Blue wave washes over Nevada, too: 5 takeaways after midterm election

A sense that the blue wave sweeping the U.S. would also wash through Nevada became apparent at a gathering of Democrats in Las Vegas Tuesday evening, hours before the state began reporting preliminary election results around midnight.

One by one, Nevada’s congressional Democrats who took the stage at the Meet Las Vegas venue celebrated colleagues’ victories across the U.S. Attendees cheered at a TV broadcast showing Republican defeats in red states like Kansas and Texas, and erupted when they learned that their party had flipped the House and Senate.

“I wish they were putting our numbers up there,” U.S. Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., told the crowd. “But I think it’s looking very good.”

Attorney General Aaron Ford was mid-speech early Wednesday morning when he learned that Nevada had finally dropped preliminary results, showing he was ahead of Gov. Joe Lombardo.

Ultimately, Nevada Democrats captured the governor’s mansion, the rest of the statewide offices, the Legislature and the four congressional seats, including in a district that had been dominated by Republicans since it was created.

Time will tell how long the traditionally purple Silver State will remain that way. Until then, here are five Las Vegas Review-Journal takeaways about the 2026 midterm election.

Not a close governor’s race

Emerson College Polling surveyed likely Nevada voters twice: in November 2025 and early September. Both showed Ford and Lombardo in a statistical dead heat.

A Noble Predictive poll conducted the week before Election Day showed a virtual tie.

During his midnight speech Tuesday, Ford urged patience.

“I know a lot of you came here hoping to hear a final answer tonight,” he said. “This race right now, we believe, is too close to call.”

Moments later, he interrupted his prepared remarks to say he had just been told results that had just dropped showed him seven percentage points ahead in early voting.

On the other side of town, Lombardo had told his supporters to pay little attention to Democratic wins elsewhere, warning that initial returns could show him losing but turn around.

He noted that had happened to him on Election Day 2022. He ultimately turned it around.

This race wasn’t close.

Ford was up 51.7 percent to Lombardo’s 44 percent as of Friday. In comparison, Lombardo defeated former Gov. Steve Sisolak by 1.5 percentage points in 2022.

Historical election

Nevada has seen Democratic and Republican Legislature trifectas before.

It’s also seen incumbent governors lose after a single term in office after their challenger tied them to unpopular U.S. presidents. It happened in 2022.

Nevada, however, had never elected a Black governor. Ford not only made history here, but in the entirety of states west of the Mississippi River.

Americans had only elected three Black governors in the past.

That changed Tuesday when they chose Ford in Nevada; Florida voted in Byron Donalds; Georgia elected Keisha Lance Bottoms, and Wisconsin voted in David Crowley. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore won re-election.

Another first was a Democrat winning Northern Nevada’s 2nd Congressional District, which has been red since it was created following the 1980 U.S. Census.

Former Nevada Assemblymember Teresa Benitez-Thompson will replace retiring Rep. Mark Amodei, R-Nev., who won the district by nearly 76,000 votes just two years ago.

Benitez-Thompson was ahead of Republican David Flippo by more than 5 percentage points as of Friday.

Amodei refused to endorse Flippo and was kicked out of the Washoe County Republican Party as a result.

Legislature trifecta

As long as most Democrats are on board, they will have all the votes they need to pass their Legislative agenda with no input from Republicans, as long as it doesn’t involve raising taxes.

Ford is likely to have an easier time in Carson City than Lombardo, who had to deal with a Democratic Legislature majority in both houses.

For two regular sessions, lawmakers had the ability to kill Republican legislation they didn’t like, while the governor had a veto pen to dismiss bills of theirs he didn’t support.

This time around, Democrats won a supermajority — or two-thirds of the seats — in the Assembly, but fell short one seat in the Senate.

A supermajority in both chambers would have not only allowed them to raise taxes outright, but also reverse any potential Ford vetoes.

High voter turnout?

After the last Nevada voter cast their ballot at almost 12 a.m. in Las Vegas — after waiting in line for about five hours — it would be easy to attribute the wait to record-breaking Election Day turnout.

That wasn’t the case.

More than 209,000 Nevadans showed up to vote Tuesday, a figure comparable to the previous midterm election, which saw a few thousand more people vote that day, according to state figures.

However, mail and early voting saw increased participation this time around.

More than 60,000 additional voters had returned their mail ballots as of Friday compared with 2022, and about 24,000 more people took advantage of early, in-person voting.

Total voter turnout might end up leveling out.

As of Friday, registered, active-voter participation for the election was 52.5 percent, a couple of percentage points below the 2022 figure.

Battleground state status

Purple Nevada is an established bellwether state and one of the first states to vote in presidential primaries. Nevada will go second for both parties in 2028.

Daniele Monroe-Moreno, the chair of the Nevada State Democratic Party and newly elected mayor of North Las Vegas, said that she does not expect Nevada’s status as a bellwether state will change despite the deep Democratic swing.

“I think Nevada will always be a battleground state because we’re a transient state,” she told reporters this week. “And let’s face it, Nevadans are like the rest of America, if you don’t show up for them, they can change.”

If Nevadans needed a sign that the 2028 election is just around the corner, the secretary of state’s office already started publishing information about it this week.

Contact Ricardo Torres-Cortez at [email protected]. The Associated Press contributed to this report.