Nevada is among the most politically unpredictable states in the nation, as evidenced by its presidential votes in recent decades: The Silver State is the only state to have supported George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
Nevada is generally considered blue-ish, thanks to its two Democratic senators and Democratic majorities in the state Legislature; but in 2022, voters elected a Republican governor, Joe Lombardo, who’s facing a serious challenge this year from the state’s Democratic attorney general, Aaron Ford.
So when Trump hosted an event in Las Vegas this week, there was some question about whether, and to what degree, the governor would want to be seen alongside his party’s historically unpopular president. Lombardo offered an unsubtle answer to the question on Wednesday afternoon, literally and figuratively embracing Trump on stage.
That was notable in its own right — as The Nevada Independent noted, the governor placed “a bet that he’d benefit from appearing with the president” — but I was also surprised to see how, exactly, Lombardo explained his support for Trump.
“You know, quite often, when the press and the media runs him down,” the GOP governor said of the president, “they think about, you know, ‘He’s taking care of his billionaire friends.’ But those billionaire friends provide jobs, and unless you take care of them, those jobs are absent.”
Part of the problem with Lombardo’s pitch is that it’s politically tone deaf. For quite a while, many of Trump’s fiercest Democratic and progressive critics have accused the president of prioritizing the needs of the wealthiest Americans, handing them generous tax breaks, among other things.
It was certainly unexpected to see one of Trump’s allies effectively endorsing the Democratic line — but arguing that it’s a good thing that the president is prioritizing the needs of the wealthiest Americans.
The other part of the problem is that the Nevada Republican’s economic vision is plainly wrong: Lombardo, for all intents and purposes, voiced support for trickle-down economics, in which the government rewards those on top with the expectation that wealth eventually works its way down to everyone else.
This economic model has never worked, but that didn’t stop an incumbent governor, 12 weeks before he faces voters again, from standing alongside Trump and defending the president’s eagerness to “take care of his billionaire friends.”
Not surprisingly, Lombardo’s Democratic opponent wasted little time in highlighting the governor’s rhetoric, and it’s a safe bet that Nevada voters will hear the quote again between now and November.
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