Nevada State Senate elections, 2010

2010 State senate elections
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Parties with candidates
Impact of term limits
Successful challengers
Defeated incumbents
State house elections
State senate elections
State legislative elections

	2012 → ← 2008
	Nevada State Senate elections, 2010
	Majority control • Campaign contributions
	Qualifications • Competitiveness analysis
	State Legislative Election Results
	List of candidates Capital • Clark 2 • Clark 5(B) • Clark 7(B) • Clark 8 • Clark 9 • Clark 10 • Clark 12 • Washoe 1 • Washoe 2 • Washoe 4
	Nevada State Senate; State legislative elections, 2010

Nevada State Senate elections were held in 11 of Nevada's 21 senate districts on November 2, 2010. The 11 districts where electoral contests took place in 2010 were: Capital, Clark 2, Clark 5(B), Clark 7(B), Clark 8, Clark 9, Clark 10, Clark 12, Washoe 1, Washoe 2, and Washoe 4.

The signature filing deadline for candidates wishing to run in this election was March 12, 2010, and the primary election day was June 8, 2010.

Nevada's state senators are elected to a 4-year term that begins on the first day after the November election.^[1]

The incumbent senator ran for re-election in 3 of the 11 state senate seats that were up for re-election in 2010. Of the remaining 8 districts, 5 incumbents were not eligible because of term limits. There were also 2 vacant districts -- Capital and Washoe 4 -- which were previously occupied by term-limited senators.

In the 2010 election, Democrats retained a majority in the chamber; Republicans gained three seats and Democrats lost one, meaning Democrats had a one-seat majority.

See also: Nevada State Senate and State legislative elections, 2010

November 2 General Election Results

The following candidates won election on November 2, 2010:

Majority control

See also: Partisan composition of state senates

Heading into the November 2 election, the Democratic Party held the majority in the Nevada State Senate:

Nevada State Senate
Party		As of November 1, 2010	After the 2010 Election
	Democratic Party	12	11
	Republican Party	7	10
	Vacancy	2	-
Total		21	21

Term limits

See also: State legislatures with term limits

2010 was the first year that some Nevada State Senators were ineligible to run for office because of the term limits law first passed in 1994.

Nevada voters approved Question 9A in 1996. Question 9A was a second vote on a term limits amendment first approved in 1994. Alone among the states with ballot initiatives, Nevada voters must approve a proposed constitutional amendment twice before it goes into the Nevada Constitution. The 1994 and 1996 votes cumulatively led to Paragraph 2 of Section 4 of Article 4 of the Nevada Constitution, which says, "No person may be elected or appointed as a Senator who has served in that Office, or at the expiration of his current term if he is so serving will have served, 12 years or more, from any district of this State."

Altogether, there were 21 Nevada State Senators as of 2010. In 2010, five of them were ineligible to run for re-election. In addition, two former Republican state senators (Mark Amodei and Randolph Townsend) who resigned earlier in 2010 would have been ineligible had they stayed in office.

Nevada state senators whose seats were up for election in 2010 but who were unable to run because of the state's term limits were:

Democrats (4):

Republicans (1):

Maurice Washington

Campaign contributions

See also: State-by-state comparison of donations to state senate campaigns

This chart shows how many candidates ran for state senate in Nevada in past years and the cumulative amount of campaign contributions in state senate races, including contributions in both primary and general election contests. All figures come from Follow The Money.^[2]

Year	Number of candidates	Total contributions
2010	44	$4,320,019
2008	32	$4,595,155
2006	23	$4,617,882
2004	39	$4,452,213
2002	25	$2,878,156

In 2010, the candidates for state senate raised a total of $4,320,019 in campaign contributions. The top 10 donors were:^[3]

Donor	Amount
Senate Republican Leadership Conference	$75,000
Senate Republican Leaders Fund	$65,000
Nevada Association of Realtors	$63,500
Boyd Gaming	$53,000
Las Vegas Sands Corp	$52,500
R & S Investment Properties	$50,500
Nevada State Education Association	$47,500
South Point Hotel & Casino	$47,500
Move Nevada Forward PAC	$46,500
Sunrise Healthcare System	$46,250

Incumbency

Primary challenges

One incumbent faced competition in the June 8 primary.

District 9: Republican Dennis Nolan lost to Elizabeth Halseth.

Retiring incumbents

Six incumbent senators did not run for re-election, while three incumbents (33.33%) ran for re-election. Of the six incumbents who did not run for re-election, four were Democrats and two were Republicans.

Incumbents who retired were:

District 2: Incumbent Democrat Maggie Carlton. - Ineligible due to term limits.
District 7: Incumbent Democrat Terry Care. - Ineligible due to term limits.
District 10: Incumbent Democrat Bob Coffin. - Ineligible due to term limits.
District 12: Incumbent Republican Stan Olsen.
District Washoe 1: Incumbent Democrat Bernice Mathews. - Ineligible due to term limits.
District Washoe 2: Incumbent Republican Maurice Washington. - Ineligible due to term limits.

Qualifications

To be eligible to serve in the Nevada State Senate, a candidate must be:^[4]

A U.S. citizen at the time of filing
21 years old at the filing deadline time
A one-year resident of Nevada preceding the election
A resident for 30 days of the senate district from which elected at the filing deadline time
A qualified election. A qualified voter is someone who is:

* A U.S. citizen

* A resident of Nevada for at least 6 months prior to the next election, and 30 days in the district or county

* At least 18 years old by the next election

Filing fee

Any person intending to run for a seat in the Nevada Senate must file a declaration of candidacy with the county clerk's office of the county in which he or she resides or with the Office of Nevada Secretary of State. Candidates also had to pay a filing fee of $100.