Clark County Commissioner Larry Brown, left, Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak, center, and Sheriff Joe Lombardo talk before a 1 October Sunrise Remembrance ceremony at the Clark County Government Center amphitheater Thursday, Oct 1, 2020.
Friday, March 18, 2022 | 2 a.m.
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Since launching his campaign for the Republican nomination for governor, Joe Lombardo has been knives-out for sitting Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak.
Lombardo has slammed Sisolak for his handling of the pandemic. He’s accused him of not supporting police and blasted him for closing small businesses and for “socialist policies.”
But not long ago, he and Sisolak were pretty cordial and supporters of each other. Lombardo donated to Sisolak’s 2018 campaign and sat on Sisolak’s transition committee.
“I’ve known Joe for a long time,” Sisolak said this week. “Joe was a contributor to my campaign. He was an early supporter and raised money for me.”
The relationship, however, has shifted dramatically as Lombardo, the sitting sheriff in Clark County, seeks to woo a GOP base energized by the politics of former President Donald Trump.
Lombardo donated $5,000 to Sisolak’s gubernatorial campaign four years ago. It’s the most he’s donated to any politician, according to the secretary of state’s website.
Lombardo, whose campaign declined to provide a comment for this story, was also on Sisolak’s transition committee when Sisolak took office. He was the only Republican on the team.
“Joe knows me well and has cooperated and helped me along my political campaigns,” Sisolak said. “I’ve appreciated that.”
Sisolak, meanwhile, has supported Lombardo in his bid for sheriff, an elected office he assumed in 2015.
In 2014, Sisolak’s pre-gubernatorial campaign arm, Friends of Steve Sisolak, donated $1,000 to Lombardo’s campaign. Sisolak also endorsed him for sheriff.
The respect was apparent in the aftermath of the Oct. 1, 2017, mass shooting on the Strip. Sisolak, as head of the Clark County Commission, and Lombardo worked side by side launching a victims’ fund that raised nearly $12 million.
“We set up a GoFundMe account because the sheriff and I thought that we could maybe help some of these victims with funeral expenses, with travel expenses,” Sisolak said at the time.
A few weeks after the shooting, Lombardo became emotional when discussing the officers who responded to the shooting scene. “Excuse me for my emotion,” Lombardo said, beginning to tear up. Sisolak, standing behind him, put his hand on his shoulder.
They also worked in unison during another tragedy, the economic and health crises brought on by the pandemic. It was up to Lombardo’s department to uphold the state’s business closures and mask mandate policies implemented by Sisolak, even though Lombardo might have disagreed with them.
That’s not to say that Sisolak and Lombardo haven’t had disagreements along the way.
Sisolak, as part of his role on the commission, helped oversee the Metro budget. In 2016, when Las Vegas saw a spike in violent crime, Lombardo emphasized the need for more police officers, according to an Associated Press story.
Sisolak agreed, but asked “how do you pay for them?”
In 2015, after a woman steered her car onto the sidewalk along the Strip, killing one person and injuring 35, Lombardo said Metro was working to improve traffic and pedestrian safety in the resort corridor, including putting up barricades.
But Sisolak expressed doubts about fencing and barricades as solutions to pedestrian safety shortcomings, believing the solution should be creating wider sidewalks and more pedestrian overpasses.
These disagreements, of course, have only intensified now that they are political rivals. When he launched his campaign last summer, Lombardo said in a statement that “our state is going in the wrong direction. But I’ve got experience and leadership that Nevadans can trust to get us back on track.”
He later posted on Twitter that Sisolak is failing Nevadans, not supporting the police, closing small businesses and implementing socialist policies.
“Governor Steve Sisolak has failed Nevada when it comes to handling ANTIFA and COVID-19,” Lombardo tweeted in August 2021.
Lombardo has also donated to the campaigns Mayor Carolyn Goodman, Judge Melissa Saragosa, Las Vegas Councilman Stavros Anthony, and former Democratic state Sen. Yvanna Cancela. Anthony, a Republican, is now running for lieutenant governor.
Most recently, in November 2021, Lombardo gave $150 to Kevin McMahill, who is running to replace him as sheriff, according to records from the secretary of state’s website.
