Ford launches gubernatorial campaign tour, calls Lombardo 'biggest roadblock to affordability'

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford speaks during an event held to announce his campaign for Nevada governor, Monday, July 28, 2025, in Las Vegas. Photo by: Wade Vandervort

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford sees last week’s election results as validation for his young gubernatorial campaign’s messaging.

Democrats flipped Virginia’s governorship and held New Jersey’s, all with a similar message: affordability. 

Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., ran on a day-one freeze on utility rates, while Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger, D-Va., criticized tariffs and cuts to the federal workforce.

Ford struck similar themes during his stop at Xia Long Dumplings in southwest Las Vegas on Monday, the first in a statewide tour. Speaking to a few dozen people, the attorney general called Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo “our biggest roadblock to affordability.”

The “Working Class First Tour,” which is doubling as a canned food drive across each location, also stopped in Henderson, Tonopah and Pahrump.

“Homelessness and housing costs are at record highs,” Ford said. “There are Nevadans out there who are having to literally donate blood in order to pay their rent. There’s no sign of relief in sight.”

Nevada’s unemployment rate, 5.3% as of August, is among the highest in the nation. It also hasn’t improved under Lombardo, Ford said. He recalled a woman in Reno telling him that she had been laid off and was desperately searching for a job to take care of her family.

Ford said Lombardo blames the unemployment rate on “lazy people.” He pointed to leaked audio of the governor saying that people would “rather manipulate the government process and receive unemployment” than take jobs that are “not quality.”

“Those are his words. My experience is entirely different,” the attorney general said. “Meeting with the young lady in Reno tells me that Gov. Lombardo is overly out of touch with what’s going on the ground.”

Ford highlighted the governor’s record number of vetoes, saying he wants a handful of bills that have already passed through the Legislature on his desk to sign within 30 days of taking office.

That includes legislation guaranteeing Medicare-negotiated drug prices and universal free school meals, which Lombardo contends are already available to most students. Ford also discussed legislation limiting the corporate ownership of homes, which the governor urged Republicans in Carson City to kill.

“I’m proud of what we have advanced, but don’t think for a second I’m not absolutely ready to be your backstop against the agenda of my opponents,” the governor told supporters at his September kickoff.

The campaigns in Virginia and New Jersey also attempted to tie current economic uncertainty to the second Trump administration’s opening months, something Ford has been doing throughout the early days of the campaign.

Assemblymember Duy Nguyen, D-Las Vegas, credited President Donald Trump’s tariffs for the “first mid-session revenue decline since the Great Recession,” telling supporters in the shop that Lombardo has “embraced” the policy.

He also noted cuts to Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the Department of Education.

“Lombardo even called Trump ‘the greatest president.’ That’s not leadership, that’s surrender,” Nguyen said. “Nevada is now facing a full-blown affordability crisis, and the governor is cheering the pain.”

State Sen. Rochelle Nguyen, D-Las Vegas, also criticized the president for saying that prices were going down and that Thanksgiving would be cheaper this year. Any person who shops at a grocery store would rebuke that, she said.

U.S. grocery prices increased by 1.4% from January to September, according to a CNN fact check. The cost of meat, poultry and fish went up by an average 4.5% during that time.

Ford has “taken on big drug companies, he’s taken on corporate landlords and he’s put people over profits every single time,” Rochelle Nguyen said. “Nevada families deserve a governor who’s been through this struggle, who listens, who’s given us results and fights for the rest of us.”