Candidate . Clark County Commission . District E
Not a career politician. Ready to serve.
For the people who built it.
Manny Kess grew up in New York, attended the U.S. Naval Academy, and lost his father while he was there, an experience that shaped how he approaches leadership, responsibility, and resilience. He survived the 2008 Recession, moved to Las Vegas in 2011, and built The Kess Group from scratch in 2012: restaurants, real estate, travel services, and responsibly farmed food, working with athletes, entertainers, business leaders, and local families. Building those businesses meant living inside budgets, regulation, and land use, the same things this board decides. In December 2025, he declared his candidacy for Clark County Commission, District E.
He has made fifteen years of payrolls. He has fought permit boards. He has fired people. He has hired people. He has looked someone in the eye and said no when they wanted him to look the other way.
He is not a career politician.
Manny is a father and a husband first. The county he wants to serve is the same county where his daughter will grow up. That is the entire commitment.
A timeline a career politician can't fake. Each chapter taught a specific lesson about how Clark County actually works.
Annapolis taught discipline that does not require an audience. The chain of command. The names on the wall of Memorial Hall. The standard you keep when nobody is watching. He lost his father while he was there. That loss shaped everything that came after.
Twenty-something during the worst economy in eighty years. The industry he was in collapsed. Most of his peers got out. He stayed long enough to learn what a P&L really means at the bottom of a cycle.
Moved to Clark County with no contacts. First apartment. First month with no business. The desert was honest about who he was: somebody who had to build it from here.
Formed in 2012 as a hospitality company of one. Just Manny. It grew to more than a dozen team members, and then came the restaurants, real estate, travel services, and responsibly farmed food. Fifteen years of payrolls since. Hospitality teaches you what a county actually feels like, one staff and one permit at a time.
Declared in December 2025. Posted his cell number online the same day. Won the Republican primary in June. Now the general election, November 3, 2026. The fifth stop is the one the rest were quietly preparing for.
The problems he is actually running on, straight from his campaign and grounded in what this board controls. Specific numbers. Specific commitments. No "fight for working families."
The county licenses every business and issues the permits the unincorporated valley runs on, so this seat is the front door for small business. Manny has stood in the 6 a.m. permit line himself, fifteen years of payrolls behind him. His first ask is a public dashboard of how long county permits actually take, the targets next to the actuals.
The median home price in Clark County has climbed to nearly $490,000, putting ownership out of reach for working families, seniors, and young professionals. Manny will expand housing supply and cut the delays that drive up construction costs, and measure success by how many homes actually get built and occupied each year.
On a single night in 2024, more than 7,900 people were counted homeless in Clark County, over half of them unsheltered. Manny pairs real shelter and stabilization beds and compassionate outreach with consistent enforcement that protects neighborhoods, plus quarterly public reporting by area so residents can see progress, District E hotspots included.
Nevada caps the tax bill on an owner-occupied home at 3 percent a year, but a quiet refinance mistake can reset it to a higher rate, and the county is funded largely by these taxes. Manny wants the cap protected, the re-filing trap made plain, and homeowners told exactly how to keep the lower rate they are owed.
The valley drinks from a shrinking Colorado River, and the board that steers Nevada's response is the same county commission you elect. Southern Nevada is the river's conservation leader, cutting per-person use 58 percent since 2002. Manny's standard: defend what works, keep rates fair, and put residents before the resorts when the supply tightens.
The county helps fund Metro through the More Cops tax and the county budget, and a new police station for the East Valley is on the way. The honest 2024 picture is crime trending down. Manny's standard is operational: fund what actually works, hold every safety contract to results, and keep the new station on schedule.
The county has invested more than $12 million acquiring property in the Commercial Center, and residents are still waiting on results. Manny will push for a step-by-step plan with real timelines. Lighting, cleanliness, safety, parking, and code compliance first. Year one should be a year of visible progress, not another planning cycle.
Most of the valley's roads, the Maryland Parkway transit line running straight through the district, and the pedestrian-safety crisis on its arterials are all county business, and the county runs the Harry Reid airport that anchors the east-valley economy. Manny's focus: roads that move, transit that serves working people, and streets that are safe to cross.
The Strip sits in unincorporated county, so this seat helps govern the engine of the whole valley economy, but the part that pays east-valley bills is the off-Strip, neighborhood economy. Manny's focus: mind the local economy first, hold the public money in the stadium deals accountable, and build a backup engine beyond tourism.
The same seven commissioners you elect are the board of University Medical Center, Nevada's only Level I trauma center, and they appoint members of the public-health district. A serious crash anywhere in Southern Nevada goes to UMC. Manny's standard: protect the hospital's trauma and safety-net mission as a core duty of the seat.
Behind the hospital is a roughly $893 million safety net most people never see: child protection and foster care for about 3,400 kids, eviction and rental help, indigent and burial assistance, in-home senior care, and guardianship for vulnerable adults. Manny's standard: run it by outcomes, protect the vulnerable, and make the help findable, starting with 2-1-1.
The County Commission does not run the schools. That is the separately elected School District. What the county can do is real: expand digital access, grow tech and skilled-trade jobs through economic development, and strengthen libraries and workforce programs rather than duplicate them. Manny also wants the county itself to use technology to make its own services faster, cheaper, and easier to reach.
The commission oversees about $10.1 billion across the county's governmental funds, inside a $12.9 billion all-funds budget. To balance it at the end of 2025, the county moved roughly $56 million in one-time capital-project funds rather than cut current services. Fiscally responsible means spending that money the way a business owner spends his own, and accounting for every dollar of it.
Spending tied to measurable outcomes. Contracts reviewed on performance and effectiveness, not relationships. Ethics and disclosure standards that are straightforward and easy to find. And a commissioner you can actually reach, at 702.277.1072.
Not a resume. A record. More than two decades building and leading businesses, fifteen of them right here in Nevada.
More than two decades in regulated, competitive fields.
He chose Clark County and built here.
Restaurants, real estate, travel, and consumer ventures.
A real place with real stakes. Here is what this seat actually controls, and why 2026 is the cycle that matters.
Two dates decide this race. Election Day is November 3. Early voting runs in the weeks before. Call 702.277.1072 to find the next room near you.
Pratt-grade plainspoken. Short declarative sentences. No campaign vocabulary. No exclamation points. Specifics over abstractions.
"I do not owe favors. I owe people."
MK . On why he's running
"Different background. Different commission."
MK . On why he's running
"I read every reply. I show up when it matters."
MK . On accountability
"Hire local. Build local. Vote local."
MK . On procurement
"The post doesn't honor anyone. The visit does."
MK . On Memorial Day
"Read the names out loud, if you can."
MK . On respect
"Five stops got me here."
MK . On the path
The people who run for this seat usually come up through politics or law. Manny came up through payrolls, permits, and hiring. The contrast below is drawn straight, without naming opponents.
If you are a registered Republican in District E, your one job between now and November 3 is to vote. Early voting runs in the weeks before Election Day. Election day polls are open 7 AM to 7 PM.
Need to register? Need to update your address? Need to confirm you're in District E? All of that is at the Clark County Registrar.
If you have any question at all about voting, reach out to Manny at an event or through the contact form below.
Pick one. Or all three. Every one of them moves District E one step closer.
General election Tuesday, November 3, 2026. Early voting in the weeks before. If you live in District E and you care who helps oversee a $10.1 billion county budget, this is the day the work happens.
Find Your Poll →Every dollar funds direct outreach to District E voters before November 3. Whether it is small-dollar or the max, it goes to reaching neighbors.
Contribute →Door-knock. Phone bank. Drop a yard sign. Bring a neighbor to the next town hall. The campaign that wins District E is the one whose volunteers ring more doorbells, period.
Volunteer →Every dollar funds direct outreach to District E voters before November 3. Contributions are processed securely through the campaign's Anedot page.
Contributions are not tax-deductible . Nevada limit $5,000 per contributor for the general election . Reported per Nevada election law
The ones that come up most when Manny answers his phone. If yours isn't here, call him. He'll answer the new one too.
He is running because he is tired of watching people who have never built anything tell the people who built everything how to live. Manny has spent 15 years actually building businesses in Clark County. He knows the cost of a permit, the margin on a plate, and the line between a viable district and a dead one. The commission needs a builder. He intends to be that.
Yes. The number on the homepage is his actual cell phone. He has had it published since the day he declared his candidacy in December 2025. Average reply time is under 4 minutes during the day. Try it: 702.277.1072.
More than most people realize. Seven commissioners adopt a county budget that runs to about $10.1 billion across its governmental funds, inside a $12.9 billion all-funds total (about $2.1 billion of it day-to-day operations), and govern the unincorporated Las Vegas Valley, home to more than a million people. They sit on the Southern Nevada Water Authority, fund the police through the Metro fiscal committee, run University Medical Center, and control land use and zoning across the county. None of it makes national news. All of it shapes daily life.
No. The Strip is unincorporated Clark County. The City of Las Vegas boundary on Las Vegas Boulevard South stops at Sahara Avenue. Every casino south of Sahara (the Wynn, the Venetian, Caesars, the Bellagio, all the way down to Mandalay Bay) sits inside Paradise township. The Mayor of Las Vegas does not govern any of it. The same seven-person Clark County Commission that runs your water bill also approves every F1 road closure, every NYE permit, every Strip business license. When the Strip shuts down for three weeks, that decision is one of seven commissioners away from your vote.
District E covers the east and central Las Vegas Valley . parts of Paradise, Sunrise Manor, Whitney, Winchester, and a portion of the City of Las Vegas. More than 299,000 residents. If you live in that corridor and you vote in the general election, this seat is on your ballot.
He is running on accountability and transparency, safer neighborhoods, fiscally responsible county decisions, and long-term opportunity for the next generation. In plain terms: spend county money carefully, keep neighborhoods safe, and govern for the people who actually live here. The issues section breaks each one down.
Contributions are governed by Nevada law, with a limit of $5,000 per contributor for the general election, and the campaign reports them as required. If you want to know where Manny stands on something, the fastest answer is to call him directly at 702.277.1072.
general election is Tuesday, November 3, 2026. Polls open 7 AM, close 7 PM. Early voting runs in the weeks before Election Day. Nevada allows same-day registration. Full polling logistics in the Where you vote section above.
No. The primary is decided. The November 3 general election is open to every registered voter in District E, no matter your party. If you are registered to vote in District E, Manny is on your ballot. Same-day registration is legal in Nevada, so you can register or update your address at any Clark County vote center, including during early voting. Bring a Nevada ID and proof of address.
Yes. Clark County runs a vote-center model. Any registered voter can cast a ballot at any official county vote center, not just an assigned precinct. Useful if your job is on the Strip and your house is in Sunrise Manor, or if your closest center has the shortest line. The full list of sites and hours is at the Clark County Election Department.
Three ways. One: forward this site to someone who does live in the district. Two: contribute (every dollar funds outreach inside the district). Three: phone-bank or door-knock for the campaign even if you live outside. All three are here.
Manny's hospitality group. Founded in 2012. Operates restaurants in the Las Vegas area. It is the source of his 15 years of payroll experience and the reason he can speak credibly about what county-level regulation actually does to working businesses.
mk.nirvani.ai is the experimental long-form version, built and maintained by Nirvani as the campaign's deeper presence. mannykess.com is the conventional campaign URL. Both lead to the same candidate, the same phone number, the same race.
Independent references and coverage. Each one links to the source. The campaign does not pay for placement.
Black. Gold. Classic. Honest. Tell us where to drop one. A volunteer will hand-deliver within 3 days.
The question goes to his actual inbox. He answers it. If it's a question others would ask too, it ends up in the FAQ (with your permission).
Median reply time so far: under 4 hours.
Right-click the QR to save. Print it on a flyer. Put it on a business card. The campaign has nothing to hide and everything to gain from more people seeing this URL.
The civics and figures on this page are sourced to public records. Each initiative page below carries full, numbered footnotes; the primary sources behind the headline numbers are here.
A note on the budget: the county's own budget book reports more than one total, and we label which is which. The $10.1 billion is the governmental-funds total; the full all-funds figure, counting self-funded enterprises like the airport and the public hospital, is about $12.9 billion. See the full breakdown.