Donald Trump won his sixth swing state of the 2024 election early Saturday, beating Kamala Harris in Nevada.
Trump was declared the winner after analysts concluded there were not enough uncounted ballots in the state’s strongest Democratic areas to overcome the former president’s 46,000-vote lead over the Democratic nominee.
Trump clinched a second term early Wednesday when Wisconsin pushed him past the 270 electoral votes needed to win, so Nevada’s six electoral votes only added to the size of his victory.
He now has 301 electoral votes to Harris’ 226 and has won six of the seven battleground states. Only Arizona remains to be called, where he is also favored to win.
Nevada has one of the nation’s best overall track records as a presidential bellwether, although voters there supported Democrat Hillary Clinton over Trump in 2016.
Donald Trump won his sixth swing state of the 2024 election early Saturday, beating Kamala Harris in Nevada
The state remains a hotly contested battleground. Both Harris and Trump made frequent visits to Nevada since becoming their parties’ nominees, including Halloween rallies in Clark County, home of Henderson and Las Vegas.
Both campaigns concentrated their visit to those two cities, as well as Reno in Washoe County.
In statewide elections, Democrats tend to carry only two of Nevada’s 17 counties: Clark and Washoe. Whether they win depends on how big their margins are in those two counties.
Clark County has by far the largest population in the state. A large vote margin there is vital to Democratic electoral success.
It comprised 69% of the total statewide vote in 2020. Washoe is more competitive, although Democrats have consistently prevailed there in high-profile statewide campaigns, including Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak’s unsuccessful 2022 reelection bid.
Republicans tend to win the rest of the state by wide margins.
Most of the final ballots to be counted come from Clark and Washoe counties. They both have long-established histories of supporting Democrats for president. Statewide, votes counted after Election Day have also tended to favor Democrats.
Both Harris and Trump made frequent visits to Nevada since becoming their parties’ nominees
Trump’s vote lead narrowed as more of these ballots are counted over the course of the week, but Harris was not winning those ballots by a large enough margin to overtake Trump for the lead.
It comes at the same time it was called that Senator Jacky Rosen has managed to hold on to her Senate seat in Nevada securing a key victory for Democrats in the battleground state.
After several days of votes being counted the race was called for Rosen after she trailed Republican Sam Brown several times since the first results came in on election night. She won by a majority of 20,571, with 675,318 votes.
The one-term incumbent was facing a challenge by Brown, a veteran and businessman, in a state that Republicans were looking at as a potential pick-up on their path to widening their Senate majority after the chamber flipped on election night.
Rosen was first elected to the Senate in the Silver State in 2018 during the midterms that resulted in a blue wave halfway through Donald Trump’s first term in office, ousting former Senator Dean Heller despite only being a freshman House member.
Rosen ran a campaign focused on protecting women’s reproductive rights and delivering for a state that had its economy decimated by the coronavirus pandemic.
One Senate races remain uncalled, with Democrats hanging on to a leads in Arizona, which would leave the Republicans at a 53-47 seat majority, a gain of four seats.
Democrat Ruben Gallego leads Trump ally Kari Lake in Arizona by just over 30,000 votes, with 82% of the ballots counted to take Kyrsten Sinema’s seat.
Trump’s vote lead narrowed as more of these ballots are counted over the course of the week, but Harris was not winning those ballots by a large enough margin to overtake Trump for the lead
House of Representatives results continue to move slowly, with Republicans at 212 seats, six shy of retaining their majority.
The Democrats have won 200 seats and lead in 12 of the uncalled races, which would top them out at 212, a loss of one seat from their minority position in 2022.
Lakshya Jain, a polls analyst for Split Ticket, gave Democrats a no more than 15% chance of late voting tallies providing them with the comebacks necessary to win a shock majority.
