Former Nevada senator plans to make comeback in 2018

Five years after resigning from the state Senate amid an arduous divorce, the former Elizabeth Halseth is planning a comeback for 2018.

Halseth, now Elizabeth Helgelien after remarrying, plans to run for Senate District 8, the seat now held by nonpartisan Sen. Patricia Farley. Farley, who said last month that she will not run for re-election, is the subject of a recall effort seeking to oust her before the 2018 election and replace her with a Republican.

Helgelien, who is Republican, said she intends to run for the Senate seat no matter the outcome of the recall.

“I’m not sure how the recall is going to turn out, but I’m definitely running for office in 2018,” she said Thursday.

At age 27, Helgelien was the youngest senator elected to the Nevada Legislature when she won in 2010.

In 2011, her then-husband Daniel Halseth was indicted on battery and lewdness charges following a domestic violence incident involving Helgelien. He later pleaded guilty to two counts of coercion and battery and was given six months of probation.

Helgelien resigned from the Senate in February 2012. In her letter to Gov. Brian Sandoval, she said she had to move out of the state because she was “regularly demonized by selfish partisans and a handful of reckless bloggers with personal agendas of salacious, unfounded personal attacks” in Nevada.

Helgelien is back in Las Vegas and works as a real estate agent. She said her children have asked when she’s going to be a senator again.

“I’m in a very safe, secure place in my life,” Helgelien said.

Helgelien said she wants to focus heavily on education, and stressed the need for local control.

“The more that we can get power down to the local levels, the better,” she said.

She said she also wants to work on diversifying Nevada’s economy beyond tourism and mining, and work on legislation to protect women.

Contact Colton Lochhead at clochhead@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4638. Follow @ColtonLochhead on Twitter.