Nevada’s Republican governor fights to outlive Trump undertow

LAS VEGAS — Five days after settling again into the White House, President Trump launched into a political victory lap that took him to a rally in downtown Las Vegas.

Joined by Nevada’s Republican governor, Joe Lombardo, Trump instructed boisterous supporters that, as a primary order of enterprise, he’d directed each member of his Cabinet “to marshal all powers at their disposal to defeat inflation and convey down the price of day by day life.”

That hasn’t occurred — not even close — and that failure is one huge motive that Nevada’s governor is combating for his political life.

Democrats, nonetheless smarting from their loss four years ago, have made Lombardo their No. 1 gubernatorial goal this election season. Republicans are battling to maintain their top-of-the-ticket foothold in a state that may, as soon as extra, stand at the center of the presidential campaign.

With simply over every week to go — and with greater than 335,000 ballots already forged — the competition may go both method.

After a profession in legislation enforcement and eight years as sheriff of Clark County — home to Las Vegas — Lombardo made the leap to governor in 2022 in a pandemic-fueled backlash in opposition to Democratic incumbent Steve Sisolak.

Reserved by nature and a political civilian most of his life, Lombardo has spent the final 4 years centered on the fundamentals — crime, training, job progress, financial improvement — and largely steered away from the nation’s incendiary tradition wars.

Unlike different Republican lawmakers, Lombardo has additionally shied away from the provocations and flamboyant pugilism of the MAGA motion.

Still, Trump hangs like an anvil round Lombardo’s neck — a reality his Democratic opponent, Aaron Ford, exploits at each flip.

Appearing final week at a gasoline station two miles off the Las Vegas Strip, Ford cited record-high gasoline costs — and the knock-on effects they’ve had on tourism, groceries and on-line buying — and mentioned Nevadans had been struggling for no different motive than Trump’s “war of choice” against Iran.

“And the place,” Ford requested rhetorically, as visitors whooshed previous, “is our present governor? As common, he’s at Trump’s ft, serving as his doormat.”

Ford, who’s bidding to become Nevada’s first Black governor, has a type of up-by-the-bootstraps biographies that marketing campaign consultants see as spun gold.

He grew up in Dallas in a household that struggled to remain above water and, as a single father in his early 20s, relied on Medicaid and meals stamps to get by. He labored as a waiter and a instructor to pay for legislation faculty and a Ph.D. in training earlier than shifting to Nevada in 2007. After six years within the state Senate, Ford was elected in 2018 to the primary of two phrases because the state’s legal professional normal.

Like Democratic candidates in every single place, Ford has made affordability a key component of his marketing campaign.

Standing on the sidewalk exterior a Circle Ok — the place common was going for $5.35 a gallon — Ford squatted to signal a blown-up copy of a “letter” to Trump demanding a $2,000 “pain-at-the-pump” rebate for each Nevada family. A line was offered, obligingly however clearly unnecessarily, for Lombardo’s signature.

Four years in the past, Ford famous, when gasoline was round $4.68 a gallon, his Republican rival wrote on social media that hard-pressed Nevadans wanted “management that ensures our households and companies are protected against these disastrous insurance policies.”

“But as soon as he obtained in workplace,” Ford mentioned, Lombardo “stopped combating for us in Nevada and he began working for Trump full time.”

Just a few hours later, at a country-themed nightclub in northwest Las Vegas, the governor took to the stage to extol his efficiency these final 4 years.

Small-business creation and job progress are up, he instructed a crowd of supporters gathered on the dance flooring. Teachers are higher paid and extra individuals are working in Nevada than ever earlier than. “Kicking butt,” he mentioned, referring to both himself, Nevada or each; it wasn’t clear which. “Kicking butt.”

Also, Lombardo added, Nevada’s crime charge has fallen for each violent and property crimes — “with none assist from the legal professional normal.”

The phrases “Donald” and “Trump” by no means handed the governor’s lips.

Lombardo has had a considerably combined relationship with the president.

He kept his distance throughout the 2024 marketing campaign and has often, selectively, taken concern with the administration since Trump returned to workplace. The governor, for example, spoke out in opposition to cuts to Medicaid in addition to the shuttering of wind and solar projects in Nevada.
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But Lombardo didn’t assist himself within the least when Trump got here to city in August for one more rally, this one on the Red Rock Casino. He heaped reward on the president and defended, of all issues, the care and feeding of Trump’s plutocratic pals.

“Quite typically when the press and the media runs him down, they consider, you understand, he’s taking good care of his billionaire mates,” Lombardo mentioned. “Those billionaire mates present jobs. Unless you maintain them, these jobs are absent.”

Naturally, the second confirmed up in a marketing campaign advert, displaying the grinning governor alongside a smirking Trump and ending with the tagline: “Joe Lombardo. For Trump, Not Nevada.”

For his half, the governor has portrayed Ford as feckless and borderline corrupt.

He’s seized on the legal professional normal’s plentiful out-of-state journey — for official enterprise, Ford says — to painting him as a high-flier beholden to the particular pursuits that financed his jaunts.

Lombardo has additionally accused Ford of being weak on crime, citing, specifically, the case of a Nevada inmate convicted of manslaughter within the killing of a pregnant lady. Ford positioned the inmate’s bid for clemency on the agenda of the state pardons board — an instance, Lombardo claims, of the best way Ford treats criminals.

The Democrat mentioned he was merely following process and would have opposed the clemency request had he not missed the board’s assembly resulting from an unspecified household emergency.

With an enormous monetary benefit and the good thing about a extremely practiced marketing campaign staff, Lombardo has saved the race shut regardless of the tough political local weather. But to a substantial diploma, his destiny is past something that Lombardo can management. The key query is how big the Democratic wave is on Nov. 3 and the way robust the Trump undertow.

Those forces of purple and blue — greater than something both candidate says or does — will decide the winner on this most purple of states.