-I proudly served our country in the United States Army and have dedicated my life in protecting communities as a police officer, as a sheriff, and now, humbly, as your next Governor.

(applause) -Come January, Nevada will have a new Governor.

Analysis of the Silver State's midterm elections and Joe Lombardo's rise to power, that's this week on Nevada Week .

♪♪♪ Support for Nevada Week is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt.

Welcome to Nevada Week .

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning & Engagement at Tufts University estimates that 27% of youth ages 18 to 29 cast a ballot this year, marking the second highest youth voter turnout for a midterm election in almost three decades.

The highest turnout was in 2018 at 31%.

Ahead, we will speak with some of Southern Nevada's civically engaged youth.

They are student representatives from this year's Las Vegas Sun Youth Forum.

But first, now that we have election results, let's dissect them with longtime political reporter and CEO of the Nevada Independent , John Ralston.

John, first off, congratulations.

You correctly picked 9 of the 10 competitive congressional and statewide races.

(John Ralston) Thanks for that, Amber.

I appreciate it.

- --including the US Senate race and the Governor's race.

So did anything surprise you in these midterms?

-It did surprise me a little bit that the Democrats here did as well as they did.

Listen, it's no small thing to lose the Governor's race, because the Governor is by far the most powerful individual in the state.

But the fact that they held onto three House races, that they won some important constitutional offices besides Governor, eked out a winner in the Senate race that gave Democrats control of the US Senate, and picked up seats in the legislature, I didn't predict that I have to tell you, Amber.

And so it surprised me how well they did.

-So then what message did Nevada voters send this election?

-Well, I think they sent a mixed message in electing a Republican Governor and a Democratic Senator and keeping Democratic House members.

But I think the message was, You know what?

We're going to actually say that candidates matter and campaigns matter.

You know, some of these candidates on the Republican side for statewide office, they are election deniers, they came across as unhinged in many ways, and Republicans voted against them.

And they still came pretty close in important races, but Nevada voters said, This is a bridge too far.

-Yeah, that closeness of some of the races.

For example, as of November 17th, Cortez Masto is at 48.81% compared to Laxalt at 48.04%, according to the Nevada Secretary of State in the US Senate race.

That competitiveness, what does that indicate to you about Nevada politics right now?

-We're a purple state.

And these races are going to-- If there's credible candidates on both sides for statewide office, they're going to be close.

Now 8,000 votes, less than 1%?

That is really, really close.

It's not even close, by the way, to the closest Senate race in history in this state.

There have been ones that have been decided by 48 votes and just a few hundred votes.

But the percentage when you consider more than a million votes are cast and someone wins a US Senate seat by 8,000 votes or so, that's close.

-Okay.

You said that you wouldn't be surprised if Governor Sisolak won reelection.

He did not.

Why do you think?

-I think there was just too much of what I call the COVID hangover, the shutting down of the state, even though it was a difficult decision and probably the right decision.

But then questions about how long it lasted, whether schools should have been open sooner, and the absolute nightmare of the unemployment system where people couldn't get their checks, as you know, for months.

And then Joe Lombardo's campaign fairly, skillfully raised the issue of the so-called Northshore testing scandal, which was a COVID testing company that was tied to sons of one of Sisolak's friends and major donors.

They made that into a major scandal, accused Sisolak of being corrupt.

Ran a lot of media on that, and that had an impact.

-At this point, Governor Sisolak is the only incumbent Governor to not be reelected across the country.

Do you take anything away from that?

-I just think that there was just too much going against him.

And Joe Lombardo, while he was a first-time statewide candidate, had a fantastic team around him.

And they ran a really, really smart race.

And I just think that Nevada is different than everywhere else, right?

And so I think that had something to do with it as well.

-Outgoing Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo gave his first remarks as Governor-elect on the Monday following the election at his alma mater Rancho High School.

He said he'd be Nevada's next education Governor, in addition to other promises.

Take a listen.

(Governor-elect Joe Lombardo) My administration will expand school choice and make school safety a priority, fix the broken state agencies, create safer streets by eliminating soft-on-crime laws, get our economy back on track so we don't have to pay the price for bad decisions coming out of Washington, DC.

-All right.

Of what Governor-elect Lombardo said there, what do you think he is most likely to get done, considering he's working with a democratically controlled state legislature?

-That's the issue, right?

It's the other party controlling it.

And they don't have the same vision of what Nevada should be like as Joe Lombardo did.

Now, he has to say he's going to keep these campaign promises, right?

And you saw some of them there, school choice which the Democrats hate, repealing some of what the Democrats did when they were in complete control two years ago, Amber, and they passed this what he called "soft-on-crime legislation," what they call "criminal justice reform."

So the real question is, we don't know what kind of Governor Joe Lombardo is going to be.

He's just been a sheriff.

He's a career cop.

He doesn't know what it's like to be Governor.

Is he going to be really ideologically driven, or is he going to be willing to compromise with the Democrats in the legislature?

And on the other hand, you flip that coin over, are they going to be willing to compromise with him or just kill everything that he proposes?

We don't know the answer to that yet.

-Typically, how long does it take for a Governor to transition and actually start getting stuff done?

-We're going to find out pretty quickly because Joe Lombardo in February is going to start the legislative session.

And we're going to see what he has proposed.

He will actually give his State of the State speech a couple of weeks earlier, and that will set the tone for the session.

If it's a very confrontational speech saying, I'm going to undo everything you Democrats did last time, then we're going to really see some fireworks.

But maybe it won't be that way.

I think it depends who he gets around him, I think, who his hires are as Chief of Staff and some department heads who know something about state government, right, and know how to deal with the legislature.

There's no Governor I've ever covered, Amber, who loves the legislature.

They consider them a nuisance, right?

They want to get their agenda passed.

And even if they're of the same party, they think, Oh, come on, just do what I want you to do.

And so the Governor has immense power in this state.

We're gonna see how Joe Lombardo uses it.

-And Lombardo has announced his transition team, which you tweeted that it's, quote, a rainbow in many ways, pretty, pretty good.

What did you like about it?

-Well, I was quoting Larry David there, of course.

Listen, I like the fact that he's got some high-quality people there.

Jeremy Aguero, who is the most well-known data guy in the state.

I think he's been on every transition team for the last 10 or 15 years on there.

Tina Quigley from LVGEA is on there.

You have Peter Guzman from the Latin Chamber who's on there.

You have Dwayne McClinton from Southwest Gas.

So you have-- You have a lot of disparate interests on there, but I don't think any of that matters.

Transition teams are transition teams.

They're just there to help get the government started under the Lombardo administration.

Let's see what happens after he's inaugurated.

-Pretty, pretty good.

Is that how he says it?

-He does.

That's not a bad imitation.

You did it better than I could do.

-From the conservative perspective, I would imagine several are thinking, Well, let's-- We're just going to expect some of the same old, same old from the Democrats that have been reelected to the US Congress.

Are they fair in saying that?

What do you expect from the Democrats at the national level this upcoming session?

-You know, they're gonna have no leadership.

Nancy Pelosi is not going to be the Speaker anymore, and that's going to be a sea change for them because Nancy Pelosi is one of the strongest Speakers in history.

Whether you like her or not, she controlled that caucus.

Will her successor have that kind of control, and will they say, you know, Maybe people didn't love what we did before?

And unfortunately, they're going to be consumed by the Republicans who are in leadership now trying to investigate Hunter Biden and all the rest of the stuff.

Right?

And so I think-- Listen, I have more optimism about Carson City than I do about Washington these days.

-Hmm.

Well, what about Mark Amodei, the only Republican Representative?

Now he's going to have a majority in the House.

What do you think he will be able to get through?

-It's a great question, though.

He's gonna move up a lot in seniority because of retirements and people being beaten and running for the Senate.

He'll probably move up from about 150th to like 120th, something like that.

Maybe even higher.

Is he going to have a powerful subcommittee chairmanship maybe?

He should get one.

Now, Mark Amodei, I've covered him since he was in the legislature many, many years ago.

He is very, very smart.

I just, I am not sure how much he loves being in Washington anymore.

We'll get a sense of that if he really wants to stay for a while by what kind of subcommittee chairmanship he gets.

-You also correctly predicted all three ballot questions would pass.

Question 3, though, narrowly passed, which you did predict as well.

That is for open primaries and for ranked general elections.

What do you think was behind it barely passing and its odds of passing again in 2024, which it has to do?

-It has to because it's gonna be in the constitution.

I think that it barely passed because people don't like change, generally.

Right?

And so even though if they're upset with the system of campaigns and politics as they exist now, they don't like change.

But you cannot beat something with nothing, and there was no money spent against it.

And there was a fortune spent for.

I mean, you saw those ads all the time.

I mean, those ads actually made me laugh as a longtime analyst of politics because they were so disingenuous.

"I'm an independent, and I can't vote in primaries."

Of course you could.

All you got to do is switch parties and become a Democrat or Republican.

But they were effective enough.

But that was no landslide, right?

And I think there's going to be money spent against it next time.

So we'll see what happens.

-And the money that was spent this cycle, where was it coming from?

Were you suspicious of it, that it was from out of state?

I mean, what were the motives?

-That's for passing Question 3?

Listen, this is a group of billionaires, essentially, out of state billionaires who don't like the system for whatever their own reasons are, who want to change the system.

And if you have that much money, you can generally change the system, even with something that would be inherently confusing or unpopular to people.

And they've been doing this across the country.

We're just another petri dish for them.

And so that's going to keep going on.

People are upset, Amber.

They don't like the way things are going.

Whether this is the right solution or not, though, I think has-- We'll see.

-Back to Adam Laxalt.

He did concede his race saying, quote, I am confident that any challenge of this election would not alter the ultimate outcome, end quote.

He was an election denier in 2020.

What do you make of his concession?

-Really interesting.

Because as you point out, this is a complete change from Adam Laxalt who said that Joe Biden's clear victory in this state, 33,000 votes, was tainted by fraud and made all kinds of unsupported allegations, was part of lawsuits, then he loses by what is going to be a much smaller amount and says, It's okay.

I'm not going to challenge it.

This to me says that he wants to run for something again, that the election denialism he doesn't think is going to help him in the future.

And so he's trying to maintain his viability is what that was about.

-What kind of seat would make sense for him at this point?

-It's a really good question.

I mean, he lost the running for Governor and Senate.

And he-- I think he'll hang around.

This is my prediction: I think he'll probably hang around to see if Mark Amodei retires, because that's a very Republican House District.

He lives in that district, I believe.

And so he'll try to win that.

He'll have a good chance to win that.

And his concession, what does it reflect on former President Trump who claims that there was some election fraud in Clark County?

-Yeah, that was awful what Trump did.

He kept tweeting, you know, that there was fraud and that Laxalt should not give up so easily.

And I'm wondering if they talked in between the time that he was clearly lost, because it took him three or four days.

I forgot exactly what the timeframe was for him to concede, but-- Remember, Adam Laxalt's friend and roommate is Ron DeSantis, who is the Governor of Florida.

And DeSantis is now the biggest challenger to Trump.

And so Adam Laxalt has a decision to make, I think.

-Mmm.

How do you think Trump would do here compared to 2020 when he lost by 2.39 percentage points?

-Listen, the Democratic candidate for President has won here since 2008 when Obama won.

Obama won twice and Hillary won once and then Biden won once.

So I think you have to say, a Democrat is slightly favored.

But, Amber, it's such a long time away.

I mean, it really is.

And we don't know who the Democratic candidate is.

We don't know if Joe Biden is running again.

And if he doesn't run, what a primary that's going to be to take his place.

-So Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford used Trump's announcement at a third run for Presidency to send an email and ask for campaign donations.

He just got reelected.

What's behind that do you think?

-Shamelessness.

A brazen attempt to raise money off of Trump's announcement as if Aaron Ford can stop Donald Trump in some way.

Ford is one of the most ambitious politicians I've ever met.

He used to tell people way back when he was getting started that he would eventually be Governor and then he would run for President.

I kid you not.

So he has been open about this.

He's nakedly ambitious.

Not necessarily a character flaw.

In fact, it may be good in the business that he is in.

But I do think that he is going to run for Governor in four years.

-And so you think that might have been his announcement?

Not announcement, but-- -It kind of was an announcement of sorts, although I said that on Twitter.

I don't think he appreciated it.

-I imagine he didn't.

Back to Joe Lombardo's victory speech.

There were some members of the press that were not allowed in.

There were claims that the press was at capacity.

I was there.

There were clearly enough seats.

He did not take questions from the press either, after.

Is this a cause for concern or too soon?

-I think it's too soon.

I've always said, and, listen, I've been the victim of this.

I've been cut off from campaigns and administrations myself.

It's never a good idea to cut off reporters, even if you think they are hostile or news organizations.

There's no upside for the elected official or the administration doing it.

But I think you got to cut him some slack too.

Right after a campaign, he's mad at certain people.

He's happy to have won.

He's feeling his oats.

But I do think it's a cause for concern if this continues once he becomes Governor.

I don't think it will.

John Ralston, CEO of the Nevada Independent , thank you so much for your time.

-You bet.

-On election day, quote, an unassailable reason for all of us to hope for a better tomorrow was on full display at Liberty High School, end quote.

That's according to Brian Greenspun, CEO, publisher, and editor of The Las Vegas Sun , who on November 8th hosted the Las Vegas Sun Youth Forum, an annual event in Southern Nevada since 1956, excluding a pause for COVID.

The Forum's purpose is to bring awareness to young people's perspectives on issues important to them.

And joining us now to do just that are Hayley Rizor, a junior at Spring Valley High School, and Orlando Moreno, a senior at Del Sol Academy.

Thank you both for joining us here today.

How this works is that there were numerous rooms at Liberty High School.

Each was assigned a different topic.

And at the end of the discussions, someone was elected to represent that room's consensus.

And that is what both of you did.

So congratulations.

Hayley, your room's topic for discussion was School Days.

What school related issues were most prevalent in that discussion?

(Hayley Rizor) Well, we had questions on almost everything regarding schooling, but the main thing that my room focused on was both grade reform and the representation of students.

So that being making sure that any minority student, whether that be a racial minority or a member of the LGBTQ, was represented and felt safe.

-Okay.

And did you identify that there is a problem with both of those?

-Absolutely.

-How so?

-So many times, there is a-- We have lived in a very heteronormative society, which is where there is absolutely no education in both in the school and out of the school of any minority regarding sexuality.

And same thing with white privilege.

We learn so much about our white history, but we never learn about any Native American or Latino or any racial minority.

And so we were really focusing on bringing education to include everybody in that way.

-And what about grade reform?

What were the issues identified with that?

-So grade reform has been a very big issue among students and teachers.

Both are not very pleased with it at all.

What's happening right now in CCSD is that we are moving towards a very summative based curriculum.

So what that means is that all tests and anything of the sort, like essays or Socratic seminars or anything that tests the knowledge, is becoming widely more important than the formatives, which is any classwork, homework, or anything like that.

So right now, at least at my school, we have an 8020 policy where summatives are worth 80% of the grade.

However, this is driving students to not want to complete formatives at all.

So any classwork just doesn't need to get done simply because of the also minimum F policy that we have.

Any late work that's turned in is only a 50%.

You cannot get anything below a 50% at all.

And so once you average that out, if you get 100% on your test but you don't do any work, you can still average out within an A rate.

So it's driving many students to do not want to do any work at all.

And so we want to bring awareness to that and make every part of school just as important.

-We'll talk about some solutions coming up.

But Orlando, your topic was Home in Nevada.

What issues came up during that discussion?

(Orlando Moreno) Well, we touched on some environmental awareness, some anticipation for the midterms, and we also touched very heavily on education.

We spoke more about the funding of education and keeping students engaged within the schools.

And a lot of that came from according to some stats I have here.

According to U.S. News , as of 2022, New Jersey was the Number 1 performing school in the nation gradewise or testingwise.

They spent 18,000 per pupil.

Washington was Number 4, and they spend the most per pupil in the nation.

And Nevada, Number 49, is way below the national average, only spending 9k per pupil.

So that was just something we highlighted at the conversation.

And we also spoke about student involvement, keeping students engaged after schools with clubs or fine arts, things of the sort, you know, like social justice movements, such as what Hayley was involved in.

-Is there a lack of that?

Are there a lack of clubs?

-I don't believe so.

I don't believe there's a lack of clubs, but I do believe there is a lack of a push from schools and the school district in general to get kids into those clubs.

Because the clubs are there, but how many kids are really in those clubs?

10?

20?

It's not enough.

We have thousands and thousands of students at schools and only maybe hundreds in clubs.

-What's the motivation for them to go into those clubs?

You had talked about, off camera, in regards to representation, clubs that would help make minority students feel more seen and appreciated.

Are there enough?

Were there enough clubs among the students you talked to?

-I don't think all around.

Personally at my school, I'm very lucky to be involved and interact with so many different clubs.

Like I said, I am part of the feminist club on campus, HER club, History Education Representation.

So that has definitely pushed a lot of togetherness in our community.

And our Black Student Union is also highly, highly impressive.

It's one of the largest clubs at our school if not the largest, and they put on events for the whole school to enjoy.

But in talking with the people in my room, that was not the case for all.

And so-- Especially in those lower income areas or even just the schools that have those higher minority populations.

I think it's more important to have those clubs instilled there where they're not.

-Let's talk about solutions to grade reform.

And both of you can talk about this, because grade reform is something that's impacting you at your school as well.

What would you like to see happen?

What did the students talk about as a possible solution?

-Personally, I would like to see a more equal distance between formatives and summatives.

It doesn't have to be exactly 50/50, and it doesn't have to be that formatives are worth more than summatives, but at least getting to that 30/70 or even 60/40 range to where the summatives were just a bit more.

It will drive students to complete their work a lot more and a lot better.

And I think that instilling a late work policy, like to prepare for college.

In many colleges, you cannot turn in late work without getting 10% docked per day, or at least that is in UNLV, I believe.

And so I think that instilling something like that would help prepare a student for the real world or even just for college.

-And I believe that instilling late penalties and bringing those back, because we had those when my freshman year, which is three years ago.

We had those in CCSD, but we've since gotten rid of them.

And I think those really motivated students to get things done on time, whether it be summative or formative.

And I feel like, honestly, 50/50 would work even better because you shouldn't be able to pass a class--which passing is a D, 60%--I don't think you should be able to pass a class just off the tests alone.

I think you should have to learn how to do some of the busy work because that's important to be able to manage your workload and be able to manage the stress that comes with it.

I think it's a great skill for students to learn, especially if they're moving into higher education in colleges and universities, but also be able to perform well academically during tests and summative assignments.

-So is this possibly hurting students as they are preparing for college?

-Absolutely.

I believe that it's going to be detrimental to build these bad habits at a young age, K through 12, and then go to college and the rules are completely different.

There's late penalties.

There's a different grading system.

It's not preparing us for college.

It's preparing us for high school.

It's preparing us for, you know, it's failure.

-Hayley, back to the representation issue.

One question that you were asked, all of the students: Should schools be able to have lessons discussing prejudices against specific groups, transphobia, homophobia, Islamophobia, racism, anti-Semitism?

What was the consensus on that?

-Absolutely, there was almost a universal opinion within my group that there is not enough history on every single group that we see in our classrooms.

And so one of the largest ones was focusing on Stonewall, actually, which not a lot of people are taught this, but Stonewall is what incited the first gay civil rights movements in 1969.

And so not many people know about it and are not able to see themselves within the classroom.

And so that was one of the main issues, focusing more heavily on the Trail of Tears, taking away importance from people like Christopher Columbus, who have been almost idolized in our classrooms when they very much have not been the most positive contributors to our history.

And so I think that telling history and giving education in a more objective way rather than subjective would be the goal.

-Hayley Rizor, Orlando Moreno, thank you so much for your time.

And thank you for watching Nevada Week .

For any of the resources discussed here, including election results, go to vegaspbs.org/nevadaweek.

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