‘Game Over’: Clark County Teachers Union, Democrat DA Line Up Behind Lombardo

The Clark County Education Association is treating Nevada’s governor’s race as decided. The union that represents more than 18,000 educators in the state’s largest school district has thrown its support behind Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo and framed the contest as “Game Over,” a break with the Democratic nominee, Attorney General Aaron Ford, in the county that decides statewide elections.

The endorsement sits on a record the union has already put in writing. In November 2025, CCEA President Marie Neisess called Lombardo “an education Governor for all Nevada’s students” and said the partnership had “earned” him a second term. The union cited the largest K-12 investment in state history, about $2.5 billion in 2023, pay raises, school-safety bills, and accountability measures. 

Game Over. pic.twitter.com/86Hapu4x5M

— Clark County Education Association (@cceanv) October 6, 2026

CCEA sat out the 2022 race between Lombardo and then-Gov. Steve Sisolak. This time it picked a side.

Lombardo said he was honored to have the backing of what he called the largest and fastest-growing teachers’ union in the country, and pointed to improvement in 70 percent of Clark County schools and higher star ratings at 37% of them.

The labor break was followed by a law-enforcement one. On Tuesday, Democratic Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson endorsed Lombardo, citing three decades of work together on violent crime, domestic abuse, drug dealing, and human trafficking.

“I’m a Democrat, and he’s a Republican, but that has never mattered when it comes to public safety,” Wolfson said. “I’ve always put people and results ahead of party politics, and as both Sheriff and Governor, Joe has always done the same.”Lombardo, the former Clark County sheriff, called the endorsement a continuation of that partnership. 

Wolfson’s move lands after Ford spent the summer defending an ad that recycled 2018 law-enforcement footage. The Las Vegas Police Protective Association and the Nevada Association of Public Safety Officers said they had not authorized the use of their names, and the California Globe reported that the Lombardo campaign accused Ford of misleading voters about current police support. Ford was forced to remove the ad.

The two endorsements extend a coalition Lombardo’s campaign has been building in public. In July, the campaign launched Democrats for Lombardo, more than 120 registered Democrats chaired by businessman David Goldwater and co-chaired by former AFL-CIO leader Danny Thompson, former Clark County commissioners Mary Beth Scow and Susan Brager, and others. 

Lombardo said then that he had “worked to serve all Nevadans, regardless of party.”

Yet, the polling does not yet match a “Game Over” headline. A Noble Predictive Insights survey of 708 likely voters, taken Sept. 22–26 and released this week, put Lombardo at 42%, Aaron Ford at 40%, and independent Danielle Ford at 7%, with 9% undecided. The two-point margin sits inside the poll’s 3.7-point margin of error. An Emerson College/KLAS survey of likely voters from Sept. 5–8 had Ford ahead 44–42, also inside the margin, with 11% undecided.

Earlier in the cycle, the Globe reported three Republican-affiliated polls—Public Opinion Strategies, Grassroots Targeting, and the Tarrance Group—showing Lombardo ahead by 7 to 12 points. In early September, Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin moved the race to “Likely R.”

Ford has spent the fall arguing the opposite case. In a 90-minute sit-down with Jon Ralston, he called the education increase roughly “$2 per student,” a claim the Globe fact-checked against the 2023 budget’s more than $2,500 per-pupil jump in fiscal 2025. 

Lombardo has kept the attack on Ford’s out-of-state travel and on whether the attorney general will say if he supports defunding the police, a line the Globe covered in June. Ford’s campaign has answered with coast-to-coast fundraising, including a Kamala Harris event in Santa Monica, while early voting begins Oct. 17.

CCEA’s “Game Over” declaration does not close the race. It does mark the largest teachers’ union in Nevada, and the Democratic prosecutor of Clark County, lining up with the Republican incumbent and leaving Ford to run against his own side in the county that decides the state.