According to forecasts by the Associated Press (AP), Cortez Masto had received enough votes on Saturday to guarantee victory over Republican nominee Adam Laxalt, backed by former President Donald Trump.
The Democrat, the first Hispanic woman elected to the Senate, had a lead of thousands of votes over Laxalt, with most of the votes yet to be counted coming from Clark County.
Republican Adam Laxalt had acknowledged on the social network Twitter that “the odds of victory have diminished” as Clark, which includes the city of Las Vegas, is a traditionally Democratic county.
The vote count took several days, in part because of the mail-in voting system created by the Nevada legislature in 2020, which requires counties to accept votes submitted on Election Day (Tuesday) if they are submitted within four days arrive late.
Catherine Cortez Masto focused her Senate campaign on the growing threat of access to abortion across the country, promising a permanent path to U.S. citizenship for undocumented immigrants who arrived in the country before the age of 18.
With the confirmation of Cortez Masto’s victory, the Democrats get 50 seats in the Senate, one more than the Republicans, out of a total of 100 contested seats.
Even if the Republicans win the last “available” seat, which is contested in the state of Georgia, they will only get a tie at 50 Senate seats. In this situation, something that is currently happening in the upper house of Congress, Vice President Kamala Harris (Democrat) gets the casting vote.
With control of the Senate, the Democrats are ensuring a smoother process for executive nominations and judge selections, including those for potential Supreme Court seats, in the last two years of President Joe Biden’s term.
The Senate can still reject any legislation passed by the lower house of Congress, the House of Representatives, where Republicans can still win a majority.
With 435 seats on the line and the vote count still ongoing, AP projections put Republicans ahead, giving them 211 seats and 203 for the Democrats, of which 218 are needed to win a majority in the to form the House of Representatives.
On the fifth day of the vote count, Republicans are still leading the race for a majority in the lower house, but have lost “speed” to the Democrats.
As the count continues, particularly in states that have embraced mass mail voting, Democrats have won most of the tightest races.
Source: DN
