Different factions of the Republican establishment have begun the internal blame game, believing it to be a foregone conclusion that Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto will soon take over the leadership, the general said. Asked by CNN to describe the current mood, the general said, “shocked and depressed.” Publicly, Laxalt laid out what he described as a “narrow” path to victory in a pair of tweets on Saturday. As of Friday night, Laxalt had a lead of just 862 votes over Cortez Masto. An early lead for the Republican narrowed further Friday as election workers counted and released the results of more ballots. “Several days in a row, the majority of mail-in ballots counted continue to break by higher DEM margins than we estimated,” Laxalt wrote. “This has reduced our window of victory.” In Clark County, Nevada’s largest, CNN estimates there are about 24,000 more ballots to be counted, along with about 15,000 provisional ballots and ballots that need to be cured. Laxalt said the race will come down to those polls, saying “if they continue to have a heavy DEM trend, then (Cortez Masto) will outrun us.” If they come from Republican-leaning districts or slightly Democratic-leaning districts, “then we can still win,” Laxalt argued. For its part, Cortez Masto’s campaign told CNN the group remains “confident” as it awaits further results. Laxalt campaign responds: Brian Freimuth, Laxalt’s press secretary, responded to the CNN report later Saturday, saying, “Our campaign team remains confident and optimistic, and any report to the contrary is inaccurate and poorly sourced.” Why it matters: Nevada’s Senate race has been deadlocked for months and could ultimately determine the balance of power in the upper chamber. With CNN predicting Sen. Mark Kelly to win his Arizona race, Democrats must win one more seat: Nevada or Georgia, which are headed for a December runoff. Republicans need 51 seats to control the majority. Democrats would have control in a 50-50 tie with Vice President Kamala Harris giving a tie. See Laxalt’s tweets below:
