Aaron Ford, the attorney general of Nevada, won the Democratic nomination for governor of the state on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press. His victory sets up a showdown with one of the country’s most vulnerable incumbent governors, Joe Lombardo, a Republican.
Mr. Ford faced a primary challenge from Alexis Hill, a commissioner from Nevada’s second most populous county, Washoe, but he consistently maintained a wide lead in polling, fund-raising and endorsements. He declined to debate Ms. Hill and instead focused on a prospective contest with Mr. Lombardo and the state’s struggling economy.
In Nevada, a critical and politically volatile battleground, voters have not hesitated to oust incumbents, especially during tough financial times. Steve Sisolak was the only sitting Democratic governor to lose a re-election bid in 2022, a defeat blamed on backlash to his pandemic-era lockdown orders.
Mr. Ford, 54, is hoping that pendulum will swing his way, with Nevada’s unemployment rate and gas prices among the highest in the nation. Democrats view the race as perhaps their best opportunity to flip a governor’s seat.
Tuesday’s primary victory is part of Mr. Ford’s unlikely rise through Nevada politics. He grew up poor in Texas, attended college through a federal program for low-income students and relied on food stamps and public housing when he became a single father in his early 20s. He is betting that his background will be an asset in a state where working-class voters often decide elections. Mr. Ford would be Nevada’s first Black governor.
Since announcing his campaign last year, Mr. Ford has sought to tie Mr. Lombardo to President Trump’s least popular policies, referring repeatedly to a flagging “Lombardo-Trump economy” and saying the governor hasn’t done enough to protect residents from the ripple effects of tariffs and the war in Iran.
“The governor himself has said he has an open line of communication with the president — if that’s the case, you should be utilizing it to improve our economy, not co-signing policies that are detrimental to our economy,” Mr. Ford said in an interview this year from an Ethiopian restaurant in Las Vegas that was at risk of closing amid fallout from the tariffs.
As attorney general, a post he has held since 2019, Mr. Ford has sued the Trump administration dozens of times, fighting the president on tariffs, federal funding and cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
If elected, Mr. Ford has pledged to repeal Nevada’s longstanding “right to work” law, which allows workers to opt out of unions at unionized workplaces, thus weakening organized labor. He has also railed against corporate homeownership and vowed to cancel millions of dollars in medical debt for the state’s lowest-income residents.
The race is expected to draw significant national attention and investment. Mr. Ford reported raising $1.5 million in the year’s first quarter, while Mr. Lombardo raised $3.7 million through his campaign and political action committee.
Mr. Lombardo, the former sheriff of Clark County, home to Las Vegas, has tried to cultivate a reputation as a moderate, defending his handling of the economy while pointing to his work to slash regulations, decrease taxes and court new investment from industries like lithium battery manufacturing and logistics. During his term, he has noted, the state added tens of thousands of new jobs.
With Mr. Trump, the governor has attempted the complicated balancing act increasingly common for Republicans in swing states, hoping to keep some distance without alienating the president’s core voters. In a March interview with The Nevada Independent, Mr. Lombardo said he felt Mr. Trump was “doing a good job,” but noted that there is “a lot of nuance and presentation styles that people don’t agree with — that I don’t agree with sometimes.”
When Mr. Trump visited Nevada in April, Mr. Lombardo did not appear with him, citing a scheduling conflict, but he posted a supportive message on social media.
Mr. Lombardo’s campaign and other Nevada Republicans have accused Mr. Ford of politicizing his role as the state’s top law enforcement official to pursue partisan litigation. They’ve also referred to him as “frequent flier Ford” to highlight the number of days he has spent out of state, traveling to professional conferences.
Mr. Ford has said the conferences, many sponsored by attorneys general groups, had helped foster bipartisan cooperation.
During the primary campaign, Mr. Ford managed to consolidate the support of much of Nevada’s Democratic Party establishment, from many of its top elected leaders to key activist and labor groups. He celebrated his victory on Tuesday evening at the headquarters of the powerful Culinary Workers Union, which represents workers in Las Vegas casinos and resorts.
“This economy is unaffordable for folks; it’s a red-flag emergency for us here in Las Vegas,” Ted Pappageorge, the union’s secretary-treasurer, said in an interview this year. “We think there’s going to be a big backlash in the polls this fall.”
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