Democratic sweep hinges on tight Clark County Commission race
The prospect of an all-Democratic Clark County Commission for four more years stood in jeopardy after Election Night as a Republican lawmaker held onto a razor-thin lead in a northwestern Las Vegas district.
More results were expected to be released Thursday morning, potentially bringing clarity to the tightly contested race in District C between Las Vegas Councilman Stavros Anthony and Democratic former Secretary of State Ross Miller.
Anthony was only ahead of Miller by fewer than 2,200 ballots, with 50.84 percent of the vote, according to early unofficial results posted by the county Elections Department in the pre-dawn hours of Wednesday morning.
Nearly 130,000 votes cast in the race have been counted so far, including all in-person early and Election Day voting and mail ballots received through Monday, according to the Secretary of State’s office.
Mail ballots received on Election Day and that will be received over the next week — along with provisional ballots — still needed to be tabulated. And while those voting methods would seem to favor Democrats, it was not clear if there were enough ballots outstanding to turn the tide of the contest.
Anthony’s campaign confident
County Registrar of Voters Joe Gloria said during a news conference Wednesday that he could not immediately say how many ballots remained to be counted. But earlier, Wayne Thorley, the deputy secretary of state for elections, said there were still “tens of thousands” of votes to be tallied throughout Nevada.
“We feel pretty confident that we can hang on to this lead,” said Lisa Mayo-DeRiso, Anthony’s campaign manager.
Acknowledging it was difficult to predict how votes might fall without seeing raw data, Mayo-DeRiso said the campaign had made internal projections based on trends and assumptions: It believed Miller would need to secure 62 percent of an estimated 8,000 remaining district ballots to surpass Anthony.
She also said those ballots could include a healthy dose of Republicans who dropped them off on Tuesday because they were afraid they might be tampered with if they did so earlier.
There has been no evidence of widespread voting fraud in the state. A message left for the Miller campaign was not returned by deadline Wednesday.
No non-Democrat has served on the commission in 12 years nor been elected to the powerful county board since 2004. But Anthony was a well-funded candidate, outraising Miller by a more than 4-to-1 margin as of Sept. 30 as each sought to replace term-limited Democratic Commissioner Larry Brown.
In a complaint filed with the Secretary of State’s office a week before the election, Miller accused Anthony of illegal fundraising tactics. The councilman, who is ending his third and final term on the dais, returned $15,000 to two donors in response.
Democrats out ahead in 3 other races
Elsewhere, two incumbent Democratic commission candidates were holding steady leads over their opponents and a third Democrat sailed to a decisive victory.
Democratic Assemblyman William McCurdy II defeated retired Las Vegas Fire Chief David Washington, an independent candidate, in District D by garnering almost 77 percent of the vote after roughly 55,000 ballots were counted as of early Wednesday. The seat is presently held by term-limited Democratic Commissioner Lawrence Weekly.
Commission Chairwoman Marilyn Kirkpatrick had received more than 53 percent of the vote with nearly 119,000 ballots counted in District B, according to early unofficial results. Her opponent, Republican Kevin Williams, a gaming facility director who ran unsuccessfully for the seat in 2016, had received more than 44 percent — a margin of more than 10,000 votes.
And appointed Democratic Commissioner Michael Naft led with 52 percent of the vote against retired law enforcement officer Michael Thomas in District A, after more than 124,000 ballots were tallied — a difference of close to 6,000 votes.
Contact Shea Johnson at sjohnson@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272. Follow @Shea_LVRJ on Twitter.
