April Becker up by 3 points. Two other polls have been conducted even less recently one with Lee having a 2 point advantage and another with Becker up by 2.