Lombardo falls to Ford as Republicans nationwide suffer historically brutal election

Nevada Democratic Attorney General Aaron Ford squashed the reelection bid of Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, part of a drubbing suffered by Republicans nationwide.

The Associated Press called the governor’s race for Ford shorty before 2 a.m. Wednesday.

The Lombardo camp’s massive fundraising edge combined with incumbency gave the appearance early that Ford might have trouble mounting a competitive race. But as has been the case for Republicans up and down the ballot nationwide in 2026, the Republican governor’s ties with Trump effectively saddled him with Trump’s economy.

Early in the year Lombardo’s campaign and its related political action committees, which heavily outraised and outspent the Ford effort from the start, spent lavishly on ads labeling the Democrat “High-flying Aaron Ford” for multiple trips Ford took in his capacity as attorney general. 

More recently, the Lombardo camp criticized Ford for placing the clemency bid of a Nevada inmate, who was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the shooting death of a pregnant woman and her baby, on the state Pardons Board agenda, portraying the move as Ford coddling a criminal. 

But Ford’s campaign and its related PACs took advantage of the voter displeasure with Trump economic policies, frequently tying Lombardo to Trump, connections that were often accompanied by the word “affordability.”

Those dots were easier for Ford to connect after Lombardo appeared next to Trump on stage in Las Vegas in August and defended the president’s penchant for “taking care of his billionaire friends.”

Both campaigns scrambled to navigate the public backlash to data centers. Both candidates had a history of supporting state tax breaks to attract data centers, positions both of them would revise in an effort to match public sentiment.

Ford addressed supporters at a Democratic watch party in downtown Las Vegas late Tuesday night, saying that the election “was about whether working people in Nevada have a government that works for them” and “whether Nevadans, not billionaires, not special interests, not politicians, decide what happens in the Silver State.”

His speech was interrupted by the release of early election results showing him ahead of Lombardo.

Earlier in the evening, Lombardo had addressed his own supporters and attempted to strike an upbeat tone.

“There’s a lot of things going on in the world, right, out of our control,” Lombardo said. “Who gives a crap what’s going on in the rest of the world? We are worried about Nevada, right? I think we’ve done a great job. I think we’ve done a fantastic job.”

Shortly after making those remarks, Lombardo left the building, a supporter telling the crowd that no results in the race were expected until Wednesday morning.

Arguably the most memorable line uttered by a Nevada politician in 2026 was “I’m Joe Lombardo,” declared by Lombardo in a traffic stop that was caught on camera, and in which the officer who had pulled Lombardo over for failing to stop at a red light let the former sheriff go without a ticket.

This article has been updated with comments from Ford.