After the election, Nevada will have Republicans in the governor and lieutenant governor’s seats and a larger Democratic majority in the Legislature.
In Congress, Nevada kept the same representatives, thwarting attempts by Republicans to take three House and one Senate seat.
Nevadans also voted yes on three ballot questions, including one to open primaries to all voters, regardless of party affiliation.
What’s it all mean for the future of Nevada? For our schools? Jobs? The economy?
With us to talk takeaways was Steve Sebelius, the politics and government editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. He was with State of Nevada host Joe Schoenmann along with Nevada Independent reporter Jacob Solis, former GOP State Sen. Warren Hardy and KNPR's Northern Nevada reporter Paul Boger.
"You saw a Nevada election," Sebelius said. "Things were very close, the public was divided and Nevada is not a deep blue state … it's not a red state. It's a purple state and remains that way. Voters are looking for people not on the fringes … but who are pragmatic and solve problems."
Hardy said it was a bad year for extremists on both sides.
"I think we're starting to see the Republican party moving away from [former President Trump]," he said. The big lessons are that "voters don't like extremism and candidates matter a lot."
Hardy said he thinks Governor-elect Joe Lombardo did "much better" with Latino voters and Asian voters, and that his election shows there was "some underlying good news for Republicans in this election."
There was a big push for turnout among Latino voters, who comprise about 30% of the state's population. Historically, they've supported Democrats, but there's been a slight change in that trend nationally.
"We'll have to see how the numbers shake out at the end of the day," Solis said. "But it does look like Latinos were still backing Democrats. Latinos who have been here have been here for some time. When we look at how they're mobilized, they're being mobilized [to vote] by groups like the Culinary Union, and there was another group called Somos [Votantes]."
The Latino turnout did end up a little lower than previous elections, but "it wasn't low enough to change the outcome."
In Northern Nevada, the rurals remained red, but turnout wasn't much greater than previous midterms. Though, snow may have been a factor.
"If you look at the numbers ... in-person voting just wasn't there on Election Day as we've seen in previous elections," said Boger. "It's becoming very apparent that Democrats are going to vote early, vote by mail, [and] Republicans are going to leave it to Election Day, and vote in person. That may not have worked here."
Sebelius also talked about what Lombardo and the Democratic-led Nevada Legislature will have to do to work together next year:
"They're going to have to cooperate on certain things. You got to pass a budget; you have to pass certain policies. I think there's a great opportunity for the new governor and the legislature to cooperate [and] to find common ground," he said. "And for the governor to realize that he may want a robust school choice education savings account plan, but he's going to run into Democrats who don't want that, and who have resisted that in the past. ... I think there's a great opportunity for a compromise."
Find all of KNPR's 2022 election coverage here.
Jacob Solis, staff reporter, The Nevada Independent; Warren Hardy, consultant and former GOP state senator; Steve Sebelius, politics and government editor, Las Vegas Review-Journal; Paul Boger, Northern Nevada reporter and producer, Nevada Public Radio
