RENO, Nev. (AP) — County election officials wrapped up a two-day statewide recount of ballots in Nevada’s GOP gubernatorial primary on Friday, and the result didn’t appear to have changed in the state’s two most populous counties, showing a second seat Joey Gilbert lost to Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo in a crowded field.
The Nevada Secretary of State’s office confirmed Friday afternoon that all 17 counties have completed their counts. Although officials did not release or comment on the unofficial results, Clark and Washoe counties confirmed Lombardo had defeated Gilbert, who paid for the recount despite trailing Lombardo by 11 percentage points after the June 14 vote.
Clark and Washoe counties accounted for 75 percent of the ballots cast in Nevada’s Republican gubernatorial primary.
Gilbert, who was outside the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot, is running on a platform shaped in part by unsubstantiated allegations of election fraud and allegations that election officials did not properly verify signatures or monitor ballots and that votes for Lombardo were “injected” into the system. He has not provided any evidence for these claims.
He said he did not expect the results to change much, but requested a recount to later challenge the election results in court. He has the help of right-wing activist and crypto-businessman Robert Beadles, who unsuccessfully sued Nevada and the state’s second-most populous county seeking increased oversight of the county’s elections.
“All they’re doing is using the same stapled and cooked ballots, running them through the same, broken machines,” Gilbert said in a video taped Thursday outside the Clark County Elections Department. “So, do I expect much from this? No, but it’s part of the process.
The June 14 contest in Nevada proved largely successful for candidates backed by Trump and those who called the 2020 election fraudulent. Republican U.S. Senate candidate Adam Laxalt co-chaired Trump’s Nevada re-election campaign and led unsuccessful legal challenges to overturn the state’s 2020 election results based on false claims of voter fraud. Secretary of State nominee Jim Marchant told voters at a candidate forum in February that their vote “hasn’t counted for decades.”
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Despite competing in his own race, Gilbert congratulated Laxalt and Marchand for their victories, which were on the same ballot.
Gilbert’s team paid $190,960 to the Nevada Secretary of State’s office Friday afternoon before the 5 p.m. deadline, a total based on estimated costs submitted by each of Nevada’s 17 counties.
“We’ve all been preparing for this,” Nye County Clerk Sam Merlino said after presenting a cost estimate last Wednesday. “We all felt like there was going to be a contest or a recount.”
For Republicans, the apparent rejection of Gilbert’s results reflects mounting challenges two years after many in the party accepted debunked allegations of election fraud. Party leaders want to boost turnout while appealing to the tens of thousands who backed Gilbert and don’t trust the election.
The day after the election, state GOP Chairman Michael McDonald, who dismissed the 2020 election results, chided Gilbert and said it was time to rally behind Lombardo in a rare case of criticism of the far right in the state party.
“The election is over. It was named. Joe Lombardo won. We need to come together and unite,” he said, calling Gilbert’s reaction “emotional.”
Baseless allegations of election fraud are already having an effect in Nevada. Dozens of angry voters last week urged county commissioners in Clark and Washoe counties to vote against certifying the results, describing their own experiences at the polls and echoing conspiracy theories that nearly derailed certification in New Mexico earlier this month.
Last week, two county commissioners in Esmeralda County conducted a manual count of all 317 ballots submitted after the commission delayed the initial verification by a day. However, all counties certified the election by Friday’s deadline.
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Stern is a corps member of the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. America Report is a national nonprofit program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercover issues. Follow Stern on Twitter @gabestern326
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