Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Stage is set for Nevada election after predicted primary outcomes

Lombardo Wins Republican Primary for Governor

Steve Marcus

Clark County Sheriff and Republican candidate for Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo shares the stage with former Sheriff Bill Young and his wife Donna as he gives a victory speech during an election watch party Tuesday, June 14, 2022.

Lombardo Wins Republican Primary for Governor

Clark County Sheriff and Republican candidate for Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo shares the stage with former Sheriff Bill Young and his wife Donna as he gives a victory speech during an election watch party Tuesday, June 14, 2022. Launch slideshow »

Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo is calling his win in the crowded GOP gubernatorial primary a triumph not only for himself, but for parents and their children’s education, for safer communities and for small business owners.  

“No matter who you are, where you’re from or who you voted for, I am ready to listen to you, work for you and restore your trust in your governor,” Lombardo said in his victory speech late Tuesday night. 

Lombardo is the presumed winner in the Republican primary, where he secured 47.87% of the vote in Clark County with about 31,176 votes as of late Tuesday. Reno attorney Joey Gilbert, one of more than a dozen challengers, had 19% of the votes in the county. North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee received 12.54%, and former U.S. Sen. Dean Heller had 8.94%. 

Lombardo will advance to the general election to face incumbent Gov. Steve Sisolak, who cruised in the primary with more than 90% of the vote to pace a group of Democratic leaders who convincingly won against lightly-known contenders. Three Nevada Democrats in Congress — Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, and Reps. Dina Titus and Susie Lee — also won by comfortable margins in the primary.  

Sisolak in 2018 won the governorship by 4 percentage points against Adam Laxalt to give Democrats their first statehouse trifecta, as they also won control of both chambers of the Nevada Legislature. 

Maintaining that control starts with Sisolak fighting off a Republican contender in Lombardo, as The Cook Political Report — a nonpartisan political newsletter that analyzes elections and campaigns — labels the race as a toss-up. 

“Thank you, Nevada. You put your trust in me in our fight for a second term and I humbly accept your nomination. We aren’t finished delivering for Nevada yet. We’ve made significant progress since 2019 - but we have more work to do to keep Nevada moving forward,” Sisolak wrote in a Twitter post. 

Statewide, the results for Clark County were not added to the Secretary of State’s website as of midnight Wednesday. Twelve of the 17 precincts had results in by 1 a.m. Wednesday. The county page showed Gilbert leading in Carson City, Churchill, Elko, Humboldt, Lander, Mineral and Storey counties.

But after the Associated Press called the race for Lombardo, Gilbert — who has strongly carried the “Big Lie” torch of election fraud — doubled down Tuesday night. In a Facebook post, he said he “smells a lawsuit because this stinks.”  

“I will concede nothing,” he wrote in the post. “No one likes No Show Joe and he absolutely is not beating me, and will not beat me in a fair fight/race. There’s a reason a real fighter with real legal teams is in this fight. We fix our elections, and we fix everything. Standby.”  

Lombardo called those claims of election fraud and threats of lawsuits “unfortunate,” but he said his daughter just graduated law school so he is prepared. Nevada Republican Party Chairman Michael McDonald also said those threats and claims were “disappointing.” 

“The only thing we have right now is that it took so long to get the votes,” McDonald said. “We’re trying to find out what happened with that. But there’s — I don’t know what his comments alluded to. My goal is to unite the party and bring everyone together so we have a Republican red wave.”  

Lombardo was the expected frontrunner, as he consistently led in polls and in fundraising, and in the last couple of months, received the coveted Republican endorsement from former President Donald Trump.  

In Clark County, 35.72% of registered Democrats voted, a total of 163,820, according to the Clark County Election website. For Republicans, 37.16% turned out to vote with a total of 121,826. All in all, 340,531 people in Clark County voted, 26.76% of total registered voters.  

Lombardo wasn’t the only expected frontrunner who followed through in winning the primary. Former Attorney General Adam Laxalt defeated Army veteran Sam Brown by about 14.5% of votes as of early Wednesday morning. In Clark County, Laxalt received 36,152 votes and Brown received 21,538.  

“Together, we have taken an important step tonight,” Laxalt said at his election night party in Reno, according to the Associated Press. “An important step in taking our country back, an important step in taking our great state of Nevada.”  

Laxalt, who has the backing of big Republicans across the country, including Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, made a big push the last few weeks in his campaign, bringing some of those big names out to vouch for him.  

“I just called Adam Laxalt to congratulate him on a hard-fought primary win,” Brown said in a statement late Tuesday night. “The stakes are high. We must take back the U.S. Senate, the House, and the governorship. I will support Republican campaigns and work tirelessly to turn out every Republican in Nevada this November.” 

With Laxalt up against Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, who is sitting on a $11 million war chest, her campaign is gearing up for a fight. Tuesday night her campaign said Laxalt won “thanks to $2 million in spending from Washington D.C. special interest groups.”  

“Adam Laxalt is only out for himself, not Nevada, which is why he was overwhelmingly rejected in his last campaign,” said campaign spokesman Josh Marcus-Blank in a statement, alluding to Laxalt’s 2018 loss in the governor’s race. “A lifelong Nevadan, Catherine Cortez Masto has a record of working with Democrats and Republicans, always delivering for her state.”

In Nevada’s congressional races, Republican incumbent Rep. Mark Amodei in the 2nd Congressional District defeated his biggest Republican challenger Danny Tarkanian, a member of the Douglas County Commission, by 24.33% as of early Wednesday morning. Amodei received 20,062 votes, and Tarkanian received 11,325. Amodei will go up against presumed Democratic candidate E. Mercedes Krause.  

Lee in the 3rd Congressional District defeated her Democratic challenger, Randy Hynes, by about 20,000 votes to face Republican April Becker in November. Becker, a lawyer, defeated her four other Republican opponents by 67% of the vote. 

“I am honored that southern Nevadans have placed their trust in me once more to continue to fight for our families, defend our democracy, and protect our fundamental rights,” Lee said in a statement.  

In the 4th Congressional District, which covers North Las Vegas and the middle part of the state, including Pahrump and Tonopah, Democratic incumbent Steven Horsford was unopposed in the primary. His general election opponent is unknown as the Republican primary between Sam Peters and Annie Black was too close to call early Wednesday. 

As of early morning Wednesday, Black received 40.16% and Peters received 47.25%.  

Titus easily won against her Democratic challenger Amy Vilela by almost 17,000 votes in the 1st Congressional District, but is expected to receive a stiff challenge in the general election from Mark Robertson. Robertson received 30.20% of the vote in the GOP primary. 

The Cook Political Report is calling the showdown with Robertson — a certified financial planner and as an assistant professor at UNLV — a toss-up. 

Titus, who has been part of the House since 2008 and is Nevada’s long-tenured federal representative, usually isn’t challenged by a Republican opponent. But new congressional district maps approved late last year by Nevada lawmakers have peeled off some of the Democratic voters in Titus’s 1st Congressional District — which she easily won reelection in 2020 by 28.4 percentage points — and put them in more competitive 3rd and 4th districts.

That means Lee and Horsford likely will have a more Democratic-friendly district at her expense. 

“I am humbled that the Democratic voters of #NV01 overwhelmingly nominated me so that I can keep fighting for those who need it the most—not for those who have the most,” Titus posted on Twitter Tuesday night. 

In the lieutenant governor’s race, longtime educator Lisa Cano Burkhead received 55.49% of the statewide vote as of early Wednesday morning to be declared the winner by the Associated Press against Henderson Mayor Debra March. Cano Burkhead was appointed to the vacant position by Sisolak in December.  

“My parents came to Nevada with an elementary education and a hope and a dream,” Cano Burkhead wrote in a Twitter post Tuesday night. “One generation later, their daughter became Lt. Governor and tonight was affirmed by Nevada voters to keep fighting for that dream.” 

Election departments across the state are continuing to count. The departments must count all of the mail-in ballots that were mailed on Election Day, as well as provisional ballots, and there is also a period for signature cure. Public Information Officer Jennifer Russell with the Nevada Secretary of State’s Office said it will not have official results until after the counties canvass their votes, by June 24 at the latest.