catherine cortez masto, a former state attorney general, had 49 percent of the vote to 44 percent for joe heck. | ap photo by zach montellaro 11/09/16 12:15 am est democrat catherine cortez masto bested gop rep. joe heck in nevada<u+2019>s senate race tuesday night, denying republicans their lone chance of a pickup in 2016. cortez masto, a former state attorney general, had 49 percent of the vote to 44 percent for heck when the race was called just after midnight eastern time, with 30 percent of precincts reporting. story continued below cortez masto<u+2019>s win gives the democrats continued control of retiring senate minority leader harry reid<u+2019>s seat <u+2014> both a symbolic and strategic victory. reid has held the seat since 1987, and republicans had zeroed in on it as their best opportunity to flip a senate seat to the gop this year. cortez masto will be the first latina senator in national history, as well as the first female senator in nevada history. all told, outside groups spent over $90 million to try and sway nevada voters on the senate race; with the two candidates included, nearly $110 million in spending worked out to an eye-popping $84 per nevada voter. the race was extremely close down the stretch, as cortez masto became better known and the presidential race kept weighing more and more on heck. but ultimately, the senate race was called before the presidential race as cortez masto pulled away with help from powerful democratic surrogates. by john bresnahan president barack obama taped a radio ad in support of cortez masto and saw popular democrats like obama urging support for her at hillary clinton rallies. cortez masto also had joint appearances with the likes of massachusetts sen. elizabeth warren. the former attorney general<u+2019>s strategy was to make the election a referendum on donald trump, the bombastic republican nominee for president. while trump has run much more strongly than expected nationwide, democrats racked up early votes in nevada and cortez masto came away with the win. she was aided by a tumultuous last month for heck that might have hurt him with his gop base. after the bombshell <u+201c>access hollywood<u+201d> tape showed the republican standard-bearer saying extremely lewd comments about women, heck pulled his support. <u+201c>i can no longer look past the pattern of behavior and comments that have been made by donald trump,<u+201d> heck said at a rally the day the tape broke . <u+201c>therefore, i cannot in good conscience continue to support donald trump, nor can i vote for hillary clinton. <u+2026> i believe our only option is to ask donald trump to formally step down.<u+201d> however, with less than a week before the election, heck seemingly backtracked on his un-endorsement, saying he thought trump was qualified to be president but not committing to vote for him. by bill scher by joshua zeitz by thomas wright by jack shafer
cortez masto defeats heck in nevada - politico
zach montellaro john bresnahan jack shafer