‘Red wave’ or ‘red mirage’? Preliminary numbers reported on election night might not stand when all votes are counted in Nevada

By Casey Harrison (contact)

Friday, Nov. 4, 2022 | 2 a.m.

Much like how former President Donald Trump preemptively and falsely proclaimed victory in the wee hours after Election Day in 2020, Republicans who are leading their respective midterm election races may be quick to do the same on Tuesday.

Preliminary results on election night could well depict a “red mirage” that would show GOP candidates like gubernatorial hopeful Joe Lombardo and U.S. Senate hopeful Adam Laxalt with commanding leads over their Democratic counterparts, said David Damore, a political science expert at UNLV. But as early votes and mail-in ballots are processed, the script could flip on Republicans as it did with Trump en route to President Joe Biden’s electoral victory, Damore said.

The same can be true in other battleground states, such as Georgia and Pennsylvania, where the majority in U.S. Senate will likely be determined .

“We saw that nationally in 2020, and of course, here as well,” Damore said of the mirage effect. “The other part is not just the mail balloting, but we have same-day registration and we also have some provisional ballots. So if it’s pretty close, I don’t expect to know (the results) until later in the week.”

Ballots cast during Nevada’s early voting period aren’t processed until after the polling places close on Election Day, Damore said. Polls close at 7 p.m. Tuesday, though it could take additional time to accommodate voters in line at that time.

Election workers in Clark County, using a tabulation machine, have already started counting mail ballots, Clark County Registrar of Voters Joe Gloria said.

The state has given counties until Nov. 12 to receive mail ballots that are postmarked by Election Day and until Nov. 14 to conduct signature cures, secretary of state spokesperson Jennifer Russell said. She said it could take a few days following the election to announce unofficial results; counties have until Nov. 18 to certify results, so final, official results may not be known until then.

The methods in which people vote have been increasingly under scrutiny in recent years by Republicans, Damore said. That suggests possibly why the in-person totals on Election Day skew more toward Republicans while Democrats generally prefer mail-in or early in-person voting, he said.

The Democratic-controlled Nevada Legislature in 2020 temporarily approved universal mail-in balloting in response to the health crisis brought on by the pandemic. Residents, especially those with health risks, wouldn’t have been able to vote without having access to mail ballots. The process, despite pushback for Republican lawmakers, became permanent in the 2021 session.

“A lot of Republicans and a lot of old people like to vote on Election Day,” Damore said. “So the ‘mirage’ speaks to the actual processing of the votes, and the partisan differences between mail voting, which becomes more difficult to process and more time consuming. Those results are posted later versus the in-person voting, which is more Republican and posts much quicker.”

That factor could make a repeat of 2020 all that more likely. That election, Biden took the lead in many key races across the country after batches of mail-in ballots were processed during the overnight hours following Election Day. Trump losing his lead overnight became the genesis of one of his many debunked claims the election was rigged against him.

If the vote is close Tuesday night, it could empower pro-Trump candidates like Republican Secretary of State contender Jim Marchant and Laxalt — who was co-chair in Nevada of the former president’s re-election bid — to declare victory and file legal action aiming to stop the processing of mail-in and early votes, Damore said. But he also noted that nearly all of the campaigns have attorneys on standby in the event they feel legal action needs to be taken.

Laxalt filed numerous lawsuits after the 2020 presidential election attempting to stop the counting of ballots in Clark County in a coordinated effort with Trump loyalists in other states. All of the lawsuits in Nevada were either thrown out or withdrawn.

Days after officially announcing his Senate candidacy, Laxalt told radio host Wayne Allyn Root he planned to assemble a team to “come up with a full plan, do our best to try to secure this election, get as many observers as we can, and file lawsuits early, if there are lawsuits we can file to try to tighten up the election,” according to The Associated Press.

In March, The New York Times obtained leaked audio of Laxalt telling reporters he was “vetting outside groups to help establish election observer teams and map out a litigation strategy.”

The Sun last month published findings of a questionnaire it sent to candidates running for Nevada’s federal congressional delegation and top statewide executive offices asking if they would accept the results of the midterm election, regardless of the outcome.

Six of the nine Republicans the Sun reached out to, including Laxalt, either did not respond, declined to participate or gave deflective answers.

Though most polling shows the Nevada gubernatorial and U.S Senate races in near statistical dead heats, there is the chance Republicans make sweeping gains in the Silver State and nationally in a phenomenon called the “red wave.”The newest poll by Emerson College / KLAS-TV / The Hill released Tuesday shows that could be the case here.

Laxalt leads Democratic U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto 50% to 46%, while in the U.S. House races Republican challenger Mark Robertson in the 1st Congressional District held a 10-point lead over incumbent Democratic U.S. Rep. Dina Titus. In the 3rd Congressional District, Republican April Becker led Democratic incumbent Rep. Susie Lee, 51% to 46%.

Though polling could be flawed, the midterm elections have historically been a referendum on the current party in power, Damore said. Biden and the Democrats took control of the White House, and both chambers of Congress after big pickups in 2020.

“The red wave is the term we use to explain the tailwinds behind the Republicans that are driving expectations for them picking up the House and potentially the Senate,” Damore said. “It may be swinging some (local) government races along the way.”

But Damore noted there still were too many variables up in the air that make predicting the outcome of this year’s election simply too difficult. One of the biggest factors for Nevada in particular will be the turnout among unaffiliated voters.

“Are they even going to participate? They were sent a ballot if they were registered, but do they return those back? The answer based upon what we’re seeing in the early voting and some of the mail-in, it looks like they’re running well below their share,” he said. “That suggests that a lot of those people who moved to the state were automatically registered but not really actively engaged in the electorate.

“That’s the wild card for me: Just how many of those new Californians, the COVID Californians as I like to call them, are actually going to participate?” Damore added.

In the two years since the 2020 presidential election — where Biden’s nearly 30,000-vote victory over Trump in Nevada helped him claim the presidency — Gloria said the county election department has worked aggressively to enhance its processing of mail ballots. All of the 1.3 million registered voters in Clark County received a mail ballot, meaning hundreds of thousands will have to be processed.

And Gloria stresses his team is ready to tabulate the results.

He said they spent the downtime after the 2020 presidential election in deep preparation, including visiting counties in Colorado to observe their processing of ballots and purchasing more equipment.

“(Election) officials have to be given more credit,” Gloria said, referring to those who claim voter fraud. “We are here to count the vote. We have a very professional group that is dedicated to upholding the election process, and we take that very seriously.”