2026 is an election year, and for many in Nevada, political analysis starts and stops with one name: Jon Ralston, CEO of The Nevada Independent. Ralston has covered politics in the State for more than four decades. He sat down with Nevada Public Radio’s Paul Boger shortly before the publication of his newest book. Here’s some of their conversation.
Jon, most people know you as a longtime political writer and now as the CEO of The Nevada Independent. Have you always wanted to be a journalist?
I was involved in sports writing at Cornell as an undergrad at the Cornell Daily Sun, and I had a great time. I thought I wanted to be a sportswriter. And then I went to the University of Michigan, got a master’s, and kind of fell in love with news. Then I got an entry-level job as a night police reporter at the Las Vegas Review-Journal in 1984.
See, I’m from Buffalo, New York, and I thought I’d be out in Vegas for a couple of years, max, then continuing on my career path back to New York and the Times. Paul, that was 41 years ago.
So, you weren’t always focused on politics. When did that change?
I really didn’t have that much interest in politics growing up. My dad was very politically active, and I was politically aware, but I wasn’t interested in covering it. Then I got to cover county government, the Clark County Commission, that’s where my introduction to politics really took hold.
There was so much great stuff going on, and I had some great mentors back then who taught me a lot about how it worked. So, I fell in love with politics. I’ll never forget: I was made the political reporter at the R-J a month before the 1986 primary. I was thrown into it, and I had the time of my life. I just remember the editor at the time calling me into his office and telling me he’d never seen anyone born to be in the milieu I was operating in. I was hooked.
One thing I’ve noticed is your ability to cultivate relationships with sources. You know everybody. Tell me about that process. What’s the secret there?
My success isn’t necessarily being the greatest writer ever or even the greatest reporter, but I outworked everybody. I went out for lunches, drinks, breakfasts, and coffee with people, getting to know as many people as I could when I covered politics. Then, I figured out who the go-to sources were and used that to my advantage. I loved it.
It’s counterintuitive, but you might agree with me: A lot of reporters are awkward and shy and don’t want to do that. I did, and that, more than anything else, is responsible for my success, just being willing to do that.
You mentioned that the first election you covered was 40 years ago. How have elections and campaigns changed?
There’s been tremendous, tremendous changes. My usual answer to that question is that the velocity with which information moves has changed so much. There was no such thing as the internet when I started, and no such thing as social media. So, the news cycle then was 24 hours, not now, which feels more like 24 seconds.
Things can change dramatically while you and I are talking. There could be big stories we’re both missing just while we sit here, Paul. It’s also harder to correct misinformation now; there’s so much out there, and you have to be really, really careful. And so, the most significant change in politics has been technology and the velocity of information moving into the body politic.
What about politicians? Has the quality or character of politicians themselves changed in the last generation?
To some extent, the basics are the same, but I’m not even sure about that anymore.
You know, I hate to sound like the grizzled old guy longing for the good old days. Still, when I first started, there were people, a lot of people I really respected for their work ethic or for how smart they were or how savvy they were — people who really worked hard and were trying to be statesmen in one way or another — on both sides of the aisle. There was Bill Raggio in the State Senate and Joe Dini in the Assembly and others as well. I’m not sure we have the same quality we used to, because it seems so easy to enter politics and win races for fairly important offices.
You’ve had a long career; you’ve talked to a lot of people. What do you think your favorite stories have been?
That’s a tricky question to answer, because there are so many things that I’ve done that I got great satisfaction out of doing. Going to the national Democratic and Republican conventions was a real blast. Covering really important races like Harry Reid’s Senate races in 1998 and 2010, which were like no other. And, of course, there are the legislative sessions; I had the greatest time covering them.
But I have to tell you, when I think back on it, besides the Indy — The Nevada Independent is my favorite thing that I’ve ever done and has been incredibly rewarding — that might be TV.
I started as a print guy. I thought I’d always be a print guy, but after doing a TV show for about 15 and a half years, I realized the power of having somebody sitting there as a captive for 20 minutes or half an hour. They can’t leave or hang up on you, right? They’re there, and you can ask them essentially anything, and they can squirm, but they can’t leave. At least no one ever did. I was always hoping for a mic drop from someone, but that never happened. There was, though, a real rush of being on live TV that I will never forget.
I want to talk about your new book, The Game Changer: How Harry Reid Remade the Rules and Showed Democrats How to Fight (Simon & Schuster). It’s a biography of the late Senate majority leader and his impact on Nevada and the nation. You had a rocky relationship with the man. As I understand it, he was at least partially responsible for getting you fired from the Review-Journal. So, when you approached his team to write this book, were you on friendly terms by then?
I would say friendlier terms, but I had people going to him for years, asking him to let me write the book, saying I was the one who knew him best. And I never really disliked Reid in the sense that, even though I knew what he was doing to make my life more difficult, I knew he saw it as just business. That he was doing the right thing. Some of it became personal, because I wrote stories about what he called his family.
But by the time he left office, though, we were on better terms. Even then, I had no idea he was finally going to agree to the book until he summoned me to his office and said, “I want to do the book. I know I’m not going to like everything that you write in the book, but don’t go after my family, and let’s get it done.”
I was shocked that he actually agreed to do it. Thrilled. Unfortunately, he was already sick. By the time I was finally able to get a publisher and start interviewing him, it was May of 2021. He died a little more than six months later, but I still got to do 24 Zoom interviews with him. And I don’t know if he would have described it this way, but I think we formed a bond. During those calls — they were all at least an hour long, some closer to two hours — he was very open, funny, and insightful, and his memory was still pretty sharp.
Reid retired from the Senate in 2017. He lived his last few years in Las Vegas, trying his best to stay out of the public eye before passing away in 2021. Since his passing, the so-called Reid Machine — the political apparatus he built to elect Democrats throughout the state — hasn’t had the victories he once commanded. At this point, how would you describe his legacy?
A lot has changed in the last decade. What has not changed is the people who run the Reid Machine. Rebecca Lambe, who was his political lieutenant and came up through the ranks of the Democratic Party, has been the most significant political force for Harry Reid. She was willing to hire really great young talent that most people did not know. Since 2008, they have had a remarkable record, and even in the first election after Reid died in 2022, people point to Republican Governor Joe Lombardo beating the then-Democratic incumbent, Steve Sisolak. It was a very close race, but if you look at what happened down the ballot, the Democrats still did pretty well, and that is true even in 2024 when Donald Trump broke the string of Democrats winning that had lasted since 2008.
So, the Reid Machine is still there. It’s just not funded the way it used to be because no one could raise money like Reid. … It will be interesting to see in 2026 and 2028 whether the Democrats can hold their own.
