By Kay Lynn Roberts-McMurray

The Ely Times

At a crowd inside the Hotel Nevada meeting room, Adam Laxalt announced what many already knew.

The 39-year-old Republican Attorney General is running for Governor. Laxalt’s run for Governor will be the second election for Laxalt. He kicked off “The Laxalt 17” tour, a seven day tour on November 1st, covering all 17 counties ending in Pahrump on Nov. 7 to share his envision of Nevada’s future.

White Pine County District Attorney Michael Wheable introduced Adam Laxalt to the crowd by saying “have you seen a state politician in Ely for the last four years more than Mr. Laxalt? He is the voice for the rurals.”

With several retired servicemen and people of all ages filling up a meeting room, they were all there to listen to Laxalt’s vision of economic prosperity, greater educational achievement and better public safety for Nevada’s families.

“I have made it a priority to do what I said I was going to do,” Laxalt said. He spoke about his childhood, being raised by a single mother, living in a one bedroom apartment and the struggle that he and his mother experienced.

He also talked about his teen years in high school and how at age 18 he went into a treatment center for his battle with alcoholism. Later on he noted that attended Georgetown University but after 9/11 he had a strong desire to serve his country, so he joined the United States Navy.

Laxalt spoke of the challenges he faced when he first ran for Attorney General. He said he ran for Attorney General to defend the state.

“When I first started looking at the race, I was told I couldn’t run, it wasn’t my time, and this was on the Republican and Democrat side, and was told I needed to wait, and it made me mad."

“But we decided to take the plunge, and we worked hard traveling the state, and I promised them that as the Attorney General I would take being the top law enforcement office very seriously.”

When asked what his thoughts on sanctuary cities are an issue he replied by saying “well the Democrats pushed the sanctuary state bill which designated Las Vegas as a sanctuary city which has been reversed. I think it would make us less safe.”

Laxalt did not have much to say when asked if he would you have expanded Medicaid under the ACA as Sandoval did.

“I’m gonna wait until we see what happens with everything that is going on in Washington before we get into where we look and see where we’re headed. I was not a supporter of Obamacare, and we sued on Obamacare as well. There is no reason to even talk about it until we know what Washington is going to do.”

Laxalt stressed to the crowd the different projects that the Attorney General’s office has accomplished since he took office.

“I hope many of you see how committed I have been to the state, and how hard we have worked,” he said.

He said opioid addiction, that goes along with heroin addiction is a new project that his office has recently taken on. They have put together a program called the prescription for addiction program, that will be a prevention program reaching out to youth. Laxalt mentioned that this program will also reach out to the Boys & Girls program here in Ely.

“I’m running for governor because I think the state needs someone that is going to understand all these issues that we face and someone that really has the backbone to stand for some of the things that we believe in and we also know what we saw in 2017, which is the two houses that are both Democrats, we don’t have a strong Republican Governor willing to defend the state from a sharp left forward turn were in serious trouble.”

Laxalt thanked the crowd for a heartwarming turnout. Laxalt was asked if there were any issues here in White Pine he has noticed and he said, “Try to make sure that Ely grows, allowing the mine to grow, folks that aren’t here that don’t live in communities like this don’t understand that these are real jobs with real people attached to them, and and we do the best to protect them.”

Former Governor Bob List, was one of the guests that Laxalt brought along with him during the tour.

On the Democratic side, Clark County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani last week announced her gubernatorial campaign on the steps of the Las Vegas Academy of Arts, joining her fellow Commission Chairman Steve Sisolak, who was the first Democrat to launch his bid last summer. The primary election is set for June 12, with the general election on Nov. 6. On the Republican side, Las Vegas businessman Jared Fisher and state Treasurer Dan Schwartz entered the race.

This story was originally published by The Ely Times. Read more from our editor about our content-sharing agreement with various rural partners.