Nevada votes Tuesday in key races
Polls close at 7 p.m., with most ballots already cast by mail or in early voting centers.
By Aaron Foster ·
Nevada voters will cast ballots Tuesday for federal, state, and local offices. Polling stations close at 7 p.m. local time. State law requires stations to remain open until every person in line by that time has voted.
The Associated Press will report results and declare winners in races for governor, U.S. House seats, and the mayoralty in Henderson. Other contested offices include lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, controller, and state treasurer. Voters will also decide on statewide ballot measures and elect judges to the state Supreme Court, state Senate, and state Assembly.
Advance voting dominates the process in this state. In the 2022 U.S. Senate race, approximately 1 million votes were cast in total. About 80 percent of those ballots were submitted early or by absentee mail. The AP tracks these advance totals to provide a baseline for Election Night coverage.
County clerks plan to release early voting data at the start of the night. All counties are expected to post at least some in-person early or mail results immediately. Nearly every county will release all or almost all in-person early voting results in the first update. However, about half of the counties will not release any in-person Election Day results in that initial batch. In Clark and Washoe counties, the first update typically includes all early in-person results and partial mail results before any same-day votes appear.
Counting speed has improved in recent cycles. In the 2024 general election, the first results appeared at 12:54 a.m. ET on Nov. 6. This was about three hours after polls closed. The state reached 50 percent reporting at 1:02 a.m. ET and 90 percent reporting at 8:26 p.m. ET the same day.
The AP will declare a winner only when it is mathematically impossible for a trailing candidate to close the gap. The organization does not make projections. If a race remains undecided, the AP will cover newsworthy developments like candidate concessions. The network will clarify that a winner has not been declared and explain the reasoning. A candidate may request and pay for a recount regardless of the margin. The AP may call a race subject to a recount if the lead is too large for the count or legal challenges to change the outcome.
