Top fundraisers Donors to Nevada lawmakers crushed the state’s single-cycle fundraising record in 2024, with the gaming industry giving the most money to legislators. Finance groups also gave much more money to GOP legislators in the 2024 cycle, as did PACs affiliated with candidates, mostly to Republicans running in swing districts. There was less variety […]
Top fundraisers
Donors to Nevada lawmakers crushed the state’s single-cycle fundraising record in 2024, with the gaming industry giving the most money to legislators.
Finance groups also gave much more money to GOP legislators in the 2024 cycle, as did PACs affiliated with candidates, mostly to Republicans running in swing districts.
There was less variety in Republican legislators’ top industries, with most of the lawmakers relying heavily on business, gaming and real estate contributions.
It’s the first time since the 2018 election cycle that gaming companies led the way in fundraising (13.1 percent of all major donations), closely followed by real estate and development groups (11.9 percent) and the state’s union and labor organizations (10.8 percent).
This story is the first installment of The Nevada Independent’s “Follow the Money” series that tracks money in state politics. Future editions will be published across the next several weeks, with deep dives into the donation details and legislative goals of the power players who dominate Nevada politics — including the housing industry and a trial lawyers group that were among the top legislative donors.
Many of the most prolific Democratic fundraisers were in leadership positions.
Similar to the 2022 cycle,, the real estate industry was GOP legislators’ top donor in the 2024 cycle, with more than 0,000 donated.
During the two years that made up the election cycle, legislators brought in about .9 million from high-dollar donors (individuals or groups that gave lawmakers more than 0), with Democrats — who control 27 seats in the 42-member Assembly and 13 seats in the 21-member Senate — accounting for more than two-thirds of the total fundraising haul.
Money plays a critical role in Nevada’s political campaigns, allowing candidates to garner name recognition through advertising and campaign flyers. It also serves as a signal to political operatives and other donors as to which candidates stand the best shot of winning, as well as which ones might be vulnerable to defeat.
Unions gave more than .4 million to the state’s 40 Democratic lawmakers last cycle. This was only slightly more than the money donated to Democratic legislators in the 2022 cycle, despite Democrats seeing an increase of million in total money raised.
Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro (D-Las Vegas) raised close to .3 million, nearly 0,000 more than any other lawmaker, on the way to winning re-election to another four year term. Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager (D-Las Vegas), who narrowly won re-election, followed with about 0,000.
Assms. Elaine Marzola (D-Henderson), Sandra Jauregui (D-Las Vegas) and Shea Backus (D-Las Vegas) were among the top Assembly Democratic fundraisers. All three ran in swing seats and faced Republican opponents who were endorsed by Lombardo.
A previous version of this story used data that inflated the donations made to Assm. P.K. O’Neill (R-Carson City). It was updated on 3/17/25 at 10 a.m. to correctly reflect O’Neill’s donations and update each industry’s share of contributions made to GOP legislators.
The analysis is based on a manual categorization of every donation of more than 0 during the 2024 cycle, which spanned from Jan. 1, 2023, through Dec. 31, 2024. Each donation was categorized by the industry or field of the organization or individual who contributed, and the donations were analyzed for patterns and trends.
This process results in an uneven distribution of contributions. Half of the money raised in the 2024 cycle came from just 76 donors, or about 3 percent of more than 2,500 donors who gave more than 0 to a candidate.
Assm. Tracy Brown-May (D-Las Vegas) and Sen. Fabian Doñate (D-Las Vegas), who are the chairs of their chamber’s respective health care committees, received more money from the health care industry than any other industry.
Unions lead Democratic donors, gaming tops Republicans
The data also offers a close look at the contribution behaviors of the state’s most powerful companies and political groups, many of which have paid lobbyists working during the ongoing 120-day legislative session who seek to sway lawmakers on bills that would affect their clients.
Among the most significant increases in contributions to Democrats came from the marijuana industry, which gave more than 0,000, or more than double than what it gave during the 2022 election cycle. Democrats also saw slight decreases in contributions from tribal groups and the mining industry.
Meanwhile, the gaming industry’s share of Democratic donations increased slightly in the 2024 cycle, while real estate and development groups’ slice of Democratic contributions remained constant.
Although Democrats made up the large majority of contributions, the median Democratic fundraising haul (9,000) was smaller than the median Republican legislator haul (5,000).
The Senate Republicans who raised the most money — Sens. Lori Rogich (R-Las Vegas) and Carrie Buck (R-Henderson) — ran in two of the most closely watched Senate races, and their victories prevented a Democratic supermajority in the upper chamber. Assm. Lisa Cole (R-Las Vegas), who ran in a competitive race, was the top fundraiser among Republican assemblymembers
Other top industry donors to Democrats were entities in the realm of health care, political groups and legal organizations, namely Citizens for Justice, the political arm of the Nevada Justice Association, an influential trial lawyers group.
For the second straight cycle, the top three industries giving money to Democrats were union and labor groups, gaming companies and real estate and development organizations.
Nevada law prohibits donors from giving more than ,000 to a single candidate, but major corporations easily surpass that limit by contributing through affiliated entities or businesses — a process sometimes referred to as bundling.
Who gave money to your legislator?
Meanwhile, cannabis groups gave nearly 10 times as much money to Republicans as they did in the 2022 cycle, mostly to Sen. Lori Rogich (R-Las Vegas), a regulatory compliance attorney focused on the cannabis industry.
It marked a significant increase from the .1 million cumulatively raised in the 2022 midterm election cycle, a typically less-expensive period than presidential election years. 2024 was marked by unsuccessful Democratic efforts to secure a two-thirds legislative supermajority that would allow them to override a gubernatorial veto, and Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo’s political team seeing mixed success in recruiting and running candidates in competitive seats.
Sen. Rochelle Nguyen (D-Las Vegas), the Democratic senator who raised the second-most money, easily won her re-election race but first had to stave off a primary challenger backed by the politically influential Culinary Union.
Assms. Linda Hunt (D-North Las Vegas) and Venise Karris (D-Las Vegas), two freshman lawmakers and longtime union members who serve on the government affairs committee, received an overwhelming number of their donations from union and labor groups. Assms. Erica Roth (D-Reno) and Marzola, who are both lawyers and serve on the judiciary committee, received more donations from the legal industry than any other.
Otherwise, the most prolific fundraisers across both parties were running in swing seats.
Legislators chairing certain policy committees often received the most money from industries likely to bring issues to those committees during the legislative session.
