Affordability and law enforcement shape the Nevada contest
Nevada voters will decide on Tuesday, Nov. 3, whether Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo wins another four years in office or Democrat Aaron Ford takes control of the state government. Lombardo, a former sheriff of Clark County, which covers Las Vegas, is facing Ford, the state attorney general, who would become Nevada’s first Black governor if elected. The election arrives as Nevadans grapple with some of the highest gas prices in the country, a shortage of tens of thousands of homes, a lagging education system and a decline in tourism that is crucial to the state’s economy. The election could offer a glimpse at the political forces shaping the next presidential race.
Campaign positions and legislative power
Lombardo wants to expand on his first-term accomplishments. He has worked with the Democratic-controlled Legislature to increase education funding by $2.6 billion and invest $183 million in housing. He also wants to recruit more healthcare workers and increase per-pupil funding.
Lombardo has sought to portray Ford as soft on crime and has insisted that Ford’s policy goals would be too expensive. Ford has tried to paint the governor as a staunch loyalist of President Donald Trump, who won Nevada in 2024 by less than 50,000 votes.
In his single term, Lombardo has vetoed more legislation than any other Nevada governor. He has portrayed his veto pen as the last line of defense against Democratic bills he considers harmful. If Democrats win the governorship and retain their legislative majorities, they will have their first trifecta since Lombardo was narrowly elected in 2022, giving Ford a much freer hand to pursue his agenda.
Affordability and economic conditions
Ford has campaigned on affordability. He has promised to tackle student-loan debt and crack down on the development of artificial intelligence data centers.
Democrats want to connect Lombardo with economic conditions under Trump, arguing that the president’s tariffs harmed Las Vegas tourism. The city’s tourism sector saw a 17% drop in Canadian visitors in 2025. Trump has also feuded with Canadian leaders while the two countries remain in the middle of a trade dispute.
Ford criticized Lombardo for vetoing legislation that Ford said would make life more affordable, such as a bill limiting home purchases by corporate investors. Lombardo portrayed Ford as a threat to Nevada’s business-friendly climate and tied him to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, warning that Ford would bring the “Newsom playbook” of high taxes and more regulations. Newsom, a potential 2028 presidential hopeful, campaigned for Ford, and former Vice President Kamala Harris also visited.
Law-enforcement scrutiny
Both candidates have faced scrutiny for how they exercised authority in law enforcement. Ford’s campaign criticized Lombardo for avoiding a traffic ticket in Las Vegas, interrupting the police officer to say “I’m Joe Lombardo.” Lombardo’s campaign blasted Ford for sponsoring consideration of a clemency application for a man who killed a pregnant woman in 2017.
Lombardo secured a major boost when the Democratic district attorney for Clark County, which covers Las Vegas, endorsed the governor instead of Ford, his fellow Democrat.
Nevada’s electorate and the 2028 race
Nevada is the westernmost battleground state, and its distinctive electorate does not always follow national political trends. Democratic strength in Las Vegas is counterbalanced by heavily Republican rural areas, while nonpartisan voters make up nearly 40% of the electorate. A steady flow of people into and out of the state, along with large numbers of working-class and Latino voters, makes statewide races difficult to predict.
Demographers anticipate that the rest of the country will look more like Nevada over the next couple of decades as its population becomes more diverse, making what happens in the state an early indicator of the nation’s future. Nevada has six electoral college votes, but potential 2028 presidential candidates have visited to support Ford or Lombardo. Both parties have Nevada as an early state in their nominating calendar.
Candidate records
Lombardo served in law enforcement for over 25 years before becoming sheriff of Clark County in 2014. He became well known in 2017 while overseeing the investigation into the Las Vegas mass shooting, the deadliest in modern U.S. history. Lombardo was born in Japan to a U.S. military family stationed overseas and served in the Army and Nevada National Guard.
Ford, a former state senator who taught math before attending law school, has described growing up in poverty and frequently tells the story of how his father brought home stale candy bars from the grocery store where he worked for the family’s dinner. Since being elected attorney general in 2019, Ford has secured millions in settlements from opioid manufacturers and successfully sued a student-loan servicer and the gaming platform Roblox.
Ballot counting may delay the result
Nevada accepts mail ballots for up to four days after the election as long as they were postmarked on Election Day, so the governor’s race may not be determined on election night. Late-arriving ballots make up only about 2% of the total mail ballots, but races often come down to one or two percentage points. Lombardo won the 2022 election by 1.5 percentage points.