Nevada primaries show Ford, Lombardo leading in crowded races
Nevada’s crowded primary drew just 19.21% turnout, yet Aaron Ford, Joe Lombardo and Michelle Romero emerged as the names to watch in November.
Nevada’s crowded June 9 primary offered an early read on the mood of a battleground state that can swing hard in either direction. Aaron Ford moved to the front of the Democratic governor’s race, Joe Lombardo stayed ahead on the Republican side, and turnout reached only 395,817 voters out of 2,060,184 registered statewide, a 19.21% rate that pointed to a subdued electorate even with the ballot stretched across statewide offices, congressional primaries and Henderson’s mayoral race.
Ford’s showing set up a rematch with Lombardo in November, after Ford won the Democratic primary with 65% in the initial election-night count. Ford, Nevada’s former Senate majority leader and the first Black attorney general in state history when he took office in 2019, ran on housing affordability and a tougher line against Trump administration policies. Lombardo, endorsed by Donald Trump, campaigned on reducing business regulations and increasing housing inventory. The contrast sharpened the stakes in a state where Lombardo defeated Steve Sisolak by 1.5 percentage points in 2022 and where Trump later carried Nevada 50.6% to 47.5% over Kamala Harris, a margin of about 46,000 votes.
The ballot also showed which factions still had energy below the top of the ticket. AP live results had Dina Titus leading in the 1st Congressional District, Susie Lee ahead in the 3rd and state Sen. A.C. Benitez-Thompson leading in the 2nd, while the 4th District was uncontested. In statewide races, Nevada state Sen. Democratic Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro led for attorney general and fellow Democrat Cindi Nguyen Jauregui led for lieutenant governor, suggesting that established names still carried weight with primary voters.
Henderson added a local test of suburban sentiment. Mayor Michelle Romero led the nonpartisan race with 50.3% at 93% counted, ahead of Hollie Chadwick at 23.4% and Adam Price at 20.6%, an outright result that underscored the importance of incumbent advantage in Clark County’s fast-growing suburbs. Clark County recorded 250,619 turnout out of 1,508,787 registered voters, just 16.61%, while Washoe County reached 83,341 out of 321,409, or 25.93%. With Nevada’s voting-age population at 2.2 million and up by 200,000 since 2019, the primary suggested that November’s fight will again hinge on turnout, suburban organizing and how effectively both parties can hold a state that remains narrowly divided.
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