Sandra Block, center, poses for a photo with her daughters Dana Serrata, left, and Dawn Block, right, after voting at Desert Breeze Community Center in Las Vegas on Election Day Tuesday Nov. 8, 2022.
Thursday, Nov. 10, 2022 | 2 a.m.
More on the election in Nevada
Dawn Block is a registered Republican. Her sister, Dana Serrata, is a Democrat.
But when it came to picking a candidate this week in Nevada’s midterm election, the sisters selected some of the same candidates, saying they care more about voting for a person with values akin to their own regardless of party affiliation.
“If they’re Republican, Democrat, independent — it doesn’t matter to me,” said Serrata, after casting her ballot Tuesday at the Desert Breeze Community Center polling site. “If they’re going to represent me and what I view as important, then that’s who I’m going to vote for.”
The approach of splitting the ticket — a ballot cast for candidates of more than one party — was apparently used heavily by Nevadans in the just-completed midterm elections. While mail ballots are still being received and tabulated, and winners won’t be known for a few days, a sampling of partial results yields the split.
Take the top two races on the ballot, where Republican challenger Joe Lombardo was leading incumbent Gov. Steve Sisolak by about 34,000 votes with about 84% of ballots accounted for.
In the state’s other marquee race, U.S. Senate challenger Adam Laxalt’s vote total stood about 7,000 fewer than what his fellow Republican Lombardo had received — meaning a notable amount of voters split Laxalt off of their ticket and instead selected the incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev.
It’s a similar trend that was seen nationally.
In Georgia, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp won election over Stacey Abrams by receiving about 2.1 million votes. The same voters failed to equally support the Republican in Georgia’s U.S. Senate race. Herschel Walker received just 1.9 million votes against Democrat incumbent Raphael Warnock. Warnock outpolled Walker by about 35,000 votes but neither candidate surpassed the 50% threshold necessary to avoid a runoff election, which will be contested Dec. 6.
And in Wisconsin, Republican U.S Sen. Ron Johnson won re-election to a third term, while Badger State voters delivered a second term to Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.
UNLV political science professor David Damore said split-ticket voting in the Senate and gubernatorial races was likely in Nevada, citing some Republican notables in Washoe County backing Cortez Masto. He added that endorsements crossing party lines also occurred for Democrats in races for attorney general, secretary of state and treasurer.
But as voters reached the bottom of the ballot and less-heralded races, Damore said it was also likely they opted to check “none of the above,” or minor party candidates instead of voting on a single party line.
As a result, a party could benefit greatly from members that do vote straight ticket, Damore said. In that case, they could lose the close races at the top of the ticket but still win the less contentious ones — leading to a Nevada composed of elected officials from varying parties at different levels.
“Unless the nonpartisans break overwhelmingly for one side or the other, this cycle has the potential for some strange outcomes that could yield, either intentionally or unintentionally, mixed partisan outcomes,” Damore wrote in an email.
The reasoning for splitting a ticket could be that the candidate representing your party is flawed. That appears to be the case in Georgia with Walker — a pro-life candidate who reportedly paid for a two women’s abortions, had no experience as a public servant and was accused of holding a gun to his wife’s head — or here in Nevada with extremist Republicans and 2020 presidential election deniers running for office.
Extremism was front and center in a handful of Nevada contests, such as in the race for attorney general, where Democratic incumbent Aaron Ford — who was endorsed by some Republicans — is leading Republican challenger Sigal Chattah by about 40,000 votes with 77% of the expected votes accounted for. Chattah was criticized for making racially insensitive comments about Ford, who is Black.
According to a New York Times/Siena College poll in the week leading up to Election Day, Laxalt and Cortez Masto, each held at least 93% of their respective party. However, Laxalt had a lead with independent voters, Siena College Research Institute Director Don Levy said.
Lombardo was polling ahead of Sisolak 49%-45% thanks to independent voters, Levy said.
Although Nevada has 651,751 registered nonpartisan voters as of October, according to the secretary of state, UNLV assistant professor of political science Ken Miller said most people who identified as “independents” still leaned strongly Democratic or Republican, and voted accordingly.
“People who lean toward one party or another … are just as partisan,” he said.
Miller added that many voters know little to nothing about the candidates for whom they cast their ballots, especially in some of the nonmarquee statewide races.
Janice Nagao, a 68-year-old Republican, said Tuesday outside the polling station at the Desert Breeze Community Center that she “pretty much” voted within party lines, though she split some of her ticket.
“You’re not sure if that’s the best choice … I also think that I got polarized in terms of ‘this side, that side.’ At some point you’ve got to stop that and look at everyone,” Nagao said. “It’s an important election, and I know people have many concerns.”
Block said she studied each individual candidate she voted for and crossed over party lines as she saw fit.
“It shouldn’t be far this or that, because a lot of people are in the middle,” Block said.
The sisters said they aimed to vote based on a candidate’s value, not their party. They voted with their mother, 80-year-old Sandy Block.
“This is how your country is going. You need to pick (a candidate),” Serrata said. “Or else, you can’t complain. If you’re not going to be a part of the solution, then you’re just part of the problem.”
