- Susie Lee (D-NV) represents Nevada's 3rd Congressional District (Henderson/Las Vegas suburbs) — a Biden +7 seat she has held since 2019, successfully navigating a district that leans Democratic but has competitive elements.
- NV-3 includes the growing suburban communities south of Las Vegas — one of the fastest-growing congressional districts in America as Clark County's population expands with tech workers, retirees, and gaming industry employees.
- She is a former nonprofit executive who ran education and workforce development programs in Nevada before running for Congress — her background drives her focus on early childhood education, workforce training, and community college funding.
- Lee serves on the House Appropriations Committee and focuses on water rights, gaming industry regulation, and veterans' affairs — the last reflecting Nevada's large veteran population and proximity to Nellis Air Force Base and the Nevada National Security Site.
Biography
Susie Lee was born in 1975 and settled in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, where she built a career in nonprofit management focused on education and workforce development. She served as president and CEO of Communities In Schools of Nevada, a nonprofit that works to keep students in school and help them graduate, and in other civic leadership roles that gave her visibility and relationships across Clark County’s civic and business community. Her husband, Dan Lee, is an executive in the Las Vegas gaming industry, giving the family strong roots in Nevada’s dominant economic sector.
Lee ran for the NV-3 congressional seat in 2018, winning in the Democratic wave environment that year by approximately 5 percentage points over Republican Danny Tarkanian. Her win was part of a broader shift in suburban Las Vegas toward Democrats that reflected changing demographics — growing Latino and younger voter shares — and the backlash to the Trump administration in suburban areas nationally. She was re-elected in 2020 in a tighter race, in 2022 against Republican April Becker by about 2 percentage points in one of the most competitive House races that cycle, and again in 2024. Each of her victories has been genuinely competitive, reflecting a district that splits its votes at different levels of the ballot and requires active campaigning in every cycle.
Lee has served on the House Appropriations Committee, a plum assignment that has enabled her to direct federal resources toward Nevada priorities including water infrastructure (critical in a desert state), tourism-related federal programs, and veterans’ services for Nevada’s large military veteran population. She has aligned with the moderate New Democrat Coalition rather than the progressive wing of her caucus, reflecting both her constituency and her political instincts as a pragmatic problem-solver rather than an ideological standard-bearer.
Key Policy Positions
Healthcare & Medicare Protection
NV-3 includes a large retiree population in Henderson, one of the fastest-growing cities in the country, and healthcare affordability — particularly Medicare and prescription drug costs — is among Lee’s top issues. She has been a consistent supporter of measures to lower prescription drug prices, protect Medicare and Social Security from cuts, and expand healthcare polling for working families. She supported the Inflation Reduction Act’s provisions allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices, framing it as a protection for the seniors who make up a significant share of her constituency. Healthcare messaging has been central to her campaigns, particularly in the competitive 2022 cycle where Medicaid and prescription drug costs were prominent issues.
Water & Nevada Infrastructure
Water security is an existential issue for Southern Nevada, where the entire metropolitan area depends on the Colorado River via Lake Mead for its water supply. Lee has been an active voice on federal water policy, supporting investments in water infrastructure, conservation programs, and the interstate compact negotiations that govern Colorado River allocations. She has used her Appropriations Committee seat to push for federal investment in water recycling and desalination projects. The broader infrastructure needs of a fast-growing desert metro — transportation, utilities, broadband — are also a persistent focus of her work, and she supported the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law as critical to Nevada’s growth needs.
Tourism Economy & Workers
Las Vegas’s economy is uniquely dependent on tourism and hospitality, and Lee has been a consistent advocate for the hundreds of thousands of workers in the hotel, gaming, food service, and entertainment industries that power the regional economy. The COVID-19 pandemic, which devastated Nevada’s hospitality sector more severely than almost any other state economy, was the defining domestic policy challenge of her early terms. She supported pandemic relief measures, unemployment insurance extensions, and small business loans that were critical lifelines for Nevada workers and businesses during the shutdowns. She has also advocated for workforce training programs relevant to the hospitality sector and for policies protecting union workers in the gaming and hotel industries.
Congressional Elections in NV-3
| Year | Opponent | Lee % | Margin | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Danny Tarkanian (R) | 52.4% | +4.9 | Blue wave; first win in suburban Las Vegas |
| 2020 | Dan Rodimer (R) | 52.1% | +4.3 | Re-elected; Biden carried district |
| 2022 | April Becker (R) | 50.9% | +1.9 | Near-toss-up; one of closest House races nationally |
| 2024 | Drew Johnson (R) | ~51% | ~+2 | Held seat; competitive but not toss-up tier |
Nevada Political Context
Nevada is one of the most competitive swing states in national politics, and NV-3 mirrors the state’s competitive character at the congressional level. The district has been targeted every cycle by national Republican committees as a potential pickup opportunity, and Lee has had to run fully competitive campaigns each time she has sought re-election. Her consistent margins of 1-5 points reflect a district that is genuinely purple and requires active vote-building rather than simply turning out a partisan base.
The Las Vegas metropolitan area’s rapid growth has been one of the defining demographic stories in American politics over the past two decades. Clark County, which contains the entirety of NV-3, has grown from under 1 million residents in 2000 to well over 2 million today, with much of that growth coming from domestic migration and from Latino population increase. This demographic shift has moved Clark County — and by extension NV-3 — from reliably Republican territory in the 1990s to genuinely competitive ground. Lee’s ability to win there multiple times reflects both the underlying demographic trends and her skill as a candidate in a media market dominated by the gaming industry’s advertising muscle.
