Nevada Democrats declare victory in House races

Democrats in three competitive Nevada house races claimed victory Thursday night after close races across the board, defeating both their Republican opponents and predictions of a massive “red wave.”

Rep. Dina Titus in the 1st Congressional District, Rep. Susie Lee in the 3rd District and Steven Horsford in the 4th District all claimed victory Thursday night.

Titus’ opponent Mark Robertson said he would wait to comment, and the campaign for Lee’s opponent, April Becker, declined to comment.

“Voters sent a message loud and clear: They want someone in their corner who never backs down from a fight,” Titus said in a statement. “We always knew this would be a tough race and I am so grateful to all who volunteered, contributed, and dedicated their time to this race. I am humbled to have your support, and I promise to continue delivering for all Southern Nevadans.”

“I am eager to continue to serve every single one of my constituents, and I will always put people over partisanship,” Lee said in a statement.

“Nevada’s Fourth District proves it once again: the winning path for Democrats is to build a working class, multi-racial, multi-generational coalition. That is who our party fights for. That is who we stand for,” Horsford said in a statement.

Secretary of state race flips

Democrat Cisco Aguilar — who had been trailing his Republican opponent, former Assemblyman Jim Marchant, took a narrow lead in the race to become Nevada’s next top election official Thursday night as counties continued to count mail ballots across the state. Aguilar now leads by roughly 1,300 votes, 48.2 percent to Marchant’s 47.5 percent.

That lead came after Clark County reported roughly 12,300 newly counted mail-in ballots Thursday evening, a batch that broke substantially for Democrats up and down the ticket.

The new ballots also narrowed the gap in the Silver State’s closely watched races for U.S. Senate and governor.

Republican Adam Laxalt’s lead over incumbent Democrat Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto shrunk to less than 13,000 votes, with Laxalt now leading 48.9 percent to 48 percent.

In the race for governor, Republican challenger Joe Lombardo’s lead shrunk by about 2,800 votes, and he leads Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak 49.6 percent to 46.6 percent as of Thursday night.

In the treasurer’s race, Democratic incumbent Zach Conine was leading at 47.1 percent, with Republican Las Vegas Councilwoman Michele Fiore at 46.7 percent. In the attorney general’s race, Democratic incumbent Aaron Ford was leading at 50.5 percent, with Republican Sigal Chattah at 44.3 percent. Ford declared victory in his race on Thursday.

And in the race to replace Fiore on the Las Vegas City Council, Guinn Center founder Nancy Brune flipped the race against retired Las Vegas police Lt. Ray Spencer, who had led up until Thursday. Spencer described the contest as a “crazy, crazy close race.”

Ballots still to be counted

Clark County Registrar of Voters Joe Gloria provided an update on the progress of counting tens of thousands of mail-in ballots in Nevada’s most populous county.

Gloria said during a news conference that officials have “over 50,000 ballots that need to be counted,” ballots that he said are in various stages of the counting process.

Gloria said the county received just 626 ballots by mail Thursday, and he said he expects the number of ballots they receive will go down each day until Saturday.

In Washoe County, there are approximately 23,000 mail ballots still to be counted, and a few thousand expected to roll in from Nevada’s other 15 rural counties between now and Saturday.

County: Trump ‘misinformed’

Former President Donald Trump, in a post on the social media platform Truth Social, criticized Clark County. “Clark County, Nevada, has a corrupt voting system (be careful Adam!), as do many places in our soon to be Third World Country,” the former president wrote, prompting a response from Clark County.

Clark County Election Update https://t.co/I6Jj7YsLMW

— Clark County Nevada (@ClarkCountyNV) November 10, 2022

“Obviously he’s misinformed, two years later, about the law and our election processes, which ensure the integrity of elections in Clark County and our state. We couldn’t go any faster even if we wanted to,” Gloria said.

Gloria said state law requires the county to accept mail-in ballots until Saturday if they were postmarked by Election Day, to check each signature on ballots that are mailed, and to give voters until Nov. 14 to have mismatched signatures verified.

“My staff has been working very diligently. We’ve been here from early in the morning until late at night. We’ve been fully staffed. We’re working as hard as we possibly can in order to get the ballots counted,” Gloria said.

“All of our election systems are certified by the state and federal governments for use in the State of Nevada,” the county’s statement said, “and there are several state required audits done before, during, and after each election, which further ensure the reliability and integrity of the election.”

Contact Colton Lochhead at clochhead@reviewjournal.com. Follow @ColtonLochhead on Twitter. Contact Jessica Hill at jehill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @jess_hillyeah on Twitter.