NBC News: Impacts of Trump’s Budget Bill “Will Loom Particularly Large” in Nevada Governor’s Race

NBC News: Impacts of Trump’s Budget Bill “Will Loom Particularly Large” in Nevada Governor’s Race

Joe Lombardo, “the most vulnerable Republican governor up for re-election,” faces scrutiny over support for law that will kick hardworking Nevadans’ off their health care, devastate Nevada’s economy

New reporting from NBC News highlights how the impacts of Trump’s disastrous budget bill that could kick hundreds of thousands of Nevadans off their health care “will loom particularly large” on Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo, “the most vulnerable Republican governor up for re-election.”

Lombardo has said he was “excited” about the law that will “institute steep cuts to Medicaid and food aid” and raise prices for hardworking Nevada families. Earlier this year, Lombardo was even caught on tape calling his constituents’ protests against Trump’s devastating agenda “stupid,” and he has continuously embraced Trump’s disastrous tariffs, which will only make life harder for Nevadans across the state.

Read more about the Lombardo-backed budget law wreaking havoc on Nevada: 

• When it comes to President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” few places could be affected more significantly than Nevada — one of the country’s most closely divided swing states.

• The implementation of the new law in the coming months and years will occur as Nevada is set to play a key role in the next midterm and presidential elections. In 2026, Gov. Joe Lombardo […] is seen as the most vulnerable Republican governor up for re-election.

• Trump’s law will institute steep cuts to Medicaid and food aid benefits mostly by establishing new work requirements, restrict state-levied fees on health care providers that are mostly used to fund Medicaid, and preclude the federal government from being responsible for reimbursing states any longer. In Nevada, as many as 100,000 people could fall off Medicaid as a result, according to the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

• “We don’t have the funds to be able to fill these critical gaps,” Yeager said. “We’re a low-revenue state. … We’re in a really tough place.”

• Those impacts will loom particularly large in next year’s governor’s race in Nevada.

• “Lombardo will have to reckon with the damage done to Nevadans’ lives and livelihoods because he was too cowardly to stand up to Trump,” said Nevada Democratic Party Chair Daniele Monroe-Moreno.”

• A spokesperson for Lombardo declined to comment for this story…

• That tension underscores the bind many Republican incumbents are likely to find themselves in during next year’s midterms as they seek to take credit for some of the tax-saving mechanisms of the bill while distancing themselves from the cuts that Democrats are already hammering them on — all while trying to avoid running afoul of Trump.

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