Catherine Cortez Masto clinched the coveted Nevada Senate seat after arguably the most heated Senate race in the nation. It’s too early to tell at press time if the U.S. Senate will shift to the Democrats.
Cortez Masto won big in Clark County and also defeated Heck in Washoe.
The former state attorney general amassed 394,497 votes to 358,441, Heck was winning in the rural counties including Lyon and Churchill counties.
Retiring Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid endorsed fellow Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto, 52, the former two-term Nevada attorney general who also served as a Clark County Commissioner. Masto earned her Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration from the University of Nevada, Reno, and law degree from Gonzaga University.
Cortez Masto asked voters to stand with her in fighting to protect Nevada families. She’s also focused on overturning the Citizens United U.S. Supreme Court decision, protecting Medicare and social security, telling Congress to raise the minimum wage, and comprehensive immigration reform.
Republican Rep. Joe Heck, 57, from southern Nevada’s 3rd district seated in Las Vegas is a former emergency room physician who also served as an Army Reserve Brigadier General. Heck also has a four-year term in the Nevada Senate, representing Clark County’s 5th district, under his belt. Heck studied at Pennsylvania State University and the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine.
→Heck renounced his Donald Trump endorsement after lewd 2005 comments came to light recently but said at a Fernley campaign stop that he would support Trump as his president if both were elected to office to accomplish things for the country and Nevada.
Heck served three tours of active duty, including Iraq, and says he clearly sees the threat to national security presented by radical Islamic terrorism — and plans to confront it.
Reid, who turns 78 next month, held his seat for five terms, spanning 30 years. He announced in March that he wouldn’t be running for a sixth after being severely injured and blinded in one eye when he fell from an exercise machine.
She also beat out Independent Tom Jones as well as the unaffiliated Tony Gumina, Tom Sawyer and Jarrod Williams.