Shenea Booth’s narrow win over Melissa Hardy in Nevada Assembly District 22 shows how much every vote counts.
Seventy-seven votes. That’s about how many people fit in a few rows at a Henderson high school football game, and it may be all it took to hand Democrats one of the biggest Assembly majorities Nevada has seen in decades.
Democrat Shenea Booth appears to have beaten Republican Assemblywoman Melissa Hardy in Assembly District 22. That seat hadn’t gone to a Democrat since 1998. Unofficial results on Sunday showed Booth ahead 17,273 to 17,196. On election night, KLAS reported just seven votes between them.
The race still has to go through the official canvass. But if the result holds, Democrats will control 32 of the Assembly’s 42 seats. Republicans will have 10.
Why This Seat Should Have Stayed Red
District 22 was supposed to be safe ground. Hardy was first elected in 2018. In 2022 she won with 58.5 percent of the vote. In 2024, Democrats didn’t even run anyone against her, and she collected 34,242 votes.
This year she lost by about two-tenths of a percentage point in a district that still leans Republican.
A loss that close doesn’t mean Henderson has turned blue. It means some Republicans stayed home, and that was enough.
Turnout Was the Real Story
A Nevada Independent analysis found that it was the first midterm since at least 2014 in which Nevada Republicans turned out at a lower rate than Democrats. In 2022, Republican turnout was strong enough to help Gov. Joe Lombardo win. This year that support didn’t show up.
Republican consultant Greg Bailor, who tracked the early vote closely, saw it coming.
“I absolutely looked at that as a measurement of enthusiasm,” he told the Indy.
Assemblywoman Rebecca Edgeworth, who also lost her seat, said her internal polls started showing trouble among Republican voters around Labor Day.
Plenty of Republicans will blame the national mood, and they have a point. But a seven-vote election-night gap is a reminder that a few more neighbors at the polls could have changed the result.
What Changes in Carson City
Lombardo spent four years as a steady check on the Legislature. His veto pen stopped bills that would have grown government and raised costs for families. Starting in January, that check goes to Democrat Aaron Ford, who defeated Lombardo.
Democrats also swept all six statewide constitutional offices, flipped the 2nd Congressional District for the first time ever and appear headed for control of the Washoe County Commission.
There is still one safeguard left for taxpayers. Nevada’s Constitution requires a two-thirds vote in both chambers to raise taxes or fees. That means 28 votes in the Assembly and 14 in the Senate. Democrats will clear the bar in the Assembly, but they hold only 13 Senate seats.
In other words, any tax increase will need at least one Republican senator to say yes. Those eight GOP senators are about to become very important people.
What Democrats Say
Democrats see the results as voters asking for change on affordability, and Booth campaigned hard on it.
In a KLAS interview, she said voters she met were struggling with high costs. With full control of state government, Democrats will now own the results on housing, schools and the cost of living.
What Comes Next for Conservatives
District 22 showed how much a few dozen votes can matter.
Looking ahead, Bailor told the Indy:
“There’s a desperate need for candidate recruitment and training that the Republican Party does not have.”
That work starts long before 2028.
The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Nevada News & Views. This article was written with the assistance of AI.
