The electoral prospects for two established Clark County politicians dwindled Friday afternoon after the release of the most recent vote count.
In Washington, the top two candidates from the August primary advance to the November general election regardless of party affiliation. The vote count shows increasingly unlikely electoral paths for Clark County Council Chair Marc Boldt, an independent, and former Democratic state Rep. Jim Moeller, who is running for the Clark County Council District 1 position.
The most recent count shows Republican Clark County Councilor Eileen Quiring holding steady in first place at 38 percent of the vote. Democrat Eric Holt also held his second-place spot at 24 percent of the vote. The most recent count shows the spread between Boldt and Holt increasing to 1,992 votes from the previous day’s difference of 1,729.
Moeller also saw his prospects fade in his bid for the Clark County Council District 1 position. The most recent vote count shows Temple Lentz, a former county freeholder, keeping the largest share of the vote at 7,112 votes, or 33.6 percent.
The vote count shows Moeller trailing Republican Clark County Councilor Jeanne Stewart for second place. Moeller has 6,695 votes, 313 behind Stewart, an increase from Thursday’s spread of 243.
Neither Boldt nor Moeller responded to a call for comment.
According to the Clark County Elections website, there are an estimated 2,200 ballots left to count. The website states that 98,804 ballots have been counted so far.
Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey, who oversees elections, said that the bulk of ballots have been counted and the only ones that haven’t are those that have been challenged because of some issue with their stamp or signature. He said those ballots will be resolved in time for the election to be certified Aug. 21, but he doesn’t expect that they will all be counted.
Kimsey declined to comment on the possibility of either candidate seeing their vote count increase enough to advance to the general election.
“We always say a close race is a close race until it’s certified,” he said. “We’ll leave it at that.”
He added that currently, neither race is close enough to trigger a mandatory recount, either.
