Nevada Just Elected a Democratic Governor for the First Time Since 1994

Clark County Commissioner Steve Sisolak pulls off an upset.

Former Vice President Joe Biden rallies with Steve Sisolak after speaking at the Culinary Workers Union to kick early voting. Larry Burton/ZUMA Wire

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

In a race that had been a toss-up in the polls leading up to the election, Steve Sisolak defeated Republican Adam Laxalt to become Nevada’s first Democratic governor in more than 20 years.

Sisolak, currently a member of the Clark County Commission, is the first Democrat to be elevated to the Nevada governor’s mansion since 1994. With strong support from the culinary workers’ union, Sisolak managed to bring out enough voters in urban Clark County around Las Vegas to cancel out strong Republican turnout in rural areas in Washoe County around Reno.

His opponent comes from a storied Nevada political family. Currently the Nevada attorney general, Laxalt is the grandson of former Nevada governor and US senator Paul Laxalt and the illegitimate son of the late Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.).

Laxalt’s first job in politics was working for John Bolton, then an undersecretary of state for President George W. Bush. Bolton now works for President Donald Trump, who endorsed Laxalt over the summer. Laxalt campaigned to the right of incumbent Republican governor Brian Sandoval, with whom he has disagreed on a number of issues while serving as attorney general. Sandoval declined to endorse a candidate in the race to replace him.

In October, a dozen members of Laxalt’s family wrote an op-ed in the Reno newspaper, urging voters to reject his candidacy based on his “phoniness” and his position on immigration. They accused him of lacking Nevada roots and a real understanding for the state, which he moved to only about a year before running for attorney general. (Laxalt grew up in the DC area and went to Georgetown University.)

Laxalt has also steadfastly aligned himself with the National Rifle Association, even in the wake of the Las Vegas mass shooting, which left 59 people dead last October. After the shooting, Laxalt refused to endorse any gun control measures and said he thought it was important to “slow down” on such calls. The gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety’s political spending arm responded by committing $3.5 million to help get out the vote for Sisolak, who made gun safety a part of his campaign platform.*

In March, Ryan Bundy, son of controversial rancher Cliven Bundy, entered the race as an independent. Republicans feared that Bundy, who was polling at around 4 to 6 percent before the election, would siphon enough votes from Laxalt to throw the race to Sisolak. Bundy garnered less than 2 percent of the vote, mostly in rural areas, and not enough to significantly impact the race. Republican political consultant Chuck Muth, a former executive director of the Nevada Republican Party, predicted last week that this would be the case. “He’s got name recognition and certainly has sympathy for what he went through,” he told Mother Jones. “However, when people go to the polls, they may have a sentimental attachment to a candidate, but when they look at the hard reality, a lot of those rural voters, in the privacy of the voting booth, they’re not going to vote for him.”

Correction: An earlier version of this article misidentified the origin of Everytown for Gun Safety.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate