It's Election Day in Nevada.
Polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m., but people can still vote if they are in line by that time. Find out where to vote here.
Throughout the day, Nevada Independent reporters will be on the ground talking to voters, tracking the dynamics that will shape the results and keeping an eye out for noteworthy developments.
Nevada has robust early and mail voting, meaning that most of the vote is already in.
In 2022, the most recent midterm election, 21 percent of the electorate voted on Election Day. This year, that share could be more than enough to swing the state's most competitive races.
Read on to learn more about the races Indy reporters are following most closely. And be sure to check out The Indy's voter guide for information on the races, candidates and voting process.
This page will be updated throughout the day. Refresh our site at 7 p.m. for our election night live blog, where we'll be delivering news about the results.
I'll leave the predictions and pontifications to The Boss, but the closest race in the Silver State this year is likely the one for governor.
It's the most expensive race in Nevada this cycle by ad spending, with more than $77.2 million spent as of Monday, according to AdImpact. Republicans' spending has outpaced Democrats' by more than $32.6 million.
For every dollar Democrats spent, the GOP spent about $2.47.
In 2022, when Nevada was the only state in the country to have a Republican oust a Democratic incumbent governor, AdImpact data shows total spending on the governor's race was more than $83.8 million, with Democrats carrying the spending advantage over Republicans by about $3.3 million.
Spending, of course, doesn't tell the whole story.
I've spent time on the campaign trail with Gov. Joe Lombardo (R) and Attorney General Aaron Ford (D) — and looming large over both candidates is President Donald Trump. His unpopularity could drag down the first-term governor, who has tried walking a tightrope between embracing MAGA and appealing to moderates, while Ford hasn't hesitated to tie the two Republicans together.
Nevada voters often split the ticket, most recently in 2022 when they re-elected Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) and elected Lombardo as governor. In 2024, Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) survived re-election even as Trump won the state.
In a national environment as rough as it is right now for Republicans, no one knows how it's going to turn out.
Lombardo's campaign has run about as smoothly as it could hope, and it carries the weight of incumbency, but the questions we're asking ahead of tonight are: Will his efforts be enough? And just how purple is Nevada?
If Ford wins, he will not only be the first Black governor elected in a state west of the Mississippi River, but he will also flip the governor's office back to a Democrat for only the second time this century.
If Lombardo manages to hang on, the focus will likely be on how he survived and what it means for Nevada's electorate heading into the 2028 presidential cycle.
A key subplot is whether legislative Democrats can flip enough seats to give them a two-thirds supermajority in one or both houses. The party is one seat shy in both chambers, which would let them override vetoes or pass taxes without Republican support.
Passing that threshold would suddenly make the 2027 Legislature much more interesting and break from the last two sessions' worth of double-digit vetoes under Lombardo. Buckle up, Carson City.
Unfortunately, the governor's race may be too close to call tonight, but we'll have answers soon enough.
— Tabitha Mueller
When I started covering Nevada's House races last year, I didn't expect the midterms to be all that interesting. The Democratic incumbents had survived tougher environments than this and Rep. Mark Amodei's (R-NV) seat was ruby red.
Since then, the environment has only improved for Democrats. Though state Sen. Carrie Buck (R-Henderson), video game composer Marty O'Donnell (R) and rancher and small-business owner Cody Whipple (R) all told me about the ways their unique campaigns could, ahem, trump the GOP's unpopularity, most would be shocked if they did.
The 2nd Congressional District was something else entirely. Amodei's retirement announcement was the first surprise, to staff and potential successors. As the congressman pledged to stay out of the race, I spent weeks on the phone grilling Northern Nevada Republicans about who might jump in.
After insiders rallied around former state Sen. James Settelmeyer (R-Minden), the next big surprise was small-business owner David Flippo's (R) choice to drop his bid in the 4th Congressional District and run in this one. Amodei reversed himself and along with the governor decided to publicly endorse Settelmeyer. Ten days before the primary, Trump endorsed Flippo, whose aggressive campaign prevailed.
When I spoke to Amodei right after the primary, it seemed he planned to eventually endorse Flippo. By August, it was clear that wouldn't happen. The "carpetbagger" criticism of Flippo was expected. Other controversies were not.
In June, this newsletter was first to report Flippo's missing financial disclosure amid massive self-funding. The surprise was that he never formally filed one, though his campaign did give us a draft. National media scrutiny has been another surprise, from The Washington Post's reporting that his campaign had misrepresented his military honors to The Wall Street Journal pointing out a contribution attributed to a dead donor. I definitely did not expect Mother Jones to have a Flippo beat reporter.
If former Assm. Teresa Benitez-Thompson (D-Reno) doesn't win here, it's unlikely a Democrat ever will. When Northern Nevada Democrats talked about how they might have a chance in the 2nd Congressional District in the spring, I thought that might be just talk. When I asked Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) chair Suzan DelBene about investing in the race in June, she equivocated.
But I was soon proven wrong. Not only did the DCCC put Benitez-Thompson on its Red to Blue list — typically reserved for swing district candidates — but other national groups came in with millions on her behalf.
With the help of an AI coding tool, I've confirmed that this is the most expensive race in the district's history. In terms of outside spending here, it is the most expensive by far. The Freedom Caucus, Club for Growth and others have together spent millions on Flippo's behalf. Even the National Republican Congressional Committee eventually swooped in.
Independent race raters have repeatedly moved the contest toward Democrats. Betting markets put Flippo's chances around 2 in 3.
The results will hinge on a few key questions that reveal a lot about today's politics. As nearly every Nevada Republican with a political future rallies behind Flippo, how much are regular GOP voters immovable partisans? How much will anti-immigrant and anti-socialist ads motivate them? Where do the nonpartisans go? Just how big is the blue wave?
The GOP primary, in which Flippo trounced a hometown conservative by employing red meat messaging and Trump's endorsement, suggests the answers will fall in his favor. But unlike Settelmeyer, Benitez-Thompson ran as an underdog and has benefited from the unified support of her party's leaders and donors. She and her allies have attacked Flippo with a relentlessness Settelmeyer didn't.
In the election's final days, outside groups have popped up to try to redirect GOP voters to Lynn Chapman (IAP). A strong performance for Chapman is the Democrat's most likely path to victory. Meanwhile, other groups are using similarly tricky tactics against Benitez-Thompson.
Expect a post mortem from us later this week, a deeper look at the money involved later on and plenty of coverage of Northern Nevada's new representative when they join me in Washington in January.
— Mini Racker
