Swept Out of Office by Covid, a Democratic Governor Eyes a Comeback

Many Democrats performed better than expected in the 2022 midterm elections, bucking historical trends to hold on to key governor’s offices and House seats and to expand their majority in the Senate.

One notable exception was Gov. Steve Sisolak of Nevada, who was weighed down by a backlash to the lockdowns he had ordered during the coronavirus pandemic and by the economic downturn that followed. Even as Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat, squeaked out a re-election victory in Nevada, Mr. Sisolak became the only Democratic governor to lose that year, giving way to Joe Lombardo, a Republican.

Now, as Democrats search for a direction after their November defeat and contemplate the best ways to oppose President Trump and his allies, Mr. Sisolak is considering a rematch against Mr. Lombardo. A former Clark County sheriff, Mr. Lombardo has stood as a Republican bulwark against the Democratic-controlled Nevada Legislature. He is up for re-election next year.

Mr. Lombardo occupies a somewhat rare position in today’s Republican Party. Though he speaks favorably of the president, he distanced himself last year from the state party and its focus on debunked election conspiracy theories, and he was not an especially vocal presence on the campaign trail for Mr. Trump.

In two phone calls this week, Mr. Sisolak, 71, spoke about a possible comeback attempt, the state of the Democratic Party and how the economic turmoil caused by Mr. Trump’s tariffs could affect Nevadans.

Here is the conversation, condensed and edited.

What have you been seeing in Nevada since you’ve been out of office, and how do you think Governor Lombardo has been doing?

I’ve seen a lot of changes. He vetoed 50-odd bills in the first session, and we’ll see what he does this session.

Visitation, with the economy the way it is right now, and our foreign partners — flights from Canada are down 15 percent. Same is true for Mexico. As the economy gets tougher and tougher, people aren’t going to have the disposable income to be able to come to Las Vegas for a nice vacation, and that’s going to cause a problem. That’s going to cost jobs.

Trump pulled visas from some students at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, which is disappointing. He’s laid off some federal workers, which is disappointing.

What people need to understand is, these aren’t just numbers. These are jobs. These are families.

I think we need Joe to stand up and start speaking up about some of these Nevada situations. I know he’s walking a tightrope with President Trump right now.

Are you considering challenging Lombardo in 2026?

We’re going to wait and see what happens as we go through the next few months of the Legislature. I’m not ruling it out — I’m looking into it. I’ve been encouraged by a lot of people to run again, and I’m considering it.

Today, I picked up some dry cleaning and ran into somebody who recognized me and said: ‘Jeez, I miss you. I wish you would run again.’ It’s a daily occurrence. It’s very heartwarming to see that people feel that way.

It’s a big undertaking. It’s a big decision. I’ll get with my family and look at everything.

We’re doing some polling [with John Anzalone, a veteran Democratic pollster]. We’re going over the questions now. Both a primary and general-election challenge — how people feel about the job that I did and the future going forward.

What do you think about Aaron Ford, the Democratic attorney general of Nevada, who has said he is planning to run for governor?

Yeah, I know Aaron. I’ve known him for a long, long time.

That’s a big decision. It’s something that I hope he thought through and decided with his family and he’ll make the decision that he feels is best for him.

You were the only incumbent Democratic governor to lose in 2022, and a big part of that was attributed to a backlash over Covid lockdowns. There’s a sense that this feeling also helped Trump last year. Could you overcome that?

Our priorities were saving people’s lives, and that’s what we did. I wouldn’t go back on that. We lost over 10,000 Nevadans to Covid. I didn’t consider re-election when I made those decisions.

Nevada, with its tourist-heavy economy, was slower than other states to recover from the pandemic. Last year, voters in the state were still unhappy with the cost of living and backed a Republican for president for the first time since 2004. What would you say to those people?

All the promises that came from Lombardo or Trump to bring down the cost of housing and groceries and gasoline haven’t come to fruition. People are feeling the pain and the suffering more than ever.

There’s a lot of soul-searching going on with Democrats right now. Working-class voters last election felt Democrats were no longer speaking to them. Is that something you’ve wrestled with?

It was a difficult situation with Joe Biden staying in for so long, and then getting out. People felt like they weren’t hearing the truth.

We talked more about transgender athletes than we did about the cost of groceries. And I don’t think people are as concerned with transgender athletes playing in sports as opposed to what their grocery bill’s going to be.

Voters felt we were talking at them, rather than with them. They wanted a change, because they were dissatisfied with what had happened. The change that came about, I think they’re seeing now, is not exactly what they signed up for.

Do you think Biden should not have run for re-election?

Well, I don’t know. That’s not a decision that I made. I’m going based on the fact that my interactions with the president were pretty good. I didn’t see the frailty, or whatever you want to call it, that existed. The meetings that I had with him, and they were numerous, and the events that I did for him — he was pretty good right down to the very end.

And as far as voters not getting what they bargained for, do you think they’ll naturally swing back toward Democrats if Trump’s tariffs hurt them financially?

I’m not an economist, but I understand the volatility of the stock market. I’m concerned that that is wreaking havoc on people’s savings, their 401(k)s. It’s going to affect a state like Nevada, where our public employees fund is invested in securities and whatnot.

I think people want some clarity and some certainty, and right now, I don’t think they’re seeing that.

I think some of them are going to come back naturally. A lot of times in politics, when people are unhappy, they just want change. When an election comes a year from now or 18 months from now, are people happy with the situation they’re in economically? Or were things better prior?