Nevada could decide control of Congress with multiple seats in play

WASHINGTON (Gray DC) - A lot of attention is on the state of Nevada as multiple House and Senate seats remain in play with control of Congress on the line.

Nevada has earned a reputation as being a swing state but in recent years Democrats have racked up more wins than losses. Currently, they control 3 of the state’s 4 House seats. They also control the silver state’s Senate seats. However, political experts tell the Washington News Bureau that this year Republicans have gained an edge as redistricting redistributed Democratic voters. They have the potential, based on election results, to flip all House seats red and flip one Senate seat too.

“People have started to take for granted that Nevada is trending Democratic, trending blue, but it’s still a swing state,” said Dr. Daniel Lee, University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Lee said that three of the most competitive races in the state involve the re-election campaigns for Democrats Dina Titus, Susie Lee, and Steven Horsford. He explained how redistricting played a role in that.

“What Democrats did was they moved some voters out of Titus’ first district, which is a safe Democratic district, gave some Democratic voters to the third and fourth districts to Lee and Horsford to make those a little bit safer. But, what ended up happening was that made Titus’ district competitive as well. So, they’re all pretty closely balanced in terms of partisanship where all of them are in play, where there’s the potential where Republicans could win all four seats,” said Lee.

Catherine Cortez-Masto, the nation’s first Latino-American senator, is also locked in a tight race. Bill Galston of the Brookings Institute said Republicans seem to be gaining some ground in Hispanic communities, a large portion of Nevada’s voting population.

“It is very much up for grabs. And, the Hispanics are a major share, I think between one-in-five and one-in-four registered voters in Nevada are Hispanic. And, that community has been trending away from Democrats in recent election cycles,” he said.

The U.S. Senate is currently split 50-50 between the parties.

Democrats control the chamber because Vice President Kamala Harris casts the tie-breaking vote.

Meanwhile in the House, Democrats hold control with 220 seats, Republicans have 212, and there are three vacancies.