Scott Ashjian

Jon Scott Ashjian (born 1964), commonly known as Scott Ashjian, was the candidate of the Tea Party of Nevada in the race for United States Senate in the 2010 Nevada general election.^[1] Ashjian was born in Fresno, California; the oldest of eight children. After graduating from South Lake Tahoe High School in 1982, he started his own auto detailing company in Bakersfield, California, and grew it to include locations in Fresno, Bakersfield, and Visalia, California. He is a Mormon, and served on a mission in Argentina from 1986 to 1988. Ashjian moved from California to Nevada in 1995. He resides in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he works as a businessman, paving contractor, and real estate investor, and is owner of an asphalt company. With his wife, Bonnie, he has two sons and one daughter.

Ashjian was a member of the Republican Party, and voted for the presidential candidacies of Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and John McCain. In 2010, Ashjian and his supporters created the Tea Party of Nevada, whose values espouse small government, freedom, liberty, and decreasing the United States public debt. Ashjian filed his candidacy papers for the Tea Party, a registered minor party in Nevada, at Carson City on March 2, 2010.^[2] Ashjian's U.S. Senate candidacy was challenged in court in April 2010, and Carson City, Nevada district judge James Todd Russell ruled that he could stay on the ballot. This decision was appealed, and the Nevada Supreme Court ruled in a unanimous decision on October 6, 2010 that Ashjian would remain on the November 2010 ballot for U.S. Senate.^[3][4]

In media interviews, Ashjian emphasized his values included decreased power of government, and a strict interpretation of the United States Constitution. He identified with the views of politicians including Ronald Reagan, Sarah Palin, and Ron Paul. His political campaign was run as a grass-roots movement, and he served as his own communications director. He explained his decision to manage a minimalist and inexpensive campaign came from a desire to avoid a disconnect between politics and the people he wished to represent. Ashjian asserted he was confident his campaign would beat opponents from the two major political parties, Democrat Harry Reid and Republican Sharron Angle. In October 2010, Ashjian released an audio-tape to the media of a recorded conversation with Angle, in which she asked him to drop out of the U.S. Senate race. Angle told him she did not believe she could beat U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, if Ashjian remained on the ballot. Ashjian said he would stay in the race, and criticized both the major parties as inadequate choices in the election that would further the status quo. Harry Reid won the 2010 race and was reelected to the U.S. Senate.