WATCH: The Shade Room Presents “Get Out the Vote” With Attorney General Aaron Ford and Keisha Lance Bottoms

WATCH: The Shade Room Presents “Get Out the Vote” With Attorney General Aaron Ford and Keisha Lance Bottoms

Ahead of crucial gubernatorial races across the country, including top flip opportunities in Nevada and Georgia, The Shade Room hosted “Get Out The Vote,” a conversation with Attorney General Aaron Ford and Keisha Lance Bottoms on the stakes of their elections and their plans to make life more affordable for Nevadans and Georgians.

Ford highlighted his plan to lower costs for Nevadans, who are getting crushed by the Lombardo-Trump economy that has sent everything from gas prices to groceries and rent sky-high. While Ford fights to build a Nevada that working people can actually afford, Joe Lombardo thinks Nevadans “need to feel a little pain” from Trump’s cost-raising tariffs and continues to put Donald Trump and his billionaire backers over Nevada families.

Bottoms is running to make Georgia more affordable, expand Medicaid, lower the cost of groceries and gas, support small businesses, and stand up against Washington’s attacks on Georgia. Her opponent Rick Jackson is the ultimate insider who has a long record of profiting off of Georgians’ pain – and is running, in his words, to be Trump’s favorite governor.

Aaron Ford and Keisha Lance Bottoms’ victories would be historic — Ford would be the first Black governor of Nevada, and Bottoms would be the first Black governor of Georgia, and the first Black woman governor in the country.

WATCH HERE and read key excerpts below:

Attorney General Aaron Ford:

• “Number one priority: affordability. Number two priority: affordability. Number three priority: affordability. Everything costs too much. I’ve been talking to folks all across the state, and it don’t matter who I’m talking to — Democrat, Republican, Independent, somebody who lives in suburban…  urban Nevada, rural Nevada… They all say things cost too much, and our governor could have helped that, but he vetoed so many bills that are causing us to be living this stress right now. My priority is to sign some of those bills and to sign more bills that are going to help lower the cost for our state.”

• “Our governor hasn’t stood up to Donald Trump. These tariffs, he said, we should feel pain from… he said we should get rid of the Department of Education. He said we should be excited about the Big, Beautiful Bill that’s getting rid of 100,000 folks off Medicaid. And I was on Medicaid because I was a single parent in college, right? So I know what these lifelines are like. But I knew Lombardo wouldn’t stand up, and I had to get in the game. So that’s why I ran.”

• “I decided to run because I knew in my state my governor wouldn’t stand up for our rights, whether there were civil rights, whether there were voting rights, whether they were just the right to frankly exist, that he would capitulate, kowtow, and kiss up to Donald Trump. And I was proven right, unfortunately… We’re living in what I call the Lombardo-Trump economy that’s making it difficult for folks to just even survive, let alone trying to thrive… What’s on the line right now is having elected officials who’re going to look out for you, the everyday Nevadan, in my instance, as opposed to what our current governor says, ‘Trump’s billionaire friends’ – get involved, get engaged. You need to vote. Don’t let them scare you away from it. Show up and make it happen.”

Keisha Lance Bottoms 

• “The why for me is because I want better. I’ve got four kids, 24, 18, and my twins are 16 years old, and I want better for them. And I can’t have a better Georgia for them if it’s not better for everybody’s family in their communities. We haven’t expanded Medicaid in Georgia. We’ve got 300,000 people who dropped health care coverage, 600,000 since January, because they can’t afford their premiums. Our teachers make, on average, starting pay, $48,000 a year. We’re number one in business, but we’re in the bottom half in education. I want to support our small businesses. I want to create a division in state government that focuses on businesses with zero to 25 employees, and I just, I want better. If we can be number one for business in this country, we should be able to be number one in education and healthcare too.”

• “The guy I’m running against, who says he wants to be Trump with a southern tone. He wants to be his favorite governor. He doesn’t disagree with anything about him. It will be like having Donald Trump as the governor of Georgia, Georgia, the cradle of the Civil Rights Movement in America—it matters, and we need everybody’s vote.”

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