Democratic Edge Shrinks in Arizona Senate, Governor Races
The latest on the midterm elections.
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Democratic Edge Shrinks in Arizona Senate, Governor Races
Margins between Democrats and Republicans in key Arizona races narrowed considerably Wednesday as election officials chipped away at counting more than half a million mail ballots returned on Election Day and shortly before.
Democrats maintained small but dwindling leads in key races for U.S. Senate, governor and secretary of state, while Republicans were optimistic the late-counted ballots would break heavily in their favor, as they did in 2020.
It could take several days before it’s clear who won some of the closer contests.
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Nevada’s Critical US Senate, House Races Too Early to Call
Critical races in Nevada, including one that could determine control of the U.S. Senate, were too early to call amid a plodding vote count that includes more than 100,000 ballots still to count that were delivered at drop boxes on Election Day and sent by mail.
Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat, was trailing in her effort to fend off a challenge from Republican Adam Laxalt. Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak was also in a tight race for reelection against Las Vegas-area Sheriff Joe Lombardo, who was also leading Wednesday, and three House seats are in limbo.
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Tight California Races May Determine US House Control
A string of too-early-to-call California U.S. House races remains in play and might end up determining whether Republicans seize control or Democrats hang on to power.
With millions of votes still uncounted Wednesday across the nation’s most populous state, uncertainty remained for about a dozen of the state’s 52 House contests. The most competitive of those races were in the Los Angeles region and the Central Valley farm belt.
In Southern California, Democratic Reps. Katie Porter and Mike Levin were locked in close races. East of Los Angeles, Republican Rep. Ken Calvert was trailing Democrat Will Rollins by 12 points, but less than one-third of the anticipated votes had been tallied.
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Arizona Judge Rejects Republicans’ Request to Extend Voting Hours in County After Issues With Voting Machines
An Arizona judge has rejected a lawsuit filed by a Republican coalition to extend voting hours in Maricopa County after issues occurred earlier in the day with tabulation equipment at dozens of polling sites.
“The court does not have evidence there was a voter who was precluded the right to vote from what was presented,” the judge, Timothy Ryan, said minutes before polls closed at 7 p.m. Tuesday, reported multiple outlets.
The emergency motion (pdf) was filed by the Republican National Committee (RNC), the National Republican Senatorial Committee, former state lawmaker Jill Norgaard, as well as the campaigns of the Arizona Republican Senate and governor nominees—Blake Masters and Kari Lake, respectively.
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Deceased Pennsylvania State Rep. Reelected in Landslide
A state lawmaker in Pennsylvania has been re-elected to another term in office on Nov. 8 despite already passing away last month.
State Rep. Tony DeLuca, a Democrat, died at age 85 on Oct. 9 due to lymphoma. The timing of his death was too late for election officials to change the ballots.
DeLuca had served as a representative in the Pennsylvania state legislature for 39 years. He received more than 85 percent of the vote in the 32nd District in Allegheny County. This accounted for nearly 14,000 votes on Election Day, and more than 7,000 votes via mail.
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Republican Eli Crane Defeats Incumbent Tom O’Halleran in Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District
Republican Eli Crane has defeated Democratic incumbent Tom O’Halleran in Tuesday’s election bid for Arizona’s 2nd Congressional District, according to projections.
Polls ahead of Tuesday night had shown that Crane was leading and would likely take O’Halleran’s seat.
Crane was leading with 53.7 percent of the vote as of Wednesday evening, while to O’Halleran’ held 46.3 percent, according to projections from the Associated Press, bringing Republicans one step closer to control of the House.
NBC and ABC called the race in favor of Crane.
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Kayleigh McEnany: Trump Should Wait Until After Georgia Senate Election to Declare 2024 Candidacy
Former Trump White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany suggested former President Donald Trump should hold off on his expected announcement of a 2024 White House campaign until next month’s Georgia Senate runoff election is finished.
A number of forecasters on Wednesday morning said the race between Sen. Raphael Warnock (R-Ga.) and GOP candidate Herschel Walker will advance to a Dec. 6 runoff election. Neither candidate got more than 50 percent of the vote, although Warnock led by a small margin.
“I know there’s a temptation to starting talking about 2024—no, no, no, no, no,” McEnany, a Fox News hire, said on the network. The 2022 midterms are “not over,” she added, saying all “Republican energy needs to go to grinding the Biden agenda to a halt, and that could go straight through the state of Georgia.”
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Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson Wins Reelection as Democrat Opponent Concedes
Democrat Mandela Barnes conceded the Senate race to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) as numerous election projections show Johnson prevailing during Tuesday’s midterms.
In a Milwaukee news conference on Wednesday, Barnes said he “fought the good fight” and that “we knew this fight wasn’t gonna be easy. Hardly anything worth fighting for is easy, but I’m standing here today, today ready to jump back in and ready to keep going.”
“The votes are in,” a statement from his campaign also said. “In all Democrat strongholds, municipalities are reporting 100% of wards are in and counted.” The campaign argued that the areas of the state with the highest percentages of outstanding votes are the ones that fell its way.
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Kean Ousts Malinowski in Rematch, Gives GOP a Red Seat in a Blue State
Republican state Sen. Tom Kean, Jr., who came within 1 percentage point of winning the seat two years ago, has ousted two-term incumbent Rep. Tom Malinowski’s (D-N.J.) in New Jersey’s Congressional District 7 (CD 7), picking up a key red win in a blue state.
According to results posted by the New Jersey Secretary of State Office’s Division of Elections (DOE), Kean garnered 52.3 percent, or 153,535 of 293,340 ballots cast, to Malinowski’s 47.7 percent to win their Nov. 8 election.
Analysts nationwide were watching New Jersey’s marquee midterm rematch between Malinowski and Kean because it was viewed by the GOP as an opportunity for the GOP to flip one of the state’s 10 Democratic-held seats and send a third Republican to Congress.
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Jack Phillips, Mimi Nguyen Ly, Katabella Roberts, John Haughey, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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