A FLAMBOYANT brothel-owning Republican has won a seat in Nevada’s State Assembly – despite dying three weeks ago.
Dennis Hof, a colourful character and legal pimp, secured 68.3 per cent of the vote in a landslide result which saw his rival, Democrat Lesia Romanov, trail well behind with a miserable 31.7 per cent.
He died last month at the age of 72 after his body was found at the Love Ranch, a legal licensed brothel in Crystal in Nevada, just north of Pahrump.
The reality TV star ran sex ranches and during his campaign had nicknamed himself the “Trump from Pahrump” in reference to the town in which he lived.
The Nevada Independent explains that because of the timing of Hof's death, his name remained on the ballot in the “heavily Republican rural district”.
Signs were posted at polling places warning voters that the brothel-owner had died. But, the Republicans launched a campaign to encourage people to still vote for him – to stop the seat from going to the Democrats.
Under Nevada law, the name of any candidate who dies after the fourth Friday in July must still appear on the ballot, even though the county clerk has to post notices informing people they have died.
Hof's post-death victory will result in a “competitive and tricky tri-county process to appoint a living Republican to the seat” as it is still, technically, considered vacant, reports the Reno Gazette Journal.
In an interview with the evangelical Christian-backed Republican candidate at Moonlite BunnyRanch, his brothel near his home in Pahrump, in June, Hof told Reuters his political fortunes had parallels with those of US President Donald Trump.
This really is the Trump movement, Hof said, adding: "People will set aside for a moment their moral beliefs, their religious beliefs, to get somebody that is honest in office."
The thrice-divorced author of "The Art of the Pimp," who appeared on HBO's "Cathouse," owned a strip club and five legal brothels in Nevada, the only US state with legalised prostitution.
Chuck Muth, Hof's campaign manager, was one of many who correctly predicted last month that Hof would win, stating that Republicans had a two-to-one advantage over Democrats in the state Assembly district in terms of voter registration.
He tweeted today:"I know Republicans in Nevada got massacred tonight, but my man Dennis Hof crushed his opponent from the great beyond in [Assembly District] 36.
"And we crushed the anti-brothel initiative in Lyon County by about 80%.
"So pardon me, but I'm celebrating."
Eric Herzik, head of the political science department at the University of Nevada, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal: "It will be another footnote in Nevada history: we voted for a dead man."
Although the researcher had assumed “Hof would have won alive”, by dying he became more acceptable to Republican voters who disliked his job and his lifestyle because he became “the Republican placeholder."
Herzik added: “By dying he solved an embarrassing situation for Republicans in the Legislature.”
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The Nye County Sheriff's Office announced Hof's death last month at one of his properties in Crystal, Nevada. However it was not immediately clear why he died.
Friends found his body when they went to wake him for a meeting hours after his 72nd birthday party.
Muth said that Hof appeared to have died in his sleep, but this has not been confirmed.
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