Voters ages 18 to 24 made up roughly 12% of the state's electorate and swung 35 points toward Democrats compared with 2024, according to reporting by The New York Times. Ford defeated Lombardo 51% to 44%, a margin of more than 83,000 votes, according to unofficial tallies released Monday morning by the Nevada secretary of state's office.

The swing was part of a national trend. The AP Voter Poll, a survey of more than 100,000 voters across all 50 states, found that about 7 in 10 voters under 30 backed the Democratic candidate in their U.S. House race, while about 3 in 10 supported the Republican. In 2024, young voters nationally split roughly evenly between Trump and then-Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, according to AP VoteCast.

"This is consistent with national trends," said David Damore, a professor at UNLV. "The under-30 vote had one of, if not the largest, Democratic margins in the country, and first-time voters went blue 2-to-1 per the national exit polls."

For Cynthia Trejo, a 24-year-old member of Culinary Workers Union Local 226 in Las Vegas, this year marked her first time casting a ballot. She said immigration enforcement drove her decision.

"I voted because the deportation stuff that's going on has gotten like ridiculous — how they're treating people," Trejo said. "My dad is an immigrant who's just been working hard, and still he doesn't have a voice."

Trejo also canvassed other young voters and said most were set on supporting Ford.

Opposition to President Donald Trump was a major motivator nationally, the AP Voter Poll found. About 6 in 10 voters under 30 said one reason for their House vote was to express opposition to the president, compared with about half of voters ages 30 to 44 and about 4 in 10 of those 45 and older. About half of young voters said they were angry about the direction of the country, compared with about a third of voters 65 and older.

Sondra Cosgrove, a professor at the College of Southern Nevada, said her students were more motivated this year than in 2024 because they oppose Trump's immigration policies and are struggling financially because of inflation.

"Two years ago, I heard from a lot of students who said, 'I'm not voting.' This year, it was more, 'I'm not sure what I'm doing. Help me,'" Cosgrove said.

Economic strain weighed heavily on young voters. Most voters nationally said inflation had caused their families at least moderate hardship over the past year, and that hardship was a central theme of Ford's campaign. He tied Lombardo to the region's sagging economy, including a drop in tourism blamed on Trump's policies keeping international visitors home.

Carlos Alba, a 26-year-old Nevada native, voted for Democrats and cited affordability as his top concern.

"I don't mean to sound like super Gen Z, but you look at rent and how much it costs. The idea of owning a home is a dream, but it's almost not an achievable one at this point in time," Alba said. "With voting, at least we can somewhat tip the scales in our favor a little bit."

Organizers credited record campus outreach. United Auto Workers canvassers secured 15,000 vote commitments from UNLV's campus ahead of the midterms, a record, according to Rachel DeWald, a member of Academic Workers of Nevada-UAW.

"We have been canvassing at UNLV for a while now. A lot of our team has been there all day, and we have been seeing record turnout from the campus, especially undergrad students; they're really rallying behind Ford," DeWald said on Election Day.

The youth surge coincided with broader Democratic gains in Nevada. Teresa Benitez-Thompson became the first Democrat to win Northern Nevada's 2nd Congressional District, which was created after the 1980 census. Democratic candidates also won every major state race. Nationally, young voters moved toward Democrats in every Senate race where the party picked up a seat, including in Texas, Kansas, Iowa, Ohio and North Carolina.

Damore said the parties' divergent positions on issues most affecting young people drove the shift.

"At the end of the day, young voters are the most impacted by AI, affordability and climate change, and on those issues, the parties took vastly different positions," Damore said.

Cosgrove cautioned that Democrats must deliver on those concerns to keep young voters engaged.

"If you have a group that hasn't been showing up, and they show up, that's enough of the vote for somebody to win," Cosgrove said. "You've got their attention. Now deliver something for them, so that they know that you delivered."