Nevada Democrats keep 3 US House seats as incumbents fend off GOP

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Three U.S. House seats in Nevada will remain under Democratic control after a sweeping win Thursday for the incumbents, while the state’s tight Senate race was still too early to call.

The Associated Press has declared Democratic Reps. Dina Titus, Susie Lee and Steven Horsford winners in their respective races. The state’s lone Republican Congressman, Mark Amodei, cruised to victory Tuesday night in his reliably red district in northern Nevada.

Lee won over conservative policy analyst Drew Johnson in what is widely considered the state’s most competitive district, which covers a large swath of the culturally diverse Spring Valley neighborhood in Las Vegas and more rural areas of southern Nevada.

Horsford, a four-term congressman who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus, defeated former North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee in a district that stretches north from Las Vegas, toward rural Nye County in the west and along the Utah border in the eastern portion of the district.

For Titus, it was the second election in a row that she defeated Republican Mark Robertson, a retired Army colonel, to keep her seat in the Las Vegas district she has represented for more than a decade.

All three incumbents, in separate statements, vowed to continue their work to lower costs in the state and to create more jobs. Their challengers conceded Thursday.

Johnson said in a statement he was proud of the race he ran, and that he was encouraged by President elect-Donald Trump’s decisive victory. John Lee, in a brief phone call with AP, also said he ran a good race and was now “looking forward to Trump bringing this nation back around.”

Robertson, meanwhile, told AP he had called Titus to congratulate her, saying he respected the will of Nevada voters and that he and Titus spoke about possibly working together “on a future issue.”

In 2021, Democrats sacrificed part of Titus’ district — the party’s traditional stronghold — in exchange for some gains in neighboring swing districts.

Titus, the longest-serving member of the Nevada delegation in Washington, D.C., has been reelected every two years since winning her seat in 2013. Robertson, her opponent this year, has never held political office and echoed policies favored by Trump on border security, inflation and the economy.

Horsford, meanwhile, became the first Black person to represent Nevada in Congress when he was elected to the House in 2012. He lost in 2014 but has since won in four straight elections.

Susie Lee first won her seat in 2018, succeeding now-Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen.

AP hasn’t yet declared a winner in the race for Rosen’s seat in the upper chamber of Congress. It pits her against Republican Sam Brown, a retired Army captain whose face is still scarred from injuries he suffered in Afghanistan. ___

Associated Press writers Ken Ritter in Las Vegas and Anita Snow in Phoenix contributed to this report.