Monday, July 13, 2026 | 2 a.m.
Editor’s note: Este artículo está traducido al español.
Aaron Ford had a surprise waiting for the Telemundo reporter who asked the final question at his news conference: The Nevada gubernatorial hopeful answered him in Spanish.
Turning to face the camera directly, Ford used the moment to lay out his economic vision for the Silver State — speaking to Nevada’s Latino community, which makes up 31% of the state’s population, in their own language.
It’s not a skill the state attorney general picked up on the campaign trail to win votes against Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo.
Ford, Nevada’s attorney general and the Democratic nominee for governor, said he learned Spanish back in high school in Texas, where he absorbed telenovelas and Spanish-language radio, and talked to anyone who’d listen.
“I literally would speak Spanish in present tense talking about what I did last week,” he said.
That kind of personal outreach matters now more than ever.
Roughly 1 in 5 Nevada voters are Latino, and the bloc swung red in the last election — President Donald Trump posted record national gains among Latino voters in 2024, including gains in Nevada. Yet a March poll from Noble Predictive Insights has Ford ahead of Lombardo among Latino voters by 24 points in the governor’s race, suggesting his outreach approach may be paying off.
Ford’s campaign says it’s more than being able to communicate directly with Spanish-speaking voters.
Ford is targeting Latino voters by highlighting his working-class roots and contrasting his platform against Lombardo’s alignment with Republican deportation policies. Ford’s father was a produce worker at a Safeway grocery store and his mother worked various jobs — similar to that of many working-class Latinos.
Ford has repeatedly said that Nevada families “work hard, they play by the rules, but they can’t get ahead because prices are too high, jobs are too scarce and it feels like the deck is stacked against them.”
His focus on the Latino vote dates to his campaign launch nearly a year ago at the East Las Vegas Community Center, which sits in a neighborhood with a significant Latino population. Since then, Ford has secured endorsements from U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., the first Latina ever elected to serve in the Senate, and the entire Nevada Latino Legislative Caucus.
Ford has released a Spanish-language campaign ad and made Latino outreach a priority, attending Hispanics in Politics breakfasts and visiting Latino-owned small businesses.
State Sen. Fabian Doñate, D-Las Vegas, shared Ford’s Spanish-language launch ad on social media last year, writing that a Ford administration would create greater opportunities for Nevada’s Latino community.
“Finally, a candidate for governor in Nevada who speaks our language, understands our struggles, and will fight for our families,” Doñate wrote in Spanish.
In an interview this month, Doñate said the sustained time Ford has spent with the Latino community has made a difference to voters.
“Latinos really do pay attention in terms of who is investing in our community,” Doñate said. “And I don’t think we’ve had, in quite a bit … a statewide (representation) that could speak as robustly in Spanish with (Secretary of State) Cisco (Aguilar) and AG Ford on the ticket.”
Doñate said he is used to having to translate for other politicians when they visit the Hispanic community, which creates awkward gaps. Ford’s bilingualism negates the need for a Spanish translator.
“I think for a lot of Latino voters that really does matter because sometimes they’re kind of shocked that someone actually took the time to learn from them and be able to speak with them,” Doñate said.
Ford said his main takeaway from his conversations with community members was that voters were struggling with high cost of living.
“Everywhere I go — it doesn’t matter who I’m talking to — everyone wants a good job, to buy a house in a safe neighborhood where schools are preparing their kids for careers or for college, where the healthcare system is available to them and affordable,” Ford said.
Affordability is what Ford has focused on most in his campaign, and the message resonates with Daisy Vega, owner of Esmeralda’s Restaurante, which offers a menu of authentic Salvadoran and Mexican cuisine. Through his repeated visits to her restaurant on Paradise Road across the street from Paradise Park, Ford has become a friend, Vega said.
“I think he’s a very good person. He’s a very kind man,” Vega said.
Vega has been a businesswoman in Las Vegas for 30 years. Esmeraldas is the fifth business she’s owned — and she said this is the first time she’s found herself struggling.
Small-business owners across Nevada have pointed to Trump’s tariffs as a major driver of rising costs, from imported food and supplies to equipment, squeezing already-thin margins in the restaurant industry.
“I have always done that good — even during the pandemic I did OK. But this time is just different. The whole community, I mean the small businesses, we’re suffering,” Vega said.
Nevada Democrats have argued that Lombardo has been too passive in pushing back against the Trump administration’s trade policies, saying his silence has left the state’s small businesses to absorb the impact largely on their own.
Vega said Ford can help alleviate some of that pressure.
“I think he’ll be good for Nevada. He’ll be good for us. He’ll be good for small businesses,” Vega said.
Lombardo is also courting the Latino voting bloc, recently attending the Latin Chamber of Commerce’s monthly “Desayunos Con Amigos” women’s empowerment event. His campaign didn’t respond to a request to participate in this story.
Peter Guzman, president of the Latin Chamber of Commerce, says Lombardo will return next month for another campaign event with the chamber.
In a social media post following the initial event, Lombardo wrote: “Great to join my friend Peter Guzman and the Latin Chamber of Commerce Nevada for Desayunos con Amigos this morning. Our Hispanic community is critical to our state’s success, and I always appreciate the opportunity to address how we can keep Nevada moving in the right direction with local small-business owners and community leaders.”
Lombardo’s campaign has focused on strong job growth and attainable housing — two issues central to Latino voters, Guzman said.
Nevada led the country in year-over-year job growth across several sectors over the past 12 months, according to the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation, including private employment (2.2%), information (7.8%), professional and business services (6.0%), healthcare and education (4.6%), management of companies and enterprises (5.6%) and professional, scientific and technical services (5.2%).
“What always matters is jobs, job growth,” Guzman said. “And we’ve had 11 straight months of job growth. That stuff really resonates with the Hispanic community.”
Guzman has been an outspoken Lombardo supporter, having served on the governor’s transition team in 2022 as Lombardo prepared to take office.
Latino support for Trump has eroded since his return to the White House: While 93% of his 2024 Latino voters approved of him at the start of his second term, that job approval rating dropped to 66% by mid-2026, according to the Pew Research Center. Among the broader Latino adult population — which includes both nonvoters and those who backed other candidates — Trump’s general job approval rating fell from 36% down to 22% over that same period.
Trump’s declining support among Hispanic voters is complicating Lombardo’s reelection bid. Lombardo has framed himself as a pragmatic counterweight to the Democratic-controlled Legislature, a message that depends on backing from moderate Latino voters.
But as Trump’s standing with that group slips, Lombardo faces growing difficulty distancing himself from the national GOP. RealClearPolitics polling shows a near tie with Ford less than four months before Election Day.
“I certainly believe (the Lombardo campaign) is doing a good job reaching out,” Guzman said. “They’re very intentional about reaching out. He has been for a long time and I haven’t seen that slow down. … What’s really impressive is, even when he won the first time he continued that outreach and continued working in the Hispanic community.”
