Close call for Hafen surprising

The challenger is thinking about a recount. The longtime incumbent is trying to figure out how he almost lost. And the winning campaign manager is blaming it all on a new brand of ugly partisanship and a possible vendetta against the victor's daughter.

As Henderson City Council races go, this one was hardly politics as usual.

It began with good news for six-term councilman Andy Hafen.

Shortly after the polls closed Tuesday, election officials posted the first results of the night: early and mail-in vote totals that showed Hafen with a nearly 10 percentage point lead over Thomas Wagner.

Over the next few hours, though, the gap would quickly close. By the time all precincts were in and Hafen was declared the winner, the lopsided victory some had predicted had turned into a 169-vote squeaker.

Hafen's campaign manager, Matt Higginson, thinks he knows why.

He said last week that Hafen was targeted by Republican Party operatives who ignored an unspoken agreement to keep partisan politicking out of nonpartisan races in Henderson.

"From my understanding, the parties have never gotten involved like this before," Higginson said. "Henderson municipal elections have traditionally been very nonpartisan. That tradition has kind of been blemished with this race, and I find that to be kind of unfortunate."

Wagner's campaign manager, Steve Forsythe, said he has been involved in about 100 political campaigns in Nevada over 25 years and always tries to introduce an element of partisanship.

"It'd be silly not to," Forsythe said. "If I'm Andy Hafen, I'd be out there beating the drums to the Democrats."

But Hafen said that's not the way it's supposed to work, and he worries this year's Ward 2 race may set a disturbing precedent for future elections.

"There's no room for partisan politics at the local level. The last thing that we want is to have a street or a sewer line put in for partisan reasons."

Wagner may challenge the election results.

"We're looking at those options right now," the 41-year-old Las Vegas police sergeant said.

The City Council will canvass the election results Tuesday. After that, Wagner or any registered voter in Henderson will have three days to request a recount.

Forsythe isn't sure it will be worth the effort. "Countering 169 votes, while it sounds like a small number, can be a difficult task," he said.

City Clerk Monica Simmons said she can't recall a recount of a Henderson municipal election in the past 30 years. One obvious reason: Henderson council races are rarely very close.

In 20 years on the council, Hafen has been on only one general election ballot. The 53-year-old Henderson native wrapped up every other election during the primary by getting more than 50 percent of the vote.

Other council members boast similar records. Steve Kirk won his first term during the 1999 primary and has been unopposed in the two elections since. Three-term Mayor Jim Gibson has never been involved in a general election contest.

Simmons said she was reviewing the recount process with the Nevada secretary of state's office, just in case.

Higginson said the margin never would have been so slim if not for a letter encouraging voters to cast ballots for Wagner that was sent by e-mail to registered Henderson Republicans the day before the election.

Zac Moyle, executive director for the Nevada Republican Party, happily claimed responsibility for the letter on Friday.

"No shame and embarrassment there," Moyle said. "For us not to support him (Wagner) would be ridiculous."

Moyle said he considers it his job to get Republicans elected to as many offices as possible. "I don't give a crap whether it's city council or comptroller."

But Higginson said the party's letter seemed to carry a sinister subtext. It included a list of Wagner's experience and qualifications, but all it said about Hafen was that he was a Democratic incumbent and "father of Tessa Hafen, last year's Democratic Congressional candidate against Jon Porter."

Higginson called that "an element of retribution" directed at a daughter through her father. "I don't think they could have been any more explicit."

Higginson also noted that Porter apparently supported Wagner's candidacy, as evidenced by an invitation to a March 8 fundraiser for Wagner that lists the congressman as an "honorary host."

Porter was traveling Friday and could not be reached for comment. His spokesman, Matt Leffingwell, confirmed that Porter backed Wagner in "a fairly limited role" by writing a letter of support that was read during the March 8 fundraiser. Porter did not attend the event.

Leffingwell said Wagner asked for Porter's support and the congressman granted it because he considered Wagner a qualified candidate who shared his Republican values. Porter's decision had nothing to do with Tessa Hafen's candidacy, Leffingwell said. "It was not retribution."

Moyle also scoffed at the idea that the Nevada Republican Party would target Andy Hafen to get back at Tessa Hafen.

"We won that race. Why would we have hurt feelings in a race that we won? That's just a ridiculous statement," Moyle said.

There does appear to be something different about what went on in the Ward 2 race, said Michael Green, a history professor at the Community College of Southern Nevada.

Though nonpartisan races at the municipal level do get nasty from time to time, political parties rarely engage in them openly, he said. "There has been generally a nonpartisan tradition in city council races throughout Southern Nevada."

In the past, Green said, the exception to that rule was nonpartisan races involving candidates who also happened to be well-known standard bearers for one party or another. Hafen doesn't exactly fit that bill, Green said, but his daughter might.

He added, however, that something besides partisan politics easily could have affected the outcome of the election. Sometimes, a candidate is so confident he is going to win that he overlooks his opponent and forgets to campaign.

"I'll raise the question: Did Andy Hafen expect a challenge?" Green said.

Forsythe wonders about that, too. "I guess if I was in his camp, it would be a wake-up call," he said of Hafen. "Personally, I think it shows he has work to do."