LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — A new poll finds the race for Nevada governor tightening, with incumbent Republican Joe Lombardo just slightly ahead of his chief Democratic rival, Democratic Attorney General Aaron Ford.

According to the survey by Arizona-based Noble Predictive Insights, Lombardo leads Ford 39% to 38%, with 17% undecided and 6% supporting third-party candidates.

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New poll finds race for Nevada governor tightening

In the last Noble survey, conducted in October, Lombardo led Ford 40% to 37%, with 23% undecided.

Mike Noble, founder and CEO of Noble Predictive Insights, said governor’s contests in Nevada are historically close.

“This is why Nevada’s governor’s race is ranked in the top five most competitive races,” Noble said. “So it’s not just our polling that shows it, but also historically and everybody else looking at that. It’s going to be a tight contest. It’s going to come down to some core folks in the middle, and which way are they persuaded, towards Ford or towards Lombardo?”

A survey of past gubernatorial races dating to 1998 shows races with margins ranging from about 4 percentage points all the way up to more than 46 percentage points.

The average — 11% — is skewed by two outlier elections. One came in 2002, when then-Gov. Kenny Guinn defeated then-state Joe Neal, D-Clark County, who ran without the support of organized labor or the Democratic Party, advocating a platform of raising the state’s gross gaming tax.

The other came in 2014, when Democrats essentially ceded the race to then-incumbent Republican Brian Sandoval by running a candidate, Bob Goodman, who lost to “none of these candidates” in the Democratic primary.

But of all the races, Lombardo’s victory over Democrat Steve Sisolak in 2022 was the narrowest; just 1.51 percentage points separated the two candidates, or just more than 15,000 actual votes.

In a survey in February, Hart Research also found the race close, with 46% for Lombardo and 43% for Ford.

Favorability

The Noble survey found 40% of voters regarded Ford either very or somewhat favorably, with 33% reporting a somewhat or very unfavorable opinion of him. Another 19% had no opinion, and 8% had never heard of the attorney general.

Lombardo, meanwhile, was seen as either very or somewhat favorably by 48% of voters, with 38% saying they had a somewhat or very unfavorable opinion of the governor. Another 11% had no opinion, but only 1% had never heard of him.

Ford’s numbers may give Lombardo an opportunity to define his likely general election opponent, Noble said. Already, we have seen PAC-backed ads slamming Ford for spending time extensively outside Nevada, on trips related to his job or on vacation.

“So he [Ford] needs to get out there and define himself where Lombardo is also trying to define him,” Noble said. “So, definitely Lombardo has some advantages there. But I think the biggest advantage that Ford has in this is that he’s currently not in power, not the one making decisions.”

Ford has criticized Lombardo for vetoing bills that Ford claims would have reduced costs for Nevadans, including a bill that would have banned corporations from buying up single-family homes, a concept that even President Donald Trump later adopted in an executive order.

And Democrats frequently criticize Lombardo by trying to tie him to Trump, whose tariffs have raised costs for local businesses and whose attack on Iran has raised costs for fuel and fertilizer.

Noble said economics will be the key to this race. “And I think really from the research we’ve seen, whoever can message the best when it comes to addressing the pocketbook issues, jobs, economy, inflation, how are they going to keep more money in Nevadans’ pockets and give them some type of relief, and especially in affordable housing and other pocketbook areas. I think that is who’s going to end up ultimately winning,” he said.

Campaign reaction

Asked for a response, Ford campaign spokeswoman Prerna Jagadeesh aimed squarely at economics.

“Voters know that under Joe Lombardo, Nevada is suffering from high costs, sky-high unemployment, and an economy lagging behind the rest of the nation in job growth — all while Lombardo puts cheerleading for Trump over serving working families,” she said in a statement. “In contrast, Attorney General Aaron Ford has fought to lower costs and create new good-paying union jobs throughout his time in public service. Ford will continue to be laser-focused on making Nevada a place that Nevadans can afford to call home—and that’s why he will win in November.”

Ford served in the Nevada state Senate — rising to Senate majority leader — before he was elected attorney general in 2018.

The Lombardo campaign declined to comment on the poll results.

But in a Morning Consult survey, Lombardo had a 51%-34% approval rating. (The rest had no opinion.)

Gov. Phil Scott of Vermont was the most popular governor in the nation, with a 74%-19% approve/disapprove rating, while Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa was the least popular, with 49% disapproving and 43% approving.