Joe Lombardo is Ruining Nevada. Download and share his report card.

Supports Cutting Health Care for Nevadans
Told Nevadans to 'Feel a Little Pain' for Tariffs While Everything Got More Expensive
Backs Taking Food from Nevada Families
Cheered on DOGE While Nevadans Lost Jobs and Benefits
Killed Clean Energy Jobs in Nevada
Took $1 Million From the Mining Giant Whose Regulator He Fired
Vetoed Nevada's IVF Bill and Backs New Limits on Reproductive Care
Undermined Confidence in Nevada's Elections
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Nevada Report Card

Supports Cutting Health Care for Nevadans

Every Nevadan deserves access to quality, affordable health care. Joe Lombardo cheered on the law that takes it away.

On the day the House gave final passage to Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill," Lombardo brushed aside the fight over it as "beltway talking heads" bickering, and told Nevadans they "should be excited about the potential impacts of tax cuts, investments in small businesses and American manufacturing, and efforts to help secure our border."
That law is estimated to strip health insurance from at least 17 million Americans — including as many as 114,000 Nevadans, according to the congressional Joint Economic Committee.
Lombardo knew exactly what was coming. Months earlier he had written to Congress warning that rolling back expanded Medicaid and capping federal Medicaid payments would be "most detrimental for Nevada" — then welcomed the bill that did it.
Because of how much it adds to the national debt, the same law could force nearly $500 billion in cuts to Medicare, the Congressional Budget Office found.
Lombardo has backed the law's Medicaid work requirements. Roughly 147,000 Nevadans will have to document 80 hours a month of work to keep their coverage beginning in January 2027.
Nevadans are already losing coverage. After enhanced federal premium subsidies expired on Jan. 1, enrollment in Nevada's Affordable Care Act marketplace fell 12.5 percent in the months after open enrollment closed — more than double the 5.7 percent drop over the same stretch a year earlier — as average net premiums for subsidized enrollees rose $82. As KFF's Cynthia Cox put it, "We know that real people lost their health insurance coverage."

Joe Lombardo welcomed a law that rips health care away from Nevadans to fund tax cuts for the wealthy. We deserve better.

Told Nevadans to 'Feel a Little Pain' for Tariffs While Everything Got More Expensive

Trump's tariffs are raising prices on groceries and threatening Nevada's hospitality industry. Joe Lombardo told Nevadans to live with it.

Asked in March 2025 what his response to Trump's tariffs was, Lombardo answered, "I think we maybe need to feel a little pain" — saying he hoped for "long-term benefits." Days later, the Dow plunged more than 2,200 points in the worst market sell-off in five years.
Nevada's own industries were already sounding the alarm. The Nevada Retail Association warned the tariffs would have an "immediate impact on the cost of imported household items, groceries, and essentials critical for Nevada families" — and more than half of Southern Nevada's international visitors come from Canada and Mexico, the two countries Trump hit first.
Asked what the tariffs would do to Nevada, Lombardo did not respond to requests for comment.

Joe Lombardo chose Trump's tariffs over Nevadans' pocketbooks. We deserve better.

Backs Taking Food from Nevada Families

More than 200,000 Nevada households rely on SNAP to feed their families. Joe Lombardo cheered on the law that cut it.

The "One Big Beautiful Bill" cut federal SNAP funding by $186 billion through 2034 — about 20 percent, the largest cut to SNAP in history. Lombardo told Nevadans they should be "excited" about the bill.
As of April 2026, 218,715 Nevada households were receiving SNAP, according to USDA — down from 271,271 the year before.

Joe Lombardo cheered on the largest cut to food assistance in American history. We deserve better.

Cheered on DOGE While Nevadans Lost Jobs and Benefits

More than 600,000 Nevadans rely on Social Security, thousands of Nevadans work for the federal government, and about a third of the state budget comes from Washington. Joe Lombardo cheered on the people cutting all three.

When a supporter demanded "We need DOGE reforms in Nevada!" in February 2025, Lombardo's office replied: "We agree! And that's why Governor Lombardo has been laser-focused on eliminating government waste since day one of his administration."
DOGE's cuts landed on Nevada within weeks. Grants funding free mental health counseling for youth in Elko and Humboldt Counties and care for homeless children were abruptly cut off, and a UNLV telehealth program that had served 150 students the previous semester was down to 35. Lombardo, who had made mental health a centerpiece of his State of the State address, did not respond to requests for comment on whether the state would replace the money.
No one will say how many Nevadans lost their federal jobs — the administration withheld the numbers from Congress and the public — but 3,745 Nevada federal employees were in the recently hired, probationary category most exposed to the firings. Great Basin National Park lost 20 percent of its staff in a single day.
At a February 2025 forum, Lombardo said it would be "malpractice" for Nevada not to plan for the federal cuts — and said that plan would likely mean reducing the number of full-time state employees and "slicing and dicing" which state services survive.
Rather than fight the cuts, Lombardo called Attorney General Aaron Ford's lawsuits against the Trump administration "unfortunate."
Meanwhile the Social Security Administration buckled under website crashes, overloaded servers and long lines at field offices — until it simply stopped publicly reporting its wait times. 607,411 Nevadans depend on Social Security.

Joe Lombardo sided with DOGE over Nevada workers and seniors. We deserve better.

Killed Clean Energy Jobs in Nevada

Nevada is a solar energy leader. Joe Lombardo has worked to give that advantage away.

The "One Big Beautiful Bill" Lombardo welcomed slashed the clean energy tax credits Nevada's solar boom was built on. Energy Innovation projects it will cost Nevada more than 8,300 jobs by 2035, shrink the state's economy by $8 billion over the decade, and add nearly $4 billion to Nevadans' energy bills.
Of the 63 new and proposed solar projects on the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada's list, 22 are scheduled to come online after Trump's 2027 cutoff for the tax credits and another 41 have no in-service date at all — leaving them at risk of losing their financial backing.
Lombardo takes credit for Nevada projects built with Biden-era money he campaigned against — $275 million to widen I-80 and $170 million for rural broadband — after denouncing Biden's "reckless spending" and "disastrous policies."
As Governor, Lombardo pulled his predecessor's climate plan offline and replaced it, a year and a half later, with a 33-page document one state lawmaker said had "no data, no goals, and no proposals."
He also withdrew Nevada from the U.S. Climate Alliance, writing that the coalition's goals "conflict with Nevada's energy policy objectives."

Joe Lombardo traded away Nevada's clean energy future. We deserve better.

Took $1 Million From the Mining Giant Whose Regulator He Fired

Joe Lombardo has raised more money than any governor's candidate in Nevada history — and almost none of it comes from ordinary Nevadans. It comes from casinos, developers, billionaires, and a gold mining conglomerate that got the state's top water regulator fired.

On Nov. 12, a lobbyist for Nevada Gold Mines emailed Lombardo's chief of staff to attack the state engineer's draft plan to reduce groundwater pumping in the Humboldt River Basin, where the company runs 22 mines: "It's coercion masked as collaboration." Chief of staff Ryan Cherry forwarded it up the chain with two words — "See below." A month later, State Engineer Adam Sullivan was gone.
That email was one of nearly 200 emails, letters, attachments and meetings in which mining companies and developers complained to Lombardo's office about Sullivan. Records of a meeting between Lombardo himself and representatives of Nevada Gold Mines were redacted.
Sullivan was the first Nevada state engineer to be fired since 1981. His personnel file contained no records of reprimand or disciplinary action — only a termination agreement. He said he had "faced pressure to rescind decisions or accelerate decisions, or withhold decisions, or to not attend public meetings."
The official who fired him, Lombardo appointee James Settelmeyer, said in a sworn deposition that he doubted the science behind Sullivan's draft order — while acknowledging he is not a hydrologist, has no training in water modeling, does not know how to read a model, and that the hydrologists he had consulted were hired by the mining companies. He also acknowledged the department never lost a case at the Nevada Supreme Court under Sullivan.
On March 5 — three months after the firing — Nevada Gold Mines gave $500,000 to a PAC supporting Lombardo, bringing the company's total to $1 million, more than it has given any other Nevada politician. Asked about it, Lombardo's campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
UNLV political scientist Ken Miller told The Nevada Independent that the donation itself fit the company's usual pattern — but the firing didn't: "The weird timing might be when the Lombardo administration acted on the water engineer. Why did they make that decision when they made it? Because it appears Nevada Gold Mines is doing what they always do."
Nevada Gold Mines is not an outlier in Lombardo's operation. Of the $4.3 million his campaign raised in 2025, about $1.9 million — 44 percent — came through "bundling," the practice of routing money through affiliated companies to blow past Nevada's $10,000 contribution limit.
Hotel magnate Robert Bigelow gave $220,000 through 22 different companies, all tied to a single address, all on the same day. Gambler and developer Billy Walters, convicted of insider trading in 2017, gave $200,000 through 20 entities. Caesars gave $80,000 through eight affiliated companies. As Miller put it, "Campaign finance systems like these render individual contribution limits moot."
Casino executives Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta each gave $1 million to a Lombardo PAC, and their company Station Casinos gave another $1 million — those three checks alone accounted for about one-third of everything Lombardo raised in 2025. A PAC bankrolled by Uber gave $250,000. Leading Builders of America, a Washington, D.C. homebuilders group, gave $300,000.
Real estate and development interests put roughly $1.6 million into Lombardo's 2025 haul. He then vetoed housing bills that would have capped rent increases for seniors and reformed Nevada's eviction process, and reportedly told legislators to vote against a cap on corporate homebuying after vetoing a similar bill two years earlier.
Asked about all of this, Lombardo's campaign said "there is nothing unusual or improper about the makeup of the Governor's donor base." Aaron McKean of the Campaign Legal Center disagreed: "It's always going to raise that question for regular folks — what is this person buying? ... it does … undermine the confidence that the public has in our elected officials."
The money has only gotten bigger. In the second quarter of 2026 alone, the Lombardo-affiliated Better Nevada PAC raised $12 million — including $2.5 million from Bigelow, $5 million from the Republican Governors Association, and $1 million from billionaire venture capitalist Benjamin Horowitz and his wife, best known in Las Vegas for donating Metro's Cybertrucks and surveillance equipment. A second Lombardo PAC raised $2 million, half of it from Station Casinos.
Over that same quarter, Lombardo collected $9,400 from Nevadans giving $100 or less. Ford collected $185,800.

Joe Lombardo's campaign is funded by the industries he regulates — and when one of them complained about a regulator, he fired the regulator and cashed the check. We deserve better.

Vetoed Nevada's IVF Bill and Backs New Limits on Reproductive Care

Nevadans have voted twice to protect abortion rights. Joe Lombardo calls himself "pro-life," has backed bans and waiting periods, and vetoed the bipartisan bill that would have guaranteed access to IVF.

In June 2025, Lombardo vetoed Senate Bill 217, which would have established a statutory right to IVF in Nevada, protected fertility providers, and required insurers to cover infertility diagnosis and treatment. The bill had cleared the state Senate 15-5, with two Republicans joining every Democrat. Lombardo's veto message said the coverage mandate was "fiscally impossible." Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro's response: "Even Donald Trump has backed efforts to expand IVF, but Lombardo is picking out-of-state extremists over protecting Nevada doctors and patients."
Lombardo still says he would personally support a 15-week cutoff on abortion — six weeks earlier than Nevada's current 24-week law — while insisting the question is settled and should be left to voters. Political scientist David Damore told The Nevada Independent that Lombardo "hasn't been particularly assertive on the issue, knowing that there's nothing he can do in the legislative process, and they can read the polling just as well as anybody else. He's stepped very, very cautiously around the issue."
When Roe v. Wade fell, Lombardo said the Supreme Court had "rightfully returned the power to the people and their elected state representatives." Asked at a primary debate whether he would support bans on morning-after pills and waiting periods, he answered: "Yes, absolutely." His campaign later said he had no plans to restrict access to Plan B, but would not name which anti-abortion measures he would support.
Lombardo said he would support sending Nevada voters a 13-week abortion ban ballot initiative, with exceptions for physical health, rape and incest. His spokeswoman put it plainly: "If the voters and the Nevada Legislature sent a bill to the governor's office, Joe has always said that he would view it through a pro-life lens."
At the October 2022 gubernatorial debate, Lombardo stood by the "pro-life lens" line and said he would approve mandatory waiting periods and parental notification for minors seeking an abortion. Asked about his earlier support for a 13-week ban, he said his position had changed but offered no reason: "I thought about it more and evaluated. Not my political position or my campaign. I just thought about it more."
Lombardo attacked the opposing position as radical, posting that "Steve Sisolak's extremist stance is out of touch with what the majority of Nevadans believe" on parental notification.

Joe Lombardo vetoed Nevada's IVF protections and wants new limits on reproductive care. We deserve better.

Undermined Confidence in Nevada's Elections

Joe Lombardo spent his rise to the governorship casting doubt on Nevada's elections — and filed for office beside the man who chaired the party behind the state's fake elector scheme.

Although he acknowledged that Biden won, Lombardo questioned whether the 2020 election was "fair and square," said he did not know whether the results were accurate, and said he believed "there was fraud on both sides."
He backed repealing Nevada's permanent universal mail-in voting, saying the system had "mechanisms in there to create an environment for fraud" — and cast doubt on the signature verification checks Nevada uses to screen its ballots.
When Lombardo filed his candidacy for governor in March 2022, he was accompanied to the Secretary of State's office by Nevada GOP chairman Michael McDonald — whose party's six electors signed paperwork falsely certifying Nevada's electoral votes for Trump, and whose phone the FBI seized as part of its fake elector investigation.

Joe Lombardo undermined confidence in Nevada's elections. We deserve better.