Either party could secure a Senate majority with wins in both Nevada and Arizona – where the races were too early to call. However, there was also a strong possibility that, as early as 2021, the Senate majority would end up in a runoff in Georgia. Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock led Herschel Walker, but each failed to reach the 50 percent threshold to win outright due to alternate candidates dropping out of the Dec. 6 runoff. In the current session of Congress, the Senate is 50-50, but Vice President Kamala Harris casts any tie-breaking votes in favor of Democrats. Republicans are expected to have a 49-48 lead heading into the next session. While the Alaska race is still too close to call, it’s a battle of two Republican candidates, incumbent Lisa Murkowski and Donald Trump-backed Kelly Chibaka. So all eyes will be on Nevada and Arizona before the Georgia runoff takes place. Republican Senate candidate Adam Laxalt hugs his wife, Jamie, Tuesday night in Las Vegas. If Laxalt flips the Nevada Senate seat to his party, Democrats would need to hold on to seats in both Arizona and Georgia to retain control of the U.S. Senate. (Mario Tama/Getty Images) Republican Blake Masters, an investment executive, trails Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly in Arizona by five percentage points, while the Nevada contest between Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Republican Adam Laxalt has yet to be called, with Laxalt leading on present. two percentage points. It could take several days to see who won those Senate races, as well as several House districts, in part because of the rules for counting ballots.
The House surge under McCarthy may not materialize
Control of Congress will affect Biden’s agenda. House Republicans are likely to launch a series of investigations into Biden, his family and his administration if they take office, while a Republican takeover of the Senate could see the president’s picks for the federal judiciary face hard resistance. In the House, Republicans were a dozen seats short of the 218 total needed to take control, while Democrats held onto seats in districts from Virginia to Pennsylvania and Kansas. In a highly symbolic victory for the Republican Party, Quebec-born Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, head of the Democratic House campaign, lost his bid for a sixth term. On the other hand, Democrats were hoping for a pickup against hard-right gun enthusiast Lauren Bobert in Colorado, though the race is currently so close that it would trigger an automatic recount. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California arrives to speak Wednesday in Washington. McCarthy hopes to succeed Democrat Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House if Republicans win control of the House. (Alex Brandon/The Associated Press) With millions of votes still uncounted Wednesday in the nation’s most populous state, California, uncertainty remained for about a dozen of the state’s 52 House races. A slim majority in the House would pose a major challenge to Republicans, and especially Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, who is in line to be Speaker of the House and would have little margin for error in navigating a chamber of members eager to capitalize on their votes to advance their own agenda. “Look, we were told we were going to have an incredible, incredible surge,” Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs, leader of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said in an online stream. “If that was the case … you’d say, ‘Well, OK, Kevin is the presumptive Republican nominee for President.’ But I think we need to have a serious conversation.”
Nevada, Ariz. set expectations on the schedule
In Nevada, the ongoing vote count includes more than 100,000 ballots, which were delivered to ballots on Election Day and sent by mail. Nevada election officials will count mail-in ballots received by Nov. 12 as long as they are stamped by Election Day. Officials have until Nov. 17 to complete the count and submit a report to the Nevada Secretary of State’s office, according to state law. Voting officials in the two most populous counties, which include the population centers of Las Vegas and Reno, warned that it would take days to process the outstanding ballots. An election official sorts mail-in ballots at the Clark County Elections Department on Wednesday in Las Vegas. Mail-in ballots mailed in Nevada on or before Election Day can be counted if received by Saturday. (Gregory Bull/The Associated Press) Hundreds of staff members are working to process ballots as quickly as possible, and “every piece of equipment we have available to process the mail will be in use,” said Clerk of Voters Joe Gloria. The count will continue through the weekend. For any ballots that need “treatment” — which can happen if the signature on the ballot envelope doesn’t appear to match the voter’s signature on file — voters will have until the end of business Monday to correct the issue, Gloria said. As of Wednesday afternoon, Arizona’s most populous county said about 400,000 votes remained to be counted. In addition, those Maricopa County officials said review boards will review some metrics Saturday. WATCHES | Gen Z turnout, refusal to vote between middlemen, says Georgia political scientist:
“This fight is far from over,” says the American policy expert
Andra Gillespie, an associate professor of political science at Emory University in Atlanta, breaks down the US midterm elections as control of the US Senate and House is still unknown. Maricopa officials said about 17,000 ballots were affected by a printing mishap that prevented vote counters from reading some ballots, a problem that slowed voting in some precincts and angered Republicans who were counting on a strong Election Day turnout. County officials said all ballots will be counted, but did not provide a timeline for that. “There are no perfect elections. Yesterday was not a perfect election,” Bill Gates, chairman of the Board of Supervisors, told reporters earlier in the day. “We’re going to learn from it and get better.” Meanwhile, Republicans who control the three-member board of supervisors in southeastern Arizona’s Cochise County voted Wednesday to appeal a judge’s ruling that prevented them from hand-counting all ballots, which are also recorded by machines. Efforts to count ballots by hand in the county and elsewhere across the nation are being driven by unfounded concerns from some Republicans that problems with vote-counting machines or voter fraud led to Trump’s 2020 defeat. Gubernatorial races have become hugely important in this year’s midterms, particularly in battleground states that could help decide the outcome of the 2024 presidential election. Democrats remained in New York, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania in generally competitive races, while Republicans narrowly won gubernatorial races in Florida, Texas, and Georgia. The Arizona governor’s race is being closely watched. Former television news anchor Kari Lake was about half a point behind Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs in the governor’s race, a contest that has focused heavily on Lake’s unsubstantiated allegations of fraud in the 2020 election.
