Not every governor is transformative, and there is a long history of people just happy to be there. (Photo: Richard Bednarski/Nevada Current)
Governor Joe Lombardo has a problem, one that runs deeper than just tussling with a Nevada Legislature controlled by Democrats.
It’s that his political situation is all wrong for the current moment. In this Republican Party, Governor Lombardo’s political project is misshapen, incongruous, out of place. His is a square peg, in a round political epoch. These days, in this climate, conservatives and right-wingers want action, but he can’t give them any.
In some ways, Lombardo has inverted the Donald Trump phenomenon. If part of Trump’s appeal to some is that “I’ll do whatever I want, and no one can stop me,” Lombardo’s tagline is “I can’t do anything, and no one can make me.” In an era where certain voters clearly long for the Strongman model of executive power, here we have a former sheriff, whose supporters have some expectation will be a man of purpose and accomplishment (and who is himself accustomed to his will being done), but who literally cannot affirmatively do anything in politics.
Lombardo squeezed (or was allowed to squeeze, through savvy media handling) a lot of juice out of the last election cycle, as if there were some great results for his side in 2024. But avoiding—by a single vote in each legislative chamber—complete gubernatorial irrelevance through a Democratic supermajority doesn’t make you Winston Churchill. In this instance, it just makes you the guy who signs desultory veto messages about how “well-intentioned” everyone else is, while no actual governing gets done.
(I challenge you to go back and read the veto messages from last session. Together, they read as a long cycle of bored half-engagement, drifting off topic and featuring yard-sign level rhetoric. He can’t really be blamed for a lack of enthusiasm, I guess, but if issuing vetoes is your highest and best use for four months, he should set an example for the youth and put some effort into it.)
Let’s be frank. Lombardo has evinced no particularly impressive political skills in two-plus years as governor. This does not mean he does not have those skills, just that he hasn’t flashed them. He has no signature achievements to his credit. He does not appear to do, or want to do, much of anything, other than be governor. He’s not terribly enthusiastic about being a Republican, something his base surely senses, but neither is he prepared to be a true bipartisan actor. On some level, that’s fine. Not every governor is transformative, and there is a long history of people just happy to be there. I am sure many of his opponents are pleased that at least Lombardo can do little damage as a recumbent incumbent.
But after a while, voters, even Lombardo’s, experience a build-up of some sort of expectation that their governor will get around to governing. This is not the first state executive to face legislative opposition. But somewhere along the line, real political operators figure it out. This is not the NFL or NBA; defense does not, in fact, win championships in politics.
Four years, or eight years, of repeating endlessly that your greatest work was holding back the Democratic tide is, ultimately, pretty unsatisfying, and certainly not a great leaping-off point if Lombardo has further political ambitions. Furthermore, it only really works as a brand if you can convince voters that Democrats are pounding at the gates, this close to turning the state into some communist enclave. This will not long convince voters whom the national GOP has told that the Democrats are defeated and demoralized, unable to drag themselves out of bed in the morning from sheer depression.
So far, Governor Lombardo has not figured it out. When he has tried to throw the ball deep to generate offense, bad things have happened. Do we all remember that his first Legislature ended with a disastrous special session? It originated both in his school-choice bluster and frustration at his languid regular session. During that special session, while trying to force through something, anything, that was school-choicey, it came out that a single, phony, well-connected out-of-state nonprofit had been hoovering up all the Opportunity Scholarship funds, scamming the state, and then failing to get appropriated money to the very students to whom it was directed.
Simply having rich friends is not an achievement. Even when Lombardo declares that he will take this or that idea to the ballot box through the initiative process, it also functions to underscore his legislative ineffectiveness. The recent Voter ID ballot measure, for example, slated for a 2026 general election encore, was an expensive but ultimately meaningless, cosmetic victory. Nobody impersonates other voters at the polls, which would be the stupidest way of trying to affect an election result while still committing an easily-detected felony. But the win at least provides the veneer of activity for a governor who will find it increasingly difficult to get anyone excited about his agenda. There is, in fact, no real agenda; there are only veneers. Even his state of the state speech had the feeling of someone declaring what they would have liked to do, had so much been different.
The budget miscalculation of a week or two ago, where his administration inexplicably failed to add up the lines in his proposals to ensure a constitutional, balanced budget felt like a sign of a distracted office. Arithmetical errors can, of course, happen to anyone, but the budget is pretty much the single most important practical thing a Nevada governor does. Raising campaign funds is fine, and so is making speeches about priorities he knows won’t be fulfilled. Budgeting, however, is a serious task for serious public servants, and this was a direct hit to his administration’s basic competency.
Scene Two of Act One of the Lombardo Administration is about to begin up in Carson City. The Trump presidency will throw immense challenges at him, especially regarding Medicaid or other important programs needing federal-state cooperation. The state’s school systems will continue to require unprecedented, long-term commitments of resources and reserves of political will in order to improve at even a portion of the necessary rate. At some point, however, just vetoing bills and stifling the Democrats becomes a meager legacy. He is caught amidst a Republican Party that will continue cooling on him if he cannot deliver on policy, a Democratic political machine that can still throw heat, and a broad middle that voted for him in a change election but has seen precious little of it.
This fall, Joe Lombardo will start asking Nevadans for their votes again, to be re-elected. The question they may ask back of him is, what exactly, sir, is the point of you?