Comment In a race that could determine which party controls the Senate, Republican challenger Adam Laxalt’s lead over Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D) has shrunk to less than 900 votes, with tens of thousands of votes still being counted in Clark County, the most populous in Nevada. and a heavily Democratic district, officials there said. Mail-in ballots were still being collected Saturday, and voters have until 5 p.m. Monday to correct ballots with problems such as a missing signature, said Joe Gloria, the clerk in Clark County. A win in Nevada would give Democrats a 50th Senate seat and allow them to retain control of the chamber, as Vice President Harris has tie-breaking power. If Republicans win the Nevada seat, control of the Senate will come down to the results of a runoff election in Georgia on Dec. 6. Democratic control of the Senate would prevent a complete GOP takeover of Capitol Hill, giving Democrats power in the chamber that controls the confirmation of executive branch personnel and federal judges. According to the Associated Press, only a small number of ballots remain to be counted in the state of Nevada, with most of the remaining uncounted ballots in Clark County, where Las Vegas is located, and Washoe County, which includes Reno. The Associated Press estimates there are as many as 38,000 votes left to be counted in Clark County. About 5,000 are provisional ballots, which will be counted. But thousands of ballots must be “cured” — that is, requiring voters to take action to correct any errors. Gloria said as of Saturday, there were 14,651 unimproved ballots in the county, of which 7,139 remain unresolved. Representatives for the Cortez Masto and Laxalt campaigns did not immediately return messages seeking comment Saturday. Skepticism of continued vote-counting efforts has recently come from Republicans, some of whom have persistent doubts about the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R) of South Carolina, for example, said without evidence in invitation from the National Republican Senatorial Committee this week that a Laxalt loss could only be the product of fraud. “There is no mathematical way that Laxalt is going to lose,” Graham said, according to Politico. “If it does, then it’s a lie.” During a press conference Saturday, Gloria was asked if any campaigns had raised concerns about the counting process. “I have nothing to report there,” he said. Gloria later added that he has heard “nothing from any campaign” about allegations of fraud. Laxalt, who helped Trump campaign to flip the 2020 election, indicated Saturday that he may lose his race to Cortez Masto on legal grounds. In a pair of tweets on Saturday, Laxalt wrote that he was ahead by “only 862 votes” and that if the great votes in Clark County “continue to be DEM heavy, then he’s going to blow us out.” It is not unusual for the candidate who was initially behind to catch up and overtake the initial leader, as has happened in many previous elections. Laxalt had an early lead in the race before thousands of ballots were counted. Jon Ralston, CEO of the Nevada Independent, a local news organization, watched the race as updates were released from local pollsters. Hours after voting closed Tuesday, Cortez Masto trailed Laxalt by more than 28,000, Ralston tweeted. That lead quickly shrunk to nearly 23,000 votes. By Wednesday afternoon, Laxalt’s lead had shrunk again and was down to 9,000 by late Thursday night. By Friday, Ralston tweeted that the race “is virtually tied” with Cortez Masto trailing by less than 900 votes. The count in Nevada comes as Republican leaders face a revolt by their members after failing to pick up as many seats in Tuesday’s midterms as they had predicted in the face of President Biden’s low approval ratings. Republicans entered the midterms needing to pick up one seat to take control of the Senate. So far, they have not failed after Democrats won a seat in Pennsylvania and held onto several other states seen as vulnerable, running largely as the guardians of abortion rights after the end of Roe v. Wade and labeling GOP opponents as extremists. One such state was Arizona, where Sen. Mark Kelly (D) on Friday night was projected as the winner over Republican challenger Blake Masters. Masters, who also questioned the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election, showed he can accept defeat. In a message posted on Twitter, he said he wanted to “make sure every legitimate vote counts” and that “If, in the end, Senator Kelly has more of them than I do, then I’ll congratulate him on a hard-fought victory.” . In Arizona’s Maricopa County, Bill Gates, the Republican chairman of the board that oversees Election Day operations and counting, rejected a GOP request for 24-hour ballot processing. Republicans wanted a third shift of election workers to help process and count hundreds of thousands of pending ballots. Election officials work 14- to 18-hour shifts every day, through the Veterans Day and weekend holidays, to work through ballots in an area known for prolonged vote counting, largely due to the popularity of early voting. The timing heightened concerns among Republicans about the outcome of tight races, including the Arizona governor’s contest between Republican Kari Lake and Democrat Katie Hobbs. “A third shift for these employees is not feasible,” Gates wrote in a Friday email to a lawyer representing the Republican National Committee. The Washington Post obtained the mail Saturday through a public records request. In Nevada, Laxalt tried to tie Cortez Masto to Biden while blaming inflation and crime on Democratic policies. He pointed to a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill that Cortez Masto helped pass during the coronavirus pandemic. Cortez Masto, who is the first Latina elected to the Senate, has made abortion access a focus of her campaign. Laxalt said he would not support a national abortion ban, but Cortez Masto attacked him for his support of a referendum to ban abortions in Nevada after 13 weeks of pregnancy, as well as his earlier false claims that Trump won the 2020 elections. Control of the House was still up in the air Saturday as counting continued in several close races.
