Las Vegas, Nevada: Aaron Ford Wins Governor Race, Beating Joe Lombardo to Become Nevada's First Black Governor

Democrat Aaron Ford has won the race for governor of Nevada, defeating Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo and flipping the office back to Democrats, according to race calls from the Associated Press, NBC News and the New York Times. USA Today reported the calls from NBC News and the New York Times at 4:58 a.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, November 4, 2026, and The Wall Street Journal reported the Associated Press call the same morning.

In the Associated Press count, Ford had 491,277 votes and Lombardo had 422,763, a margin of 68,514 votes, with 1,492 of 1,760 precincts reporting and an estimated 84.82 percent of the vote counted. The Journal put the share at 51.5 percent for Ford to 44.3 percent for Lombardo, with about 85 percent of the vote reported. Danielle Ford, a State Board of Education member who ran with no party affiliation and is not related to Aaron Ford, had 25,858 votes in the Associated Press count.

Ford, 54, has been Nevada's attorney general since 2019 and will be the state's first Black governor, the Journal and USA Today reported. The Nevada Independent reported that he will also be the first elected Black governor west of the Mississippi River. Ford was the first African American to hold statewide constitutional office in Nevada, after serving as majority leader of the state Senate.

A long night in Nevada

Nevada polls closed at 7 p.m. Pacific time on Tuesday, November 3, 2026, but state law held results until the last voter in line had cast a ballot. The first results came out early on Wednesday, after the last voters in line finished casting ballots at 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

The first batch of results put Ford ahead of Lombardo, 51.5 percent to 44.5 percent, the Reno Gazette Journal reported at 3:11 a.m. Eastern time. Lombardo told supporters at the Republican election night headquarters to be patient and said he expected to keep the governor's office, KTNV reported, in the Review-Journal account of the night.

A toss-up race fought on prices

The race was rated a toss-up, and the final Noble Predictive Insights poll of record, taken from October 26 to October 28, 2026, found Ford and Lombardo tied at 47 percent each among 487 likely voters, with a margin of error of 4.44 points.

Lombardo, 63, was elected governor in 2022 after serving as sheriff of Clark County, which includes Las Vegas. He became the only Republican challenger to unseat an incumbent Democratic governor that year, defeating Steve Sisolak. Lombardo embraced President Donald Trump and appeared with him on the campaign trail, the Journal reported. Ford's campaign tied Lombardo to Trump, The Nevada Independent reported, and Ford ran on the cost of living.

What Ford has promised

Ford pledged to sign a set of bills that Lombardo vetoed, among them a cap on prescription drug prices at Medicare levels, universal free school meals and limits on corporate home buying, the Las Vegas Sun reported, and Ford said he would sign several of them in his first 30 days. The Nevadan reported that his pledges also included expanded paid family leave and a cap on insulin at 35 dollars, drawn from bills Lombardo vetoed during the 2025 legislative session.

None of those bills becomes law on its own. Each would have to be reintroduced and passed again when the Legislature meets on February 1 in Carson City. Democrats also secured a two-thirds supermajority in the Assembly on Tuesday, The Nevada Independent reported.