How spending $2.75 million on a campaign for a part-time job pencils out. If it does.

The Democratic Lieutenant Governors Association (yes, there is such a thing) earlier this month crowed that it is spending 1.75 million American dollars in Nevada to help defeat Republican Nevada Lieutenant Gov. Stavros Anthony. 

“It is the largest investment in a Nevada Lt. Governor’s race in state history,” announced the DLGA, presumably through its Tallest Building in Kansas Division.

And in perhaps the finest typographical error of the 2026 campaign cycle, the DLGA’s spending in Nevada includes a $1.5 million “steaming” ad buy, the organization added.

Seriously? People are running for lieutenant governor? Again?

Sandra Jauregui, the Nevada Democrat who is not only running against Anthony but is also every bit as irrelevant to all this as are Anthony and the office he occupies, announced separately this week that her campaign and political action committee combined have raised more than $1 million. 

That’s “the most ever raised by a Democratic candidate for Nevada Lieutenant Governor,” Jauregui’s campaign said in a release.

Oh let’s hope so. 

Because while a million bucks ain’t what it used to be, it’s still an obscene amount of money to spend on a campaign for a part-time job with no inbox. It boggles the mind and rattles the soul to think a Democrat might have spent that much money on a prior campaign for lieutenant governor. Now, of course, it almost makes a little more sense, Trump having made life, the universe and everything so much less affordable, including presumably campaigns. (Except for Gov. Joe Lombardo’s; his campaign’s affordability problem isn’t paying for things, but explaining what he might do about them. But I digress.)

So why would so much money — $2.75 million if you combine DLGA, Jauregui’s campaign and her PAC — be spent in the hope that Juaregui is Nevada’s lieutenant governor and Anthony isn’t?

No reason at all. 

It isn’t about them. 

The Democrat in the race could be a potted plant and the Republican could be a pet rock. The DLGA would still be making its “largest investment … in state history,” and the Democratic candidate and its PAC would still be amassing “the most ever raised” by a Democrat in a lieutenant governor race. 

The money isn’t driven by the faults or virtues of the candidates. Nor is it about their positions on issues over which the Nevada lieutenant governor wields power and influence. Because there are no such issues.

Obligatory caveat: Yes, admittedly, if a serving Nevada governor were accidentally sucked into a micro black hole inadvertently created by a particle accelerator, the lieutenant governor becomes the governor. (And then whoever that person was — whatever their party —  would be tasked with earnestly explaining that now, clearly, is no time to raise the gaming tax so let’s all just tighten our belts. But again I digress).

And the freak particle accelerator contingency isn’t the only means by which an un-governoring could occur. 

For instance, a sitting governor could also be elected to the U.S. Senate.

The 2026 race for lieutenant governor is all about 2028 (if it’s about anything at all)

Democrats, history’s greatest hand wringers, worry that Lombardo will win reelection, and then immediately be the obvious Republican to run against Nevada Democratic U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto in 2028.

In case you hadn’t noticed, Cortez Masto has made no secret that she’s running for reelection.

Ah, but if the lieutenant governor is a Democrat, it would be politically impossible for Lombardo to run for U.S. Senate. 

And it’s not like there’s some other Nevada Republican on the scene whose skillset and gravitas just screams senatorial material.

For some of you all this will be reminiscent of 2014, when the Nevada Democratic Party and Harry Reid (proprietor) knew that then-popular Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval would easily win reelection, and feared he would then run against Reid in 2016. So Reid and the Democrats tried to make people pretend a race for lieutenant governor mattered. (It all turned out be preposterous, by the way).

Which brings us to the line in Jauregui’s release about a million being “the most ever raised by a Democratic candidate for Nevada Lieutenant Governor.”

In that 2014 race, the campaign of a Republican named Mark Hutchison (now a fixture in the PAC that handles the heavy lifting for Lombardo’s reelection campaign) spent $2.5 million in a successful campaign for lieutenant governor. Just in case Sandoval wanted to run against Reid, presumably. 

Sandoval didn’t.

Lombardo himself probably has no idea if he’ll be running for Senate in 2028.

But Democrats are thinking better safe than sorry.

There simply is no other explanation for the DLGA and Jauregui (and her PAC) amassing a combined $2.75 million to win a job the chief responsibility of which, by far, is breaking a tie in a state Senate that has an odd number of senators.