The Democratic primary in Senate District 3 is a test of the political power of the Culinary Union.
The hospitality workers union, which has long been a powerhouse in Nevada politics, has turned heads this primary cycle by retracting endorsements for any lawmaker who voted in favor of SB441, a bill passed during the 2023 legislative session that ended pandemic-era requirements to clean all hotel rooms daily.
And in Senate District 3, a solidly Democratic district stretching from central to northwest Las Vegas, the union is hitching its wagons to a nurse practitioner challenging a prominent incumbent.
Geoconda Hughes, a nurse and the daughter of Culinary Union Local 226’s former secretary-treasurer, is squaring off in the primary against Sen. Rochelle Nguyen (D-Las Vegas), an attorney appointed to the open Senate seat in 2022 after a four-year stint in the Assembly.