Nevada Democratic attorney general primary is a battle over rich donors and résumés 

The fiercest Democratic primary in Nevada may be the race for attorney general. 

Open for the first time in eight years, the seat has seen the highest level of ad spending of any of this year's Democratic primaries. It features two longtime political adversaries who have not been shy about their disdain for one another, trading barbs about a lack of courtroom experience or about spending taxpayer dollars on legislative building upgrades.

Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro (D-Las Vegas), 43, is backed by a key operative of the Reid Machine, Nevada's powerful Democratic Party establishment. She argues she's most qualified for the role, touting more than a decade of experience in the Clark County District Attorney's Office and service in the top leadership role in the state Senate. 

Treasurer Zach Conine (D), 44, has highlighted his two terms of experience in the executive branch and his work as a business attorney. He's outraised Cannizzaro to date.

The attorney general serves as Nevada's chief legal officer, representing the state and its residents in civil and criminal matters. The office also provides legal advice to state agencies and officers, and assists law enforcement agencies with investigations and court cases.

Attorneys general are limited to a maximum of two four-year terms. Termed-out Attorney General Aaron Ford (D) is running for governor. 

The outcome of the November election will set the tenor of Nevada's relationship with the federal government over the next two years. Whoever wins the Democratic primary will face a Republican candidate supportive of President Donald Trump (R) in the fall election. Conine and Cannizzaro describe the president as hostile to the rule of law, the democratic process and individual liberty.

The primary has divided some of Nevada's most politically influential organizations. The powerful Clark County teachers' union, law enforcement groups and Emily's List are backing Cannizzaro, while the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada and the Nevada State Education Association support Conine. 

There was also an eyebrow-raising dual endorsement from the AFL-CIO. It's the first time since the 2018 Democratic primary for governor that the organization — which represents more than 150,000 workers across Nevada — has endorsed two candidates in a statewide election. The Culinary Union also endorsed both candidates.

Read on to learn about the candidates' backgrounds and plans if they triumph in November.

Meet the candidates

Cannizzaro has highlighted her nearly 10 years in the Legislature and more than a decade of experience as a prosecutor, making her the only candidate in the race with courtroom experience.

Three years into her tenure as a lawmaker, she assumed the top-ranking role of majority leader, the first woman to hold the title in Nevada.

Born and raised in Nevada, Cannizzaro has three children — one of whom was born during the 2023 legislative session — with her husband, Nate Ring, a labor attorney based in Las Vegas.

After a short stint in the private sector, Cannizzaro joined the Clark County District Attorney's Office in 2011. She moved through the ranks and eventually became the chief deputy district attorney in the gang unit before returning to private practice in 2022.

"I have done more than 40 jury trials," she said of her time as a deputy district attorney. "I think that experience in putting together complex cases at the DA's office to take down fraud rings and gangs makes me uniquely qualified for this job."

Cannizzaro also says her legislative experience gave her deep knowledge of the state's budget and organizational structure, and a knack for negotiating with opponents — key traits for an attorney general, she said. 

In the Legislature, she sponsored and passed bills to establish a public health care insurance option, ban artificial intelligence-generated child pornography and protect people from prosecution for seeking legal abortions in Nevada. She also helped secure a historic increase in K-12 funding in 2023 and, two years later, worked with Gov. Joe Lombardo (R) to pass a major education accountability bill with provisions expanding free pre-K, a longtime priority of hers.  

Conine touts his experience as the only candidate in the race to have won and governed statewide. He also highlights his management of casinos and restaurant companies with hundreds of employees before becoming treasurer, as well as his experience as a business attorney — work he says aligns with the attorney general's role.

Prior to entering office, Conine attended UNLV's Boyd School of Law at night while working. Conine has three children with his wife, Layke, an attorney and the executive director of the Nevada Cannabis Association.

"I know how to manage and lead people to success. … The attorney general manages and leads big groups of people, the attorney general provides counsel," Conine said.

In his role as treasurer, Conine managed a 63-person office overseeing the state's investments, bonds, Millennium Scholarship program and unclaimed property system. He said state leaders frequently turned to him for legal advice on fiscal questions and for ideas on how to creatively respond to crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

During his tenure, Conine oversaw the Pandemic Emergency Technical Support Grant Program to assist small businesses, helped raise Nevada's credit rating three times and launched a first-in-the-nation grant program for children with disabilities.

"I know how to use the executive branch in a way that we can help people directly, not just talking about it, not just sending press releases, but actually doing the work," Conine said.

Policy positions

Approaching the office

Lombardo and Ford have previously butted heads over the attorney general's communication protocols, with Lombardo saying Ford rarely gives him advance notice that he's signing Nevada on to a new lawsuit. Nevada is one of the few states where the attorney general and governor are from different parties.

Conine said that he's always strived to be communicative and avoid surprising colleagues, regardless of party affiliation, although he added that the attorney general does not work for the governor. 

He referenced his clash with the governor over how to address a loss of funding for food stamps during last fall's government shutdown.

"If the thing that is best for Nevadans is to disagree with the governor, then you should do so," he said.

Cannizzaro, likewise, said it's important for the attorney general to remain independent even while working in tandem with other state leaders. 

"They have the authority to use their best judgment about what cases to pursue," she said.

Priorities

Each attorney general has brought a distinct policy focus to the office's work. 

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) — who held the role from 2007 to 2015 — focused on sex trafficking and the mortgage crisis, while her successor, Adam Laxalt (R), targeted what he described as the Obama administration's overreach and focused on clearing the state's backlog of rape assault kits. 

Ford's signature bills included efforts to curb social media addiction and ban price fixing on essential goods and services. He also facilitated a series of roundtables in 2020 centered around policing reform and the Black Lives Matter movement. In 2019, he implemented an office-wide policy that focused on using prosecutorial discretion to secure the lowest possible charges in an effort to combat mass incarceration, except in cases of violent criminals.

Cannizzaro told The Indy she will focus on protecting Nevada from federal overreach related to reproductive, voting and civil rights. She also wants to strengthen children's online safety, crack down on scammers, hold corporations accountable and keep costs affordable.

Conine says if elected, he will focus on fighting Trump, cracking down on government corruption and protecting workers' rights. He said he will establish a workers' rights division in the attorney general's office to decisively take action when contractors and other employers take advantage of workers.

He also wants to increase transparency in government.

He also criticized changes enacted on Cannizzaro's watch, such as when the Legislature bankrolled aesthetic improvements to the Legislative Building in Carson City when the funds could have been spent on affordable housing projects. He also called for addressing a loophole in state law that allows PACs to avoid disclosing late-cycle donations or expenditures until a month after the state's June 9 primary election.

Fighting Trump

Whoever triumphs as attorney general will determine whether Nevada supports or sues the Trump administration, particularly regarding election administration, a state responsibility that Trump has repeatedly — and baselessly — characterized as rife with fraud.

Both candidates say they would reject Trump's efforts to wrest control of elections.

"They are coming after voting and democracy," said Conine, referring to Trump as an "existential threat" to Nevada.

Ford has filed and joined myriad lawsuits on the topic, including co-leading a 24-state lawsuit challenging Trump's order to compile voter lists from each state. 

Both Democratic candidates vowed to fight Trump on immigration enforcement, which they say has caused particular fear among Nevada's diverse population.

Conine said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are "working illegally and collaborating illegally with local governments," referencing the 287(g) immigration partnership the Las Vegas police department solidified last year with ICE. He said he wants a special session to prevent that collaboration from continuing. 

Cannizzaro pointed to her leadership during last fall's special session on a bill that limited ICE's ability to act on school grounds.

Conine criticized Cannizzaro's references in campaign advertisements to that bill, saying the version that became law had weaker protections than some Democratic lawmakers originally proposed.

"My opponent is on TV talking about how she fixed the problem. … That bill didn't actually do anything to make anyone more safe, broadly," he said, adding he'd work to strengthen it as attorney general.

Cannizzaro described the bill as an important first step and needed to include compromises to secure Lombardo's signature. She said during negotiations, some lawmakers raised concerns about situations where it would be dangerous to prevent law enforcement on school grounds — including during school shootings or other attacks.

"We didn't want to prohibit legitimate reasons why law enforcement may need to be on school grounds, but we wanted to make sure we are not letting ICE abuse that authority … to conduct raids and to traumatize and to terrorize communities," she said.

Consumer protections

Another of the attorney general's key responsibilities is managing the Bureau of Consumer Protection, which serves as a government and business watchdog on behalf of Nevadans. 

Under Ford, the agency has cracked down on online scams and spam messages and is suing NV Energy for its controversial proposal to base utility bills in part on how much electricity customers are using during their peak 15-minute period of usage per day.

Conine has spoken out against the rate change and said he would continue with that lawsuit as attorney general.

Cannizzaro said she would also continue pursuing the NV Energy lawsuit. 

"Clarity from the courts would actually be helpful to all parties involved," she said. 

She has received more donations from NV Energy than Conine. According to a review by The Indy, the utility company has donated more than $90,000 to Cannizzaro and her affiliated PACs since 2018 — more than three times the roughly $29,000 it donated to Conine and his PACs in the same time period.

Cannizzaro also said she'd be a strong advocate for consumers' rights in office and would work to ensure Nevadans don't fall victim to financial scams. She said she wants to curb surveillance pricing or the practice of using consumer data — such as location, browsing and purchase history — to set prices, often with the aid of artificial intelligence. She said the practice negatively affects housing affordability.

"I think that there is room to update Nevada law to account for the use of personal data … and how we respond to the data that's used to set different housing prices and rental rates," Cannizzaro said. 

Conine criticized Cannizzaro's record on consumer protection, describing her as allied with monied interests. She has been the top recipient of donations since 2012 from payday lenders, an industry critics on the left say preys on vulnerable Nevadans. 

"You've got to ask yourself, do you want somebody in that job who has consistently taken money from entities who are trying to hurt Nevadans?" he asked. 

Cannizzaro said that she's consistently fought to hold payday lenders accountable, pointing to legislation she's voted for that aimed at making it harder for individuals to take out high-interest loans, especially if they already owe money. 

Conine's own fundraising has come under scrutiny — he received millions of dollars from Jeff Berns, the founder of the cryptocurrency company Blockchains and a former consumer protection attorney.

Peter Koltak, a spokesperson for Cannizzaro's campaign, previously told The Intercept that Cannizzaro was involved in the death of Berns' 2021 effort to build a city running on cryptocurrency in Nevada. She ultimately helped turn the proposal into a study.

Koltak described Berns as "an unaccountable tech billionaire dumping his millions into this race."

Conine defended the donations, saying Berns is concerned about Cannizzaro's record and cares about protecting Nevadans from financial overreach and exploitation. 

Death penalty and police accountability

Police accountability has been a key issue for Ford, who successfully pushed for a law enabling the attorney general to investigate patterns of unconstitutional behavior by law enforcement agencies. 

Conine said he would work to improve policing but said the office needs greater legislative support and funding to ensure complaints are handled in real time.

Cannizzaro said that because implicit bias can show up in any workplace, it's vital to ensure that the attorney general's office consistently advises local agencies on best practices to avoid it. 

She said recruiting police who mirror community diversity can improve interactions. She supports independent investigations and clear, objective prosecutorial standards when officers are accused of violating the law.

Ford, a Democrat, has had to defend the state's use of the death penalty, even though he is personally against it. Asked about doing something similar, Conine said it's the job of the attorney general to defend the laws of the state.

But he said he is personally opposed to the death penalty, describing it as "historically racist" and "shockingly expensive." 

As a prosecutor, Cannizzaro said she never worked on a death penalty case and doesn't think there's a lot of evidence that it's an effective deterrent. She said she would fulfill the duties of the attorney general and wouldn't oppose the Legislature's repeal of it.

Although the death of a 2021 bill to repeal the practice was attributed to a combination of factors, some have linked its fate to Cannizzaro's role as a prosecutor. At the time, she was working for Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson, a prominent supporter of capital punishment.

Cannizzaro said the bill didn't move forward because the governor didn't plan to support it and legislative leaders weren't sure it had the votes to pass. 

This story was updated at 9:35 a.m. on 5/12/26 to correct the number of staff in the treasurer's office, clarify the nature of Nicole Cannizzaro's Reid Machine support and her action on a blockchains bill, and clarify the extent of Aaron Ford's prosecutorial discretion policy.