(CN) — Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden will likely take Nevada and its precious six electoral votes — putting him on the threshold of becoming the 46th president of the United States.
Clark County Registrar Joe Gloria announced about 63,000 ballots remain uncounted in his county plus about 60,000 provisional ballots, which means it is unlikely Nevada will be officially called Thursday.
“Our goal is not to count fast; our goal is to be accurate,” Gloria said.
Despite the lack of clarity, the picture looks promising for Biden, who enjoys a lead of about 11,000 votes as the state continues to process ballots.
While the lead is slender, most of the outstanding ballots are in Clark County, the most populous county in the state and home to Democratic-leaning Las Vegas.
Trump’s support comes from the rural parts of the state, where few outstanding votes remain.
Washoe County, in northeastern Nevada, is home to Reno and is expected to be relatively even, meaning the path for Trump to overtake Biden in the state is narrow to nonexistent.
Gloria said his office will finish the vote county on Saturday or Sunday, but election watchers may feel good enough about the numbers to call it earlier than that.
The Nevada Republican Party and the Trump campaign have levied evidence-free assertions that the count is inappropriate and threatened to file a lawsuit. Adam Laxalt, the former state attorney general and co-chair of Trump’s campaign in the state, said as many as 10,000 people who no longer live in Nevada cast votes there.
“We warned for the last few weeks we could end up in a situation where Nevada decides the presidency,” he said. “We’re asking for emergency relief. We’re asking for the judge to stop the counting of improper votes.”
The Trump campaign has filed similar lawsuits in courts across the nation, seeking to stop the counting in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia. Those cases have been mostly met with skepticism from judges who have asked the Trump campaign to provide specific evidence of impropriety as opposed to conjecture and speculation.
Rick Hasen, an election law professor at the University of California, Irvine, was asked on Twitter Thursday morning which of the numerous lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign had a shot of prevailing in court.
“NONE,” he wrote.
A win in Nevada would bring Biden to 270 electoral votes, as Fox News and The Associated Press have already called Arizona for the Biden campaign. However, many other outlets question the Arizona call, saying there are too many outstanding votes to make an accurate call about how that race will finish.
Nevertheless, a Biden win in Nevada means that the former vice president could win the White House without having to win Pennsylvania, as its six electoral votes and Arizona’s 11 would be enough to get to 270.
Biden has been doing well in Pennsylvania, as the Keystone State races to count a profusion of mail-in ballots. Biden has been eating into a significant lead maintained by Trump in Pennsylvania.
Georgia is also too close to call as press time. Trump maintains an excruciatingly slim margin as the count nears its end in the Peach State.
Trump’s path to the White House is narrower. He must win Pennsylvania and Georgia, maintain his lead in North Carolina — which is also too close to call — and take either Arizona or Nevada.
With most of the outstanding votes in the Silver State in Democrat-leaning counties, the president’s chances to carry Nevada look bleak.
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