Joseph Michael Lombardo (8 November 1962-) was the Republican Sheriff of Clark County, Nevada from 5 January 2015 to 2 January 2023 (succeeding Doug Gillespie and preceding Kevin McMahill) and Governor of Nevada from 2 January 2023 (succeeding Steve Sisolak).
Biography[]
Joseph Michael Lombardo was born in Japan in 1962, the son of a US Air Force serviceman. He was raised in Las Vegas, Nevada, and he served in the US Army from 1980 to 1988 before becoming an LVMPD officer in 1988. In 2014, he was elected Sheriff of Clark County as a Republican, and he attributed a surge in crime in Las Vegas to California's reduction of prison overcrowding, while also supporting banning high-capacity magazines. In 2022, he ran for Governor of Nevada, challenging Democratic incumbent Steve Sisolak. While he accepted Joe Biden's victory in the 2022 presidential election, he claimed that it was easy to commit electoral fraud. He narrowly defeated Sisolak by a margin of 49% to 47%, and he proposed increased education and infrastructure spending, as well as a voter ID requirement to rollback vote-by-mail. In 2023, he oversaw a $1.5 billion investment in the building of a 30,000-seat ballpark at the Tropicana Las Vegas for the Oakland Athletics' relocation to Las Vegas.