2022 Nevada gubernatorial election
The 2022 Nevada gubernatorial election took place on November 8, 2022, to elect the governor of Nevada. Incumbent Democratic governor Steve Sisolak lost re-election to a second term, being defeated by Republican nominee, Clark County Sheriff, Joe Lombardo.
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| Turnout | 54.6% | ||||||||||||||||
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Lombardo: 50–60% 60–70% 70–80% 80–90% Sisolak: 40–50% 50–60% | |||||||||||||||||
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| Elections in Nevada |
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| Nevada portal |
Sisolak was the first Democrat to seek re-election to Nevada's governorship since Bob Miller in 1994, and was subsequently the only incumbent governor in the United States to lose re-election in 2022. Decision Desk HQ called the race for Lombardo on November 11. Amid a slate of failed gubernatorial pickup attempts, this was the only governorship Republicans flipped in the 2022 elections, as well as the only governorship in a state carried by one party in the 2020 presidential election to flip to the other party. This was also the first time since Pat Quinn's defeat in the 2014 Illinois gubernatorial election that an incumbent Democratic governor lost re-election. Significantly, Lombardo's win marked the first time in the state's history that anyone had won the governorship without winning either Clark or Washoe counties, home to a combined 89% of the state's population. This was due to Lombardo's more competitive margins in Clark County; Sisolak's previous opponent, Adam Laxalt, received only 40.8% of the vote there, while Lombardo received 45.4%.
Political analysts believe that the main reason for Sisolak's defeat can be narrowed down to his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic; lockdowns during the pandemic proved unpopular in Nevada, which has a reputation for historically being a relatively philosophically libertarian state.