Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto was running narrowly behind Republican Adam Laxalt, but with the remaining tens of thousands of uncounted ballots coming mostly from the state’s urban cores, her campaign expressed optimism that she could overcome her challenger. Laxalt, meanwhile, has consistently projected to remain in the lead as the count continues. “We’re doing everything we can to get the ballots out as quickly as we can,” Joe Gloria, the clerk in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, said at a news conference Friday. Gloria’s office posted signs Friday night for more than 27,000 ballots that put Cortez Masto within a few hundred votes of Laxalt, while an estimated 23,000 more votes in Democratic Clark County have yet to be counted. Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak conceded the race to his Republican challenger, Sheriff Joe Lombardo, late Friday, though The Associated Press had not yet called. With the Senate evenly split, Nevada is one of three undecided races that will determine which party controls the chamber. If either party wins the state plus the Arizona race, it will have a majority even before a December runoff in Georgia between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker. If the Arizona and Nevada seats are split between the parties, control of the Senate will be decided in Georgia. Nevada’s count took several days, in part because of the vote-by-mail system created by the state legislature in 2020, which requires counties to accept ballots mailed in on Election Day if they arrive up to four days later. Even after counting is completed this weekend, voters have until the end of the day Monday to “cure” — or correct clerical problems with — their postal ballots, allowing them to be added to the final count. Gloria said there are 9,600 ballots in the “cure” stage in Clark County, home to three-quarters of the state’s population. Nevada, a closely divided swing state, is one of the most racially divided in the nation, a working-class state whose residents have been hit particularly hard by inflation and other economic turmoil About three-quarters of Nevada voters said the country is headed in the wrong direction, and about 5 in 10 named the economy the most important issue facing the country, according to AP VoteCast, a survey of 2,100 state voters. Voters viewed the economy negatively, with VoteCast finding nearly 8 in 10 saying economic conditions are either not so good or bad. Only about 2 in 10 called the economy excellent or good. And about a third of voters said their families are falling behind financially. But that hasn’t necessarily translated into anger for President Joe Biden or his party. About half saw inflation as the most important issue facing the U.S., but were evenly split on whether they thought higher prices were due to Biden’s policies or factors outside of his control. Nevada is also a famously live-and-let-live state, and Cortez Masto and other Democrats have made preserving abortion rights a centerpiece of their campaigns. According to VoteCast, 7 in 10 wanted the process to remain legal in all or most cases. Republicans, however, relentlessly dismissed the economic argument, arguing that it was time for a change in leadership. They also sought to capitalize on lingering frustrations over pandemic shutdowns that devastated Las Vegas’ tourism-centric economy in 2020. On Thursday morning, the Associated Press declared Republican Stavros Anthony the winner of the lieutenant governor race, while Republican Andy Matthews was elected state comptroller. The state’s lone Republican Rep. Mark Amodei easily won re-election in his mostly rural district in northern Nevada. The three Democratic House members in the Las Vegas area of the state were also re-elected.
Associated Press writer Scott Sonner in Las Vegas contributed to this report.
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