Fiore loses Pahrump judge primary as Nye County politics shift

Michele Fiore lost her bid to return as Pahrump Justice of the Peace, Department B, shifting control of one of Nye County’s most visible local judicial posts away from a former Assembly member whose legal troubles reshaped the race.

The primary result matters beyond Fiore’s political future because the Pahrump justice court is a front-line county office, where voters decide who will set the tone for daily court operations and public-facing justice. Nye County’s primary election notice listed the seat as a 6-year nonpartisan term, and the county’s election pages, along with the Nevada Secretary of State’s Silver State Election Results site, treat the county’s primary results as official.

Fiore’s campaign was shadowed from the start by the path that put her on the bench and then pulled her off it. Nye County commissioners appointed her as Pahrump justice of the peace in 2022. She later was convicted of fraud after using money intended for a fallen officer’s memorial for her own gain, then was suspended with pay from the Nevada bench after receiving a pardon from Donald Trump.

By May 2026, Fiore was already trailing two opponents in her re-election bid for the Pahrump judge seat, and she had been banned from her courtroom for nearly two years. Those details gave the race an unusually sharp local edge in Pahrump, where voters were not simply choosing a name on a ballot but deciding whether to restore authority to a judge whose conduct had already drawn statewide scrutiny.

The result marks a clear break from the 2022 appointment that placed Fiore in the job and suggests Nye County voters were unwilling to send her back to the bench after the fraud conviction and courtroom ban. With Fiore out of the race, the next justice of the peace will inherit a post where public trust and the daily management of the court will matter as much as the verdicts that come out of it.