Nevada’s Senate race remains tight, with Republican Adam Laxalt clinging to a small lead of under 1,000 votes over incumbent Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto Saturday morning, but a statement he released suggested he has some expectation she will surpass him.
“Here is where we are — we are up only 862 votes. Multiple days in a row, the mostly mail in ballots counted continue to break in higher DEM margins than we calculated. This has narrowed our victory window. The race will come down to 20-30K Election Day Clark drop off ballots,” Laxalt said.
“If they are GOP precincts or slightly DEM leaning then we can still win,” he continued. “If they continue to trend heavy DEM then she will overtake us.”
As Laxalt noted, most of the votes left to be counted are in Nevada’s largest county, Democratic-leaning Clark County, where Las Vegas is located. Officials indicated Friday morning that roughly 50,000 votes were left to be counted and released results from more than 15,000 of them on Friday night. Election workers are likely to finish counting the remaining ballots by Saturday evening.
Beyond these votes, there other Clark County ballots being processed. About 9,000 ballots that were in some way incomplete may be cured by voters until Monday night. There are also around 5,000 provisional ballots that cannot be counted until the secretary of state’s office cross-checks them with lists of provisional votes from other counties to ensure there are no duplicate votes.
Democratic-leaning Washoe County, the second largest county, where Reno is located, is also on pace to finish counting Saturday night.
Should Cortez-Masto win, Democrats will retain control of the Senate, regardless of the outcome of the Georgia runoff between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker in December.
Cortez Masto, 58, is considered to be the most vulnerable Democratic senator fighting for reelection, and if Laxalt, a former state attorney general, defeats her, it will be a crucial pickup for Republicans looking to flip the seat and gain control of the upper chamber. Three Senate races remain to be decided. In addition to Nevada, Arizona’s Senate race is yet to be called, and Georgia’s Senate race is going to a runoff in early December.
Cortez Masto became the nation’s first Latina senator when she won the race in 2016 to succeed the late Sen. Harry Reid when he retired at the end of his term. She and Laxalt were neck-and-neck heading into Election Day, according to a recent CBS News poll.
– Alyssa Spady and Elizabeth Campbell contributed to this report.
