Aaron Ford, the Democrat attorney general of Nevada, has joined the race for governor of the Silver State.
Ford hopes to challenge Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, who is running for a second term, in next year's election.
Lombardo defeated incumbent Democrat Gov. Steve Sisolak in 2022. The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan election handicapper, lists the race as a toss-up.
The attorney general, who previously received food stamps and Medicaid benefits, said he's running over his opposition to Republican cuts to those programs.
"It was Medicaid that enabled my son and me to have the healthcare we needed in order to be able to survive. It was food stamps that kept us fed," Ford told Politico. "It hits me … particularly hard to know that people are about to be hit in those areas."
Ford said he and his son were on the programs when he was a single father attending college.
Washoe County Commissioner Alexis Hill is also running for the Democrat nomination.
Nevada is a state that President Donald Trump won in 2024, though Democrat Sen. Jacky Rosen won reelection last year.
Ford said Lombardo has been silent on the cuts Republicans in Congress made, though Lombardo asked the White House not to slash Medicaid funding. In May, he was one of seven Republican governors who didn't sign a letter in support of the "one big Beautiful bill," Politico reported.
The governor said Nevadans should be excited about the tax cuts the bill provides.
"Nevadans should be excited about the potential impacts of tax cuts, investments in small businesses and American manufacturing, and efforts to help secure our border," Lombardo said in a statement to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Ford said he believes cuts to Medicaid will have a greater impact than removing taxes on tips.
Sam Barron ✉
Sam Barron has almost two decades of experience covering a wide range of topics including politics, crime and business.