OPINION: Poetic justice for Republicans — and an opportunity for Nevada Democrats – The Nevada Independent

OPINION: Poetic justice for Republicans — and an opportunity for Nevada Democrats

Tuesday’s decisive election isn’t a mandate for Gov.-elect Aaron Ford. If Dems play it right, it’s something even bigger.

By Jon Ralston, November 8th, 2026 at 2:05 AM

In 2014, Nevada Democrats endured a catastrophic shellacking.

They saw all six constitutional offices go red. They witnessed Republicans flip both houses of the state Legislature. They lost a Democratic congressional seat in a gigantic upset.

With a popular governor, Brian Sandoval, entering his second term and Republicans with a Carson City trifecta, a GOP renaissance was at hand. The Democrats were virtually irrelevant.

Twelve years later, 2026 is a mirror image of 2014, a Democratic wipeout as part of a national bluebath that is arguably even more devastating for Nevada Republicans. Democrats now hold all the statewide offices, including both U.S. senators, and all House seats (thanks to one of the greatest upsets in Nevada history in the 2nd Congressional District) in addition to an Assembly supermajority and a state Senate majority one shy of two-thirds.

Just two years after the GOP turned the state red for Donald Trump and many Republicans (and Democrats!) thought Gov. Joe Lombardo (R) was a virtual lock for re-election, their dreams have crumbled in a very Nevada kind of way.

Look on these works, ye Republicans, and despair.

Nevada Republicans in Tuesday’s aftermath are seeing red because they can see no red, having had their bench erased and even their most promising candidates trumped by the president’s cellar-dwelling numbers. Amid the gloating and hand-wringing, though, one central question remains: What does this mean for the state?

First, let’s quantify just how smashing a win this was for the Democrats in Nevada beyond the number of seats they hold. Every statewide candidate, except for Gov.-elect Aaron Ford, won by double digits and by more than 100,000 votes. The three Democratic congressional incumbents, in friendly but not overwhelmingly friendly districts, garnered about 60 percent of the vote. In the Legislature, Republicans in the Assembly can caucus in a closet (to be fair, a walk-in closet) and the Republicans in the state Senate will only be marginally relevant.

The legendary Reid Machine, which has been seen as fading into obsolescence by its critics after Lombardo ’22 and Trump ’24, roared back, capitalizing on the tsunami that swept across the country. The senator’s disciples re-energized a Latino vote that had become redder two years ago, spent more than twice as much as the Republicans in every race except the governor’s contest and drove up margins in key races to spectacular levels.

You can say anyone could have done this because of the force of the wave. But to create those kinds of margins in congressional races, thus deterring future foes, and ensuring that Republicans are in political oblivion, took commitment and relentlessness.

Even the Dems operating the levers of the machine did not see the enormity of what happened this week. Indeed, nobody saw this coming.

I foretold of a coming wave after a few days of early voting, but not close to this deep. Both gubernatorial campaigns had it as a dead heat going into Tuesday, but neither side knew the reservoirs of Democratic anger or GOP angst.

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