Angle plans to challenge Amodei for House seat

RENO — Conservative activist and former Nevada state lawmaker Sharron Angle, a three-time candidate for Congress, has announced she is seeking to unseat Republican Rep. Mark Amodei next year.

Angle shot to national attention in 2010 when she attempted to best Nevada Democrat and then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in a high-profile challenge from a tea party candidate.

She and Amodei did not return messages seeking comment Tuesday.

Angle touts a far-right platform on her website — consistent with her stances during previous campaigns and eight-year tenure in the Nevada Legislature. Her online announcement Monday indicated she intends to buttress the ideologies of President Donald Trump.

“Trump proved that America wants constitutional, free-market conservatism,” her site says. “The reality is the president can lead, but he cannot do it alone. In Congress, we contend with the unpredictable Republicans who support, or do not support, what the American people mandated on Election Day.”

Angle, 67, has proven a brash, gaffe-prone fireball willing to test the limits of anti-Washington sentiment in a state that has voted for Democratic candidates in the last three presidential elections.

But the 2nd Congressional District covers the vast, rural northern half of Nevada, where registered-Republican voters held an 11-percent advantage over those identifying with the Democratic Party in the November election.

She tried for the seat in 2006, but lost the Republican primary to then-Nevada Secretary of State and current U.S. Sen. Dean Heller.

She ran for the Senate in 2016, again unsuccessfully, after Reid’s retirement.

No petitions were submitted last year for three ballot measures Angle proposed in Clark County that called for constitutional amendments that sought to unravel Nevada’s health insurance exchange, bolster student privacy protections and require voters to provide valid identification to cast a ballot.

Angle is a grandmother and the daughter of a potato farmer currently selling books to raise money for her latest political bid.

If elected, her priorities would include stripping Congress of the power to set federal income taxes and cutting corporate taxes, according to her website.

She believes America should refuse to accept refugees for national security reasons, the site says, and gun background checks are a “gateway to gun registration, limitation and confiscation.”

On the issue of transgender rights, she says “I will not give government the authority to mandate a man’s choice as a higher priority than a woman’s right to privacy by allowing men claiming to be women to enter women’s restrooms.”