Democrats Retain Senate As Nevada Re-Elects Cortez Masto

Topline

Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto won the Nevada Senate race, keeping Democrats in control of the Senate with 50 seats (and Vice President Kamala Harris’s tie-breaking vote), and sending yet another Donald Trump-endorsed candidate—and the Republican Party—home empty-handed after a much-predicted “red wave” fizzled at the polls.

Key Facts

The Associated Press called the race for Cortez Masto when, as many predicted, she finally pulled ahead of Republican Adam Laxalt after trailing for days when mail-in ballots from the Las Vegas area (Clark County) were counted Saturday night.

Cortez Masto, the granddaughter of Mexican immigrants and the daughter of the former influential Clark County commissioner, was elected in 2016 by a slim two-point margin to fill Reid’s seat when he retired.

Laxalt, also a former state attorney general with strong name recognition (he is the grandson of the former senator and governor Paul Laxalt), ran former President Donald Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign in the state and helped push the false claim Trump won the election.

The polls in the race showed a neck-and-neck contest in the month before Election Day, with Laxalt carrying a 1.4 point advantage as of Monday, according to FiveThirtyEight’s polling average.

What To Watch For

Two Senate races remain undecided. Georgia voters will decide a hotly-contested key race between beleaguered Republican candidate Herschel Walker and Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) in a December 6 runoff. In Alaska, Trump-backed Kelly Tshibaka leads Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) 44.2% to 42.8% with 80% of the vote counted, although the state’s rank-choice voting system could bring the race to a second round of counting if neither candidate receives an outright majority. If that’s the case, Tshibaka and Murkowski would square off in a one-on-one round, with ballots that had gone to Democrat Pat Chesbro and Republican Buzz Kelly redistributed based on voters’ second choices in the ranked-choice system.

Key Background

In the toss-up race, Cortez Masto—the first Latina elected to the Senate—leaned into her Latino roots and made a strong push to recruit the demographic, which makes up 20% of the state’s electorate, in the final days of the campaign. In ads, she hit Laxalt over his views to ban abortion at 13 weeks, spotlighted the 14 Laxalt family members who endorsed her and cast Laxalt as a 2020 election denier. Laxalt, meanwhile, linked Cortez Masto to two top voter concerns: crime rates (though violent crime actually fell in Nevada in 2021 for the third consecutive year) and inflation, accusing her of voting for federal spending packages Laxalt linked to rising prices.

Tangent

In several toss-up races for House seats in Nevada, Rep. Dina Titus (D-Nev.) held onto her seat against Mark Robertson, taking 51.3% of the vote, while Democratic Rep. Susie Lee defeated Republican April Becker, with 51.6% of the vote, and Rep. Steven Horsford (D-Nev.) beat Republican Sam Peters with 51.9% of the vote. Republican Rep. Mark Amodei, meanwhile, won his race against Elizabeth Krause with more than 60% of the vote Republican Joe Lombardo unseating Gov. Steve Sisolak (D-Nev.) in the state’s gubernatorial race.

Further Reading

These Two Billionaires Are Helping Bankroll An Election Denier In Nevada’s Senate Race (Forbes)

Jimmy Kimmel Cuts Ad For Cortez Masto In Nevada After Acknowledging His Political Bits Have Dented His Viewership (Forbes)

Key Senate Race 2022: Nevada’s Democratic Incumbent Cortez Masto, Republican Laxalt Tied In New Poll (Forbes)