Ashurst tops Fox for council seat

A contentious election year has come to a close in Boulder City as city council candidate Denise Ashurst has emerged victorious with a nearly 2-1 vote lead over sitting Councilman Matt Fox.

The results are not official. That won’t be the case until the votes are canvassed and certified. The first of those processes has to happen within 10 days of the election. State certification has to happen, again, by law, no later than the fourth Tuesday in November. After the state certification, the city council will meet to make it all official on the local level. At the time this story was written, no special council meeting had been scheduled.

Results all across Nevada were heavily delayed. State law dictates that no counting of same-day ballots can begin and no results of early voting can be released until the last person in line by 7 p.m. has voted in all 17 of Nevada’s counties. According to multiple news reports, lines to vote in both Reno and Pahrump were up to three hours long and the final voters did not cast ballots until several hours after the polls closed.

This year, Boulderites embraced early voting methods in mass numbers. Not counting mail ballots, nearly 4,000 people voted early at the Parks and Recreation Building. Meanwhile the two sites in the city taking election day ballots — Martha P. King Elementary School and the Parks and Rec building, saw just 1,100 voters each on Election Day.

Counting just early and mail votes, Ashurst led Fox by about 2,000 votes, which would make it all but impossible for him to pull out a win. By the time the sun came up on Wednesday, the rest of the ballots (less a few mail ballots that may still straggle in) had been counted and those results held. Fox did little to no campaigning and, while Ashurst signs were all over the city and she did advertising, including in the Review, Fox did neither. Ashurst had 60 percent of the early and mail vote and that ratio held up overnight.

Reached via text message as the vote totals began to be released, Ashurst said, “The people of Boulder City have spoken… It is impossible to do anything without prayer, family and friends, and I thank them all!”

Meanwhile, Fox, also in a text message, appeared to see the writing on the wall. He responded before vote totals were released, saying, “Win or lose, I have had the experience of a lifetime working for the amazing residents of our beautiful city. Working with all the city staff was a pleasure and a privilege. The city is in good hands regardless of the results.”

Pool proposition

The ballot question about spending an additional amount of up to $9 million on the project to replace the aging city pool won as well with the same roughly 60/40 between Yes and No. In the early tally, the difference was only 1,300 votes which meant that, while unlikely, the final total could have possibly still come up as a No. But, by morning, the winning percentage had held steady. The Yes votes stood at 5,409 while the No votes were 3,687.

Other races

In other races that impact Boulder City, the state senate district that includes Boulder City was not up for a decision in this cycle. That will happen in 2026. In State Assembly District 23, incumbent Republican Danielle Gallant ran unopposed and received 100% of the early vote. In U.S. Congressional District 1, incumbent Dina Titus was leading Republican challenger Mark Robertson by one-and-a-half percentage points, with the early vote making the race far too close to call from the early and mail vote. However, given the recent Democratic lean of Clark County, the trend favored Titus and when same-day ballots were tallied, she had increased her lead nearly six percentage points.