Joe Biden speaks to supporters during a campaign rally at Hyde Park Middle School one night before the Nevada Democratic Caucus, Friday Feb. 21, 2020.
Published Saturday, Nov. 7, 2020 | 9:20 a.m.
Updated Saturday, Nov. 7, 2020 | 3:17 p.m.
Joe Biden has won Nevada to expand his Electoral College presidential victory against President Donald Trump, continuing a 16-year trend of Democrats picking up the Western battleground state.
The race in the Silver State was called Saturday morning by the Associated Press with Biden ahead by 25,068 votes and with the vast majority of uncounted ballots left from heavily Democratic Clark County.
Earlier, Biden was called the winner in Pennsylvania to clinch the presidency following four hectic days after polls closed, bringing lawsuits by the Trump campaign alleging voter fraud and armed protesters at vote-counting sites.
Biden, in a statement after his win, said it’s time for the country to “unite” and “heal.”
“We are the United States of America,” Biden said in a statement. “And there’s nothing we can’t do, if we do it together.”
Rep. Dina Titus, a Democrat whose district includes most of Las Vegas proper, released a statement after the race was called for Biden nationwide, calling it “a victory for science, compassion and democracy itself,”
“We will soon have a president who cares more about our country than he does about himself, who listens to medical experts instead of fighting with them, and who will seek to expand access to affordable health care rather than restrict it,” Titus said.
While Nevada was eyed at one point as the potential tipping point that would hand Biden the election, the Democratic nominee was pushed over the necessary 270 electoral votes with an early Saturday win in Pennsylvania.
That win meant that Biden had rebuilt the so-called Blue Wall, as he had already retaken Wisconsin and Michigan from President Donald Trump. Those states went for Trump in 2016, breaking a streak of Democratic support in election years that reached back to 1992.
They were also integral to a Trump win in 2020, and by flipping back to Democrats kept the president from a second term in the White House.
Nevada, once a swing state, has trended toward Democrats in the past decade. But this year there were signs that Trump could have an opening after narrowly losing the state in 2016. He held multiple rallies in the state in the months before the election.
In 2016, he performed better than Mitt Romney did in 2012 or John McCain in 2008. The state also has a higher percentage of non-college-educated whites, who have made up the base of his electoral support, than in many other pivotal states, including Florida, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Bush was the last Republican to win here, in 2004.
Biden’s lead in Nevada was razor-thin in the immediate aftermath of the election. As further results were released in the days after the election, Biden’s lead experienced consistent growth and by Saturday had pulled far enough in front to be called the winner.
“As Governor, I look forward to working closely with (the Biden) administration to help Nevada — the state hit hardest by both COVID-19 and climate change,” Gov. Sisolak said in a statement. “I also want to thank our hardworking poll workers and elections officials who are making sure that every vote is counted.”
State Democratic lawmakers passed a bill in a special legislative session earlier this year that sent mail-in ballots to all active registered voters in the state, bringing criticism from state and national Republicans and legal challenges from the Trump campaign.
Trump, in both the leadup and aftermath, has sought to connect mail-in ballots to voter fraud. There is no evidence of this.
Vote tabulation there has been a slow going process. Though 88% of the expected vote has been counted, mail ballots postmarked by the Nov. 3 election day can be counted until Tuesday. And there were tens of thousands of provisional ballots left to sort through.
The Trump campaign attempted to end the vote count in Clark County through legal challenges, claiming that there was evidence of “improper” voters casting their ballots in the county. The most recent legal challenge sought a freeze on the use of Clark County signature verification machines
District Judge Andrew Gordon denied the request Friday.
Trump also promised a legal fight as results began to favor Biden, promising on the night of Election Day to take the issue to the Supreme Court. It’s not clear exactly how the Supreme Court could intervene in any way to benefit Trump.
Democrats hold a slight advantage among registered voters in the state, with 37%. Republicans make up 33%, and nonpartisan voters are 24%.
The GOP and Trump’s campaign have been working together in Nevada, putting more than 60 staffers on the ground, roughly double their effort four years ago.
But Democrats insist they were not taking their past wins for granted.
Between the party and the Biden campaign, there were more than 100 staffers in Nevada. They activated get-out-the-vote networks that they have been building for years, especially to reach Nevada’s communities of Latinos, African Americans, Asian Americans and Native Americans.
One of Democrats’ biggest on-the-ground-advantages is the heavily Latino casino workers’ Culinary Union. While the Democratic Party and Biden campaign didn’t resume in-person efforts until October because of the coronavirus, instead relying on virtual organizing, the union has been knocking on doors since August. They had more than 400 members working to get out the vote in Las Vegas and Reno.
“We are taking back our country and are proud to have delivered Nevada for political candidates who will represent working families and fight for our issues,“ said Geoconda Argüello-Kline, Secretary-Treasurer for the Culinary Union in a statement.
The president made three trips to the state in the past two months, including last week where he stayed overnight at his hotel in Las Vegas before holding a rally in Bullhead City, Arizona, just outside Nevada.
Biden made one trip to Nevada since the Democratic presidential caucuses earlier this year, stopping in Las Vegas in early October for an event with Latinos and a drive-in rally.
Biden’s win sat at the forefront of a mostly successful Democratic push for federal representation of state. Titus won reelection, as expected, handily. Democratic House incumbent Steven Horsford, whose district makes up much of North Las Vegas and a sizable portion of the state’s rural area, pushed back an attempt from Republican Jim Marchant to wrest control of the seat.
Rep. Susie Lee, whose district makes up much of Henderson, also fought off a bid for Republican control in her district from challenger Dan Rodimer.
Rep. Mark Amodei, whose district contains Reno and rural Northern Nevada, is still the state’s sole Republican in Congress.
Las Vegas Sun reporter John Sadler and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
