Nevada businessman and perennial political candidate Danny Tarkanian dropped out of the race for Sen. Dean Heller’s (R-Nev.) seat Friday, freeing Congress’ chief Yucca Mountain naysayer from fighting a primary challenge as appropriations season heats up.
Tarkanian, a Republican who has said he supports turning the Nye County, Nev., site into a nuclear research-and-development hub, said Friday he planned to seek election to the U.S. House as the representative for Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District. That seat is now held by Rep. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), who is leaving the House to challenge Heller.
Rosen secured her House seat in the 2016 election by narrowly defeating Tarkanian — who had thumped the primary field soundly in 2016, clinching the Republican nomination by a 12-percent margin.
Tarkanian said he dropped his bid to unseat Heller at the urging of President Donald Trump, whose political agenda Tarkanian co-opted almost to the letter in an effort to paint Heller as insufficiently conservative.
.@POTUS is adamant that a unified GOP ticket in Nevada is the best direction for the America First movement. Thank you Mr. President for your full support & endorsement, I’m filing to run again in CD3 with the firm belief that we will finish what we started in 2016 & win in 2018. https://t.co/w3Fwqric73
— Danny Tarkanian (@DannyTarkanian) March 16, 2018
Heller unconditionally opposes sending any nuclear material to Yucca Mountain for any reason at all. Several lawmakers have said Heller’s intransigence is the primary obstacle to resuming the Department of Energy’s application to license Yucca as a permanent nuclear-waste repository with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The Trump administration is firmly for restarting the process, which then-President Barack Obama halted in 2010 in what many said was a political favor to then-Sen. Harry Reid (R-Nev.).
