Danny Tarkanian is continuing his scorched earth interview series, this time on Nevada’s Heidi Harris Show. Tarkanian blasts the Washington establishment for forcing him out of the race and says that “they are just underestimating the outrage people have in Nevada for Heller” — because Heller has disappointed his base. Tarkanian’s far-right base will “never vote for Heller even though they’re strong Republicans.” The host backs up Tarkanian, saying “I have certainly seen that…Boy people just don’t want to vote for him.”
Q: Why did Trump want you to get out of the way to protect Dean Heller?
DT: “That is why I never thought President Trump would do this. First of all, they say he is a very loyal person and there’s been nobody that’s been more supportive in Nevada than I have been and they also say he holds a grudge and remembers everything and there’s not been anybody in Nevada on the Republican side that’s said worse things about him. But I think what happened is Mitch McConnell, I know for sure Mitch McConnell, and a lot of the people, the establishment people in Washington DC were putting pressure on President Trump to support Heller for several months now, and somewhere along the line, they must have finally convinced him ‘hey let’s get Danny out before the primary so that Heller doesn’t get beat up really badly and possibly not be able to recover.’ And they probably convinced him that Heller had the best chance to win the general. They are just underestimating the outrage people have in Nevada for Heller, and many of them have emailed me and expressed disappointment that I’ve gotten out and said they’ll never vote for Heller even though they’re strong Republicans.”
Q: Even without you in the race, I do not see a clear path to re-election for him.
DT: “Well I tried to explain that to his political director that called me up and said you don’t understand the sentiment here in Nevada. They are very strong Trump supporters. They all know what Dean Heller did to him. They know that he has only started supporting Trump after I got in the race and he’s only going to do it until the primary and while on the other side I have the best shot of winning the general election. I lost to Jacky Rosen by 1%, the closest race anybody had in Nevada last election with the entire GOP leadership coming out against Trump, I was the only one that wouldn’t. Instead, this year we are going to have President Trump in the White House but the power of the White House and the effect of his, the positive effect, of all of his policies. I think it’s going to be easy to make up 1% but how is Heller going to make it up if he loses 5% or 10% of the base.”
See some of Tarkanian’s other recent attacks on Heller, such as calling out his hypocrisy on immigration, here.
Published: Mar 20, 2018