Lombardo, on the campaign trail, talks up Nevada’s growth. Including its likely status as home to four major league sports teams. In addition to the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders and NHL’s Las Vegas Golden Knights, the former Oakland Athletics are relocating to Southern Nevada, with their new $2 billion, 33,000-seat stadium on the Las Vegas Strip (at the former Tropicana hotel site) scheduled to open for the 2028 season, following a three-year temporary stint playing home games in California’s state capital, Sacramento.

Meanwhile, the NBA is actively exploring a Las Vegas expansion franchise, with a team expected to begin play in the 2008-29 season. The league plans to finalize the addition of a 32nd team (alongside Seattle). Franchise valuations for the putative Nevada and Washington state teams are estimated to range between $7 billion and $10 billion.

Ford, Lombardo’s Democratic opponent, is not surprisingly focusing on the rising cost of living — a problem nationally but particularly acute in Nevada, with its plethora of service jobs.

For Democrats, Lombardo and Trump are twin political villains in this narrative. Ford repeatedly uses the phrase “Lombardo-Trump economy” to blame the governor for Nevada’s high cost of living, stubbornly high gas and grocery prices, and lagging job growth. He argues Lombardo’s alignment with national conservative economic policies harms working-class Nevadans.

Las Vegas, by far Nevada’s dominant city, was already facing tough economic crosswinds ahead of Trump’s White House return and ensuing U.S.-Canada tensions. The rise of legalized sports betting in nearly 40 states — creating new competition for gambling dollars — is one point of friction, along with various fees and surcharges that have kept visitors away, and not just from Canada.

Still, the Canadian tourist drop is sharp, said Andrew Woods, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Woods, in an interview, stayed away from politics. But using the COVID-19 pandemic as an economic benchmark, he’s keeping a close eye on economic data pointing to a sustained dip in tourism from Canada and elsewhere.

“In Nevada, we only got back where we were pre-pandemic in the last year,” Woods said. “It is concerning that tourism is not growing past its pre-pandemic peak.”

It’s a troubling trend also because Canadians have tended to be repeat visitors to Las Vegas.

“That consumer loves Las Vegas. When they come to visit, they only come to Vegas. They’re not on some larger holiday in the United States,” he said. “They like the weather, and they can thaw out. And, obviously, they like the hospitality and the gambling and all the things other people enjoy.”

Downer data

The Nevada gubernatorial race is also a geographically unexpected example of the international politics of tariffs. The Upper Midwest and Great Plains have been hit hard by the Trump tariff program. Yet Nevada doesn’t have a large manufacturing or agricultural sector jolted by the tariffs. Rather, tourism from Canada is a major economic casualty for Nevada, since Canadian visitors can, in a given year, make up about 25% or more of Las Vegas’ foreign tourism market.

Canadians are incensed by Trump’s tariffs and his “51st state” taunts. Many have boycotted U.S. products and tourist destinations in retaliation. Making Harry Reid International Airport — named for the late Democratic majority from Nevada — an at times lonelier place.

“For 2025, Canadian visitations (international deplanes at Harry Reid with Canadian airlines) were down 24.7% from the year prior,” Woods said, citing international trade statistics.

For this year through April, “international deplanes with Canadian airlines are down a further 23.3%,” Woods added.  

The effects have been seen in Las Vegas, where the hospitality sector is reliant on wealthy international visitors’ spending at the city’s casinos and hotels. Recent months have brought the closure of several high-end Las Vegas restaurants, with former proprietors citing a downturn in visitors.

“It’s dry out here, and not just the weather,” quipped Mike Lynch, an Uber driver originally from New Jersey who has been in Las Vegas for 22 years.

“Tourism pending is way down, and everybody’s hurting,” said Lynch, 50, during a June 30 mid-morning Uber drive — with the temperature already 85 degrees— from a suburban diner to the Courtyard by Marriott Las Vegas Convention Center.

It’s reached a point that several Las Vegas resorts have offered to treat Canadian dollars at par with U.S. dollars, effectively a 30% discount. The city’s tourism office earlier this year launched a $3.5 million marketing campaign targeting Canadian visitors.

There’s no doubt a straight line between the growing Canadian tourist boycott of Las Vegas and tensions between the nations. U.S.-Canada tensions under the Trump administration center on trade, border infrastructure, and tariffs.

The administration has slapped steep duties on Canadian steel, aluminum, automobiles, and forestry products. In response, Canadian provinces retaliated by banning U.S. alcohol from government-run liquor stores.

Canadians are also sore at Trump’s assertions that the U.S. does not need a trade agreement with Canada. Along with persistent jokes about Canada being the 51st U.S. state.

“If we didn’t have this dispute going on with Canada, we would have had an uptick in travel from there,” said Woods, at UNLV.

A premier swing state

Whether Nevada’s economic fallout from Canadian anger at the Trump administration is an issue in the governor’s race remains to be seen. Nevada was already a swing state where both parties had legitimate claims for optimism about their chances this fall.

Democrats seemed to have an edge until earlier this decade. That changed in 2022, when Lombardo was the only Republican to flip a governorship. Then in 2024, Nevada backed Trump over Democratic rival Kamala Harris. It broke Democrats’ presidential winning streak going back to 2008. Still, Democrats hold both Senate seats, represent three of four House districts, and have majorities in both state legislative chambers.

Moreover, Lombardo, Clark County sheriff for eight years before winning the Nevada governorship in 2022 by beating the incumbent Democrat, is a top GOP gubernatorial target this year. Major Democratic money is pouring into the race on behalf of Ford, 54, who, if elected, would be Nevada’s first black governor.

Analysts say Lombardo, 63, has steered a relatively centrist, or at least center-right, course as governor. Once ensconced in his Carson City office at the state Capitol after his 2022 win, Lombardo “used his veto pen to block a range of bills passed by the Democratic-controlled Legislature,” wrote the 2026 Almanac of American Politics. That set “a single-session record for the state.”

But Lombardo “approved others, including on social issues.”

Facing reelection on Nov. 3, Lombardo is emphasizing quality-of-life and affordability issues. So is Ford, who was elected attorney general in 2022 after nearly six years in the state Senate, including his final two years there as majority leader.

Ford’s campaign, running under the banner of the “Affordable Nevada Plan,” centers primarily on working-class economic issues. Ford has championed a “worker-first” economic agenda. A centerpiece of his platform includes a proposal to repeal Nevada’s “right-to-work” law to bolster union bargaining power. He has also pledged not to raise taxes during the cost-of-living crisis.

The drop in Canadian tourists in Las Vegas has arisen intermittently in the governor’s race. It’s likely to become a more intense issue in the campaign’s remaining three-and-a-half months and remain part of a broader debate about Nevada’s economic future.

George Harris, the Republican nominee for state Senate in District 8, covering the prosperous Las Vegas Valley, is relatively bullish on his state’s economy. For now, that is.

“I think [the economy is] a strong 7 out of 10,” Harris said in an interview.

“I think it will stay a 7 for another 60 months.” But he warned, “It could go from 7 all the way down to 5.”

Harris, 65, an Army veteran who worked for the late Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and then ran his own companies, warned that Lombardo would be a top Democratic target, having flipped the governorship four years ago.

“We have a governor that the Democrats hate,” Harris said.

Lynch, the Uber driver, said the downturn in Canadian visitors is less a reflection of Trump’s antagonistic approach toward their country than of broader changes in Las Vegas that have made visiting less attractive.

BYRON YORK — TRUMP’S MIDTERMS: TWO STEPS FORWARD, ONE STEP BACK

That includes an uptick in “resort fees” at hotels, said Lynch, a self-described three-time Trump voter. And having to pay for parking, which hotels have implemented in recent years.

“The city’s leadership really needs to rethink what it’s doing,” Lynch said while driving his car through a Las Vegas Strip intersection. “Make this place more affordable, and the Canadians will come back.”

David Mark (@DavidMarkDC) is the managing editor of the Washington Examiner magazine.