Tony DeMeo Wayne Lieseke Advertisement

Nye County Sheriff Tony DeMeo took 39 percent of the vote in a six-way primary race Tuesday. His main opponent, former Sheriff Wade A. Lieseke Jr., won 21 percent.

Those two will square off in the general election Nov. 7. The race was the most intensely-watched of any in Nye County in the Tuesday primary.

Lieseke won the four precincts in his hometown of Tonopah 322 to 72. He also won sparsely-populated precincts in Currant and Duckwater, as well as Round Mountain and Smoky Valley. But DeMeo won Pahrump 2,609 to 1,060, almost 2.5 votes for each one of Lieseke's.

Meanwhile, the war of words continued between the two candidates.

Lieseke finished 18 percentage points behind DeMeo, but the former sheriff still felt optimistic going into the November general election.

Lieseke said he has a verbal commitment from sheriff's candidates Mel Jackson and Ted Holmes for their support, which he hopes to follow up with a formal endorsement.

While DeMeo had a respectable 39 percent, Lieseke said, "That shows that 61 percent of the voters did not vote for the incumbent. I would not consider that a good showing if I were the incumbent. Obviously they're voting for a change."

DeMeo debated Lieseke's claims. While he said Mel Jackson -- who finished fourth in the race with 13.3 percent of the vote -- announced in Beatty previously that he'd support Lieseke's campaign, DeMeo said, "Holmes supporters were telling me they didn't want to see Wade Lieseke back in office." Holmes finished in third place with 1,229 votes, 16.15 percent.

DeMeo barely finished ahead of Lieseke in the 2002 primary, with 31.7 percent of the vote to Lieseke's 29.9 percent.

After that primary, candidates Rick Marshall and Don Lee backed Lieseke, but DeMeo went on to defeat Lieseke by an almost two-to-one margin. In the November 2002 general election, 63.9 percent to Lieseke's 33.6 percent.

"I am going to show the voters that we can make the necessary changes to make them feel safe in their communities," Lieseke said. Regarding the incumbent, he said, "Just because you're in a political race doesn't mean you can lie at will. I believe I'm reviewing his record, the things he said and the things he does."

DeMeo said he expected to receive 41 percent of the vote and took 39 percent. The sheriff is optimistic looking ahead to November.

"I look at there still being hard-core Lieseke supporters no matter what," DeMeo said.

Lieseke said in 2002 he'd run again in four years and has had the free time to campaign, he said.

"I strongly believe I will be victorious in the general election as well because of the fact of what people want. We've been doing a great job at the sheriff's office regardless of what people say," DeMeo said.

Lieseke said Sheriff DeMeo made decisions that affect residents in other communities, such shutting down a substation in Amargosa Valley and trying to close substations in Tonopah and Beatty.

"Pahrump is all that matters to him," Lieseke charged.

DeMeo said of Lieseke, "He's done a lot of imagining. I think Disney does a lot better than Wade Lieseke."

DeMeo said he thought Holmes would get as many votes as Lieseke. But DeMeo said a tent city concept advocated by Holmes would be expensive to supervise and create legal problems.

"The unfortunate thing is two people ran real negative campaigns," DeMeo said.

The sheriff questioned why people couldn't have raised some of the issues in the campaign during his monthly sheriff's forums at the Pahrump Community Center.

"Wade was a micromanager that kept getting involved several times a day in the agency," DeMeo said. "The department had no long range plan except to respond to calls for service."

Lieseke however charged in his newspaper advertisments that there were over 70 deputies who left the sheriff's department during DeMeo's term.