A group of conservative candidates, their families, friends, and volunteers gathered at a restaurant in the Felida neighborhood Tuesday night to mark the end of another election season.
“I’ll be smiling either way because if God doesn’t open this door for me to serve in office, I’ll have another opportunity to serve in a different capacity,” said Peter Silliman, about 90 minutes before the first results of the 2026 General Election were released by the Clark County Elections Office.
Silliman is a candidate for Clark County Council District 5.
Sure enough, 90 minutes later, Silliman and all candidates got the news. Clark County voters, at least in the initial results, rejected most of the conservatives on the ballots.
Michelle Belkot, running for reelection for Clark County Council District 2, was the only conservative candidate in the county to have a lead after those initial results.
“So far, the data looks positive,” Belkot said of her race against challenger John Zingale.
She led by close to 1,000 votes with nearly 51.5 percent of the vote.
The Elections Office noted Tuesday night that there are 68,000 votes to be counted on hand, and that does not include ballots that will be received by mail with valid postmarks.
The other candidates at Lakeshore Kitchen + Cocktails — Eileen Quiring O’Brien for county auditor and Silliman — had considerable deficits. Belkot said she is hoping to hang on to her lead and she is hoping for her colleagues to rally in the coming days as results are updated by the Elections Office.
“I heard there is a record-setting amount of late ballots coming in,” Belkot said. “The jury is still out. There is still time for ballots to be counted. I’m trying to be positive.”
In fact, win or lose, this election night gathering was a chance to celebrate democracy. It was also an opportunity for the candidates to thank their supporters.
“It’s good to be with these people. It’s a happy place,” Quiring O’Brien said.
“This is the culmination of a lot of hard work throughout these 10, 11 months,” she said, earlier in the night. “It’s good to have it finished. I’m glad the day is here. I’m hoping for good results. But you know what? We’ve done all that we can do.”
Belkot agreed.
“This (event) is about appreciation and gratitude to my volunteers who have helped me. Without them, I couldn’t have done any of this. Campaigns, they don’t run themselves,” Belkot said. “You have to have a lot of support around you. I definitely felt the support of my volunteers.”
She said growing up in this community has always been her motivation to serve.
“Being the only current Clark County councilor from Clark County, I vote with my heart in it,” Belkot said.
Still, election night is not for the faint of heart. Silliman had an interesting observation early in the evening.
“I’m an engineering kind of guy. You lay out a pattern and know what the results are that you are going to get,” Silliman said. “Politics isn’t anything like that. It’s all up in the air. You never know until the last minute.”
Which is why he was thrilled to celebrate election night with friends who have been working on the campaigns.
“A lot of these people have been busy for the last four or five months, doing different things,” Silliman said. “It’s good to have nice, casual conversations.”
While the party continued, results from across the nation were being televised.
“I don’t get it,” one person said, witnessing the Blue Wave.
“Not good. Not good,” another said.
“Collectively stupid,” added another.
Once polls closed in Washington, dozens of people could be seen refreshing their mobile devices, looking for those initial results for the local races.
Those results, in many ways, mirrored the national results.
In Clark County on Tuesday night — at least at this gathering — there was a reason for optimism in Belkot’s race.
Then there was the realization that one can celebrate democracy and at the same time express disappointment in the results.
Oh, election night.
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