HENDERSON, Nevada—As far as late-campaign rallies go, there wasn’t much flash but plenty of pan, as in dire warnings about what awaits should Joe Lombardo fail to unseat Nevada’s incumbent Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak in Nov. 8’s midterm elections.
The Clark County Sheriff and GOP gubernatorial candidate was speaking to 75 people gathered on Nov. 6 in a meeting room at the Nevada Republican Party’s office in Henderson. He spoke again of the vast differences in the GOP and Democratic Party’s vision for America’s future.
Lombardo’s list of bad things that would happen under a second term of a Sisolak administration included ongoing inflation, a sustained border crisis, uncertainties with election integrity, the quashing of parental rights, and fear of growing crime.
But that’s not going to happen, Lombardo told the crowd, because “I am confident” to become the next occupant of the governor’s mansion in Carson City.
Analytic election forecasters and polls aren’t so certain. Every statistical projection describes the race as a tossup and polls are indecisive, with Lombardo leading Sisolak by less than a percentage point while in August, surveys had Sisolak with a 2 percentage point advantage.
The Sisolak-Lombardo race is among 36 gubernatorial elections on ballots nationwide and among a handful where Democratic incumbents are facing strong challenges by Republican challengers.
While the polls are indecisive, Sisolak has a significant funding advantage. According to campaign finance reports filed with the Nevada Secretary of State’s Office, Sisolak’s campaign out-raised Lombardo’s by more than 50 percent.
The incumbent’s campaign reported raising about $6.5 million, with $1.21 million in cash on hand in mid-October. Lombardo’s campaign reported raising about $4 million, with $1.76 million cash on hand with three weeks to go in the campaign.
“Never mind the math,” Lombardo told supporters. “I don’t think the Democrats are showing up” at the polls Nov. 8 with the conviction and enthusiasm fired-up Republicans will.
He offered some “ammo to convince somebody who has not voted to vote for a good candidate, Joe Lombardo,” including the fact that if Sisolak secures another term, he’d be term-limited and no longer need to be responsive to voters.
Lombardo said Sisolak already is “failing to pay attention, failing to listen” to voters, so being term-limited would make him more allegedly impervious.
As a closing argument, he told supporters to ask the same question he’s asked Nevadans for the last 18 months: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago before Steve Sisolak became governor?”
“Not one person has told me, ‘My life is better four years later,’” Lombardo said. “Why wouldn’t they want change from the last four years? That’s our promise: We’re going to change the state. We’re going to change all that and return the state to you.”
He beseeched supporters to check and double-check that everyone they know gets to the polls. Other speakers stuck to that theme.
Power to Parents CEO Erin Phillips nearly came to tears when she described her elementary school daughter’s comment that “parents have to vote not only because it is a privilege but because they can’t let their kids down.”
As parents, “We have to male sure our voters speak for our kids,” Phillips said, adding that she’s doing her part. “I’m offering free baby-sitting” for parents to drop off their children while casting ballots.
“If the mail shows up Tuesday,” said Lt. Gov. candidate Stavros Anthony, a retired Las Vegas police captain and Las Vegas City Councilman since 2009, “then we have to show up Tuesday.”
Voter turn out, of course, is what will drive results. But a winter storm is brewing in the mountains along the Nevada-California state line and could make for hazardous road conditions around Reno and across Washoe County, Nevada’s second-most populated county.
Sisolak was campaigning in Reno and across Washoe County on Nov. 6, meeting with local tribal leaders in one stop and meeting-and-greeting others in coffee shops and churches.
“Rain, snow, or wind,” he said in a Twitter post, “#TeamSisolak is ready to get out the vote in Northern Nevada!”
