Nevada Governor: Joe Lombardo (R)
The son of a U.S. Air Force veteran, Nevada Gov.-elect Joe Lombardo was born in Sapporo, Japan, on Nov. 8, 1962.
He lived in Japan for over a decade before his family moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, in 1976.
After graduating from Rancho High School in 1980, Lombardo attended the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, from which he received a bachelor of science in civil engineering and a master of science in crisis management.
Lombardo served in the U.S. Army before becoming an officer in the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department in 1988.
During his time on the force he also attended and graduated from the FBI National Academy.
A Republican, he was elected sheriff of Clark County, Nevada, in 2014.
In that position, he was head of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, the combined law enforcement agency of Las Vegas and Clark County, and the largest law enforcement agency in Nevada.
It was also in that role that he oversaw the investigation into the 2017 Las Vegas shooting at Mandalay Bay and Route 91 Harvest, the deadliest mass shooting in the modern history of the United States.
Fifty-eight people were killed and 500 were injured in the shooting.
Lombardo was reelected in 2018. During his swearing-in ceremony, he spoke at length about the expansion of department staff levels during his years in office. In all, he hired an additional 900 officers and 280 corrections officers.
In lieu of running for a third term this year, Lombardo set his sights on the governor’s office.
After a protracted vote count, he narrowly defeated incumbent Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak in the 2022 Nevada gubernatorial election.
