In states across the Western U.S., ballot counting continues, and several crucial races remain uncalled. But initial returns and exit polls show that Latino voters and young voters turned to President-elect Donald Trump in substantial numbers. And this trend was mirrored nationwide: Early vote analysis from the New York Times shows that a right-leaning shift occurred in nearly every county in the country, both urban and rural, in majority-white areas as well as counties with significant minority populations.
The inroad among Latino voters is especially notable. Early results suggest that Vice President Kamala Harris will win this demographic by single digits. In 2020, President Joe Biden beat Trump by nearly 30 points among Latinos. This trend has helped Trump take large leads in two crucial Western swing states — Arizona and Nevada — where nearly a third of voters identify as Hispanic.
Chuck Rocha, a political consultant who worked with Democrat Ruben Gallego, who seems likely to pick up Arizona’s open Senate seat, said on a CNN podcast that Latino voters tended to blame the Biden administration — and therefore Harris — for the inflationary conditions of the past few years.
“A lot of them who don’t like the way (Trump) talks and what he does still voted for him, because they wanted gas and groceries to be cheap as they were four years ago,” he said.
In the U.S. House and Senate races, the picture is more complicated, even as final results are still outstanding for the contests that will determine the size of the Republican’s Senate majority, as well as which party controls the House. If the GOP wins enough key swing House seats in Alaska and California, among other, Trump will enter his second term in the White House with complete control of Congress.
High Country News broke down the House and Senate race results in the West, including key races to watch where ballots are still being counted.
Montana’s Tester is down
In Montana, Republican businessman and political neophyte Tim Sheehy unseated Democratic incumbent Sen. Jon Tester in one of the races that determines the makeup of the U.S. Senate. (The GOP will hold the chamber, though by how many seats remains unclear.) Cumulative spending on the race is expected to surpass $315 million, according to the Associated Press, making it one of the most expensive Senate races ever.
Sheehy, a former Navy Seal who made a fortune in the aerospace industry, ran an uneven campaign. The first-time candidate’s story about having been shot in Afghanistan fell apart, after it emerged that he had accidentally shot himself in Glacier National Park in 2015. (He claims that he never spoke about the injury to protect other members of his units). Sheehy, who also owns a ranch, was recorded using racist stereotypes about members of the Crow Tribe. And his stated support for public land was called into question, as HuffPost reported that he had been a board member of the Property and Environment Research Center, a nonprofit which has expressed support for privatizing public lands.
The state’s political makeup has changed dramatically since Tester won his first term in 2006. Over the course of two successful re-election campaigns, Tester displayed a notable ability to attract Republican and independent voters. With his recognizable flattop haircut, the self-described “dirt farmer” — Tester grew up on a farm in Big Sandy on the Northern Plains, where he lost three fingers to a meat grinder as a child — was able to attract notable numbers of Republican and Independent voters in successful re-election campaigns in 2012 and 2018.
On Tuesday, however, Montana’s demographic shifts caught up with Tester. Sheehy won by approximately 8 percentage points, thereby unseating the last Democrat to hold statewide office in Montana. Harris ran about 7 points behind Tester, failing to break 40% of the vote. For several years, Montana has been among the fastest-growing states in the nation, and the new arrivals overwhelmingly vote Republican. A recent analysis by the New York Times found that newcomers to Montana were 46 points more Republican than the state’s 2020 electorate. On Twitter, Tester said that serving as Montana’s senator was “the honor of my lifetime.”
Other Western Senate races
As of Thursday night, two crucial Western Senate races — in Arizona and Nevada — remained uncalled, with votes still being tallied.
In Arizona, Congressman Ruben Gallego holds a 2 percentage point lead over Republican Kari Lake, with approximately 70% of votes tallied. The Senate seat had been vacated by Krysten Sinema, who opted not to seek re-election.
Gallego, a progressive from Phoenix, appears to be an exception to the nationwide trend of Latino voters pivoting toward the GOP. In Maricopa County, which is home to over 4 million people, nearly a third of whom are Hispanic or Latino, Gallego holds a 5-point edge over Lake. Trump, meanwhile, has a 3-point edge over Harris in Maricopa, as of press time.
Gallego made a priority of turning out Indigenous voters in a state where about 6% of the population identifies as Native. He visited all 22 federally recognized tribes in Arizona, even taking an 8-mile hike into the Grand Canyon to the Havasupai Reservation, according to NPR. Native voter results were not available as of Thursday.
In Nevada, Democratic incumbent Jacky Rosen leads Republican challenger and former military officer Sam Brown by less than a percentage point, with approximately 93% of votes in as of Thursday night.
Most of the remaining mail-in ballots will likely come from Clark and Washoe counties, traditionally Democratic strongholds. Mailed ballots postmarked by Election Day and that arrive by this Friday will be counted, according to The Nevada Independent, which reported that nearly 30,000 ballots may need to have their signatures verified by the secretary of State’s office.
Rosen was expected to win a tight race against Brown and outrun Harris, but Trump’s strong showing in the Silver State suggests that Brown still has a chance. As of Thursday night, Trump lead Harris by 3% in Nevada.
Depending on Rosen’s race and the outcome of a closely contested election for a Pennsylvania Senate seat, Republicans could gain as many as five additional Senate seats, giving the party a comfortable edge to pass Trump’s legislative goals and confirm Supreme Court justices.
The House remains in play
As of press time, neither party had captured enough seats to take control of the U.S. House of Representatives, though Republicans have the easiest path to a majority. Several crucial races in the West will decide the fate of the chamber — and whether Trump’s second term will begin with complete GOP control of the Legislature.
In California, nine races remain uncalled in the southern part of the state and the Central Valley. And suburban House seats in Arizona — one outside of Phoenix, the other near Tucson — don’t have winners yet, either.
In Alaska, which uses a ranked choice voting system, first-term Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola, an Alaska Native who holds the state’s sole House seat, trails Republican Nick Begich by a few points. Begich currently has just under 50% of the total vote. If he surpasses that threshold, he will win the race outright; if he fails to capture a majority, the contest will go to a runoff. And in western Washington, another first-term Democrat, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, has a slight lead over Republican Joe Kent, whom she beat by less than a percentage point in 2022.
And on Colorado’s Front Range, the 8th District — created in 2022 and rated as a tossup — has tightened and remained too close to call as of Thursday. Republican state Rep. Gabe Evans trails incumbent Democrat, Rep. Yadira Caraveo, by less than a percentage point, with 84% of votes tallied.
Notable races that have been called include Colorado’s 3rd District, which covers the entire Western side of the state. Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert had held the district for two terms but left to run for, and fill, an open, more conservative seat. Jeff Hurd, R, an attorney from Grand Junction, defeated former Aspen city councilmen Adam Frisch, who nearly beat Boebert in 2022.
In a rare bright spot for Democrats, New Mexico Rep. Gabe Vazquez held on in the state’s 2nd District, which stretches from the Albuquerque suburbs to the U.S.-Mexico border. The 2nd has changed parties repeatedly in recent years, and Vazquez won the seat by about 1,300 votes in 2022. His margin was larger on Tuesday, around 10,000 votes. Rocha, the Democratic strategist who worked with Vazquez, credited his focus on recreation and land.
“We proved last night when you talk about hunting, fishing and public land access you can win Latino men and elections!” Rocha wrote.
