The political world’s attention was on the U.S. West on Saturday as officials worked another day to count votes for key races.
Elections for a Nevada Senate seat and Arizona’s governorship have not yet been held. Large counties in both states are struggling to reduce the tens of thousands of votes that still need to be counted.
the game we are watching
In Nevada: Republican Adam Laxalter leads the Democratic incumbent by a narrow margin of 860 votes. Catherine Cortez Masto.
Democrats are expected to take control of the Senate if Cortez Masto wins. If she loses, the fate of the upper house will be decided in the Georgia runoff in December.
In Arizona: Democrat Katie Hobbs leads Republican Cary Lake by about 31,000 votes in the gubernatorial race.
It was a heated campaign marked by Lake’s baseless claims about the 2020 election and Hobbs’ role as Arizona secretary of state.
We look forward to tonight’s results
In the two states taking center stage tonight, large counties will release a slew of results.
Clark County, Nevada: Clark County, the most populous county in Nevada and including Las Vegas, will release the results of the remaining 22,000 mail-in ballots tonight, according to county registrar Joe Gloria.
He said the batch of results would be released “sometime this afternoon or evening,” which he estimated could happen as early as around 7 p.m. ET.
Washoe County, Nevada: Washoe County plans to release the next batch of results around 11 p.m. ET Saturday, according to election officials.
There are still about 12,000 ballots still to be counted there, officials said, but they don’t know how many will be in Saturday night’s batch of results.
Washoe County, which includes Reno, is the second most populous county in Nevada and is considered a swing county.
Maricopa County, Arizona: More results are expected in Arizona’s most populous county, Maricopa County, around 10 p.m. ET Saturday.
Election monitor Bill Gates told CNN he expects the vote to be similar to last night, when the county reported an increase of about 80,000 votes.
Gates said Friday that the county still has about 275,000 ballots to be counted, including Phoenix.