Arizona and Nevada are the biggest question marks, with significant numbers of votes still to be counted in both states. If either party sweeps those two states, they will take control of the Senate regardless of what happens in Georgia next month. Democratic Sen. Kathryn Cortez Masto faces Republican Adam Laxalt in Nevada. Laxalt leads with more than 70 percent of the expected vote counted. But there is still a long way to go in the state, and Laxalt’s advantage is tenuous because of the plethora of potentially Democratic-leaning ballots. Nevada’s two most populous counties — Democratic-leaning Clark County, the Las Vegas seat, and Washoe County, the Reno seat — have at least tens of thousands of ballots pending to be counted. Clark County Clerk of Voters Joe Gloria, the chief of elections there, said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon that 14,718 ballots would be counted this afternoon and that the county plans to release results from a new batch of counted ballots once a day. hereinafter. Votes to be counted later this afternoon are from ballots that were picked up at drop boxes on Monday or delivered by the United States Postal Service on Tuesday. An additional 12,700 ballots were received by Postal Service officials on Wednesday and will be processed later this week. Nevada ballots that are USPS postmarked by Election Day but delivered to election officials by Nov. 12 will also be counted. Gloria added that “there are a significant number” of ballots deposited in dropboxes on Election Day that need to be processed, but she did not have a specific number. All in-person votes on Election Day have been counted. Likewise, officials in Washoe County have many, many ballots to count. As of Wednesday morning, officials there must count 39,000 ballots received by mail before Election Day, along with 18,000 ballots received Tuesday — as well as properly postmarked ballots arriving in the following days, KRNV reported . And rural, red counties also have thousands of ballots to count, the Las Vegas Review Journal reported. Arizona, too, still has several pending votes. Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly has the lead, and his lead over Republican Blake Masters is expected to shrink dramatically — but not completely. As of early Wednesday morning, about 60 percent of votes had been counted in the state. Election officials there have long warned that this would happen. In Maricopa County, the state’s largest county, ballots returned close to Election Day will not be counted until Wednesday at the earliest. Maricopa Recorder Stephen Richer, the county’s chief elections officer, tweeted Wednesday that there are still hundreds of thousands of votes to be counted in the state’s most populous county. Still to be tallied, as of Wednesday morning, more than 400,000 ballots were left in ballots between Friday and Election Day — including the overwhelming 275,000 ballots returned Tuesday, which Richer noted was 100,000 more than what happened on election day 2020. In addition, ballots dropped at polling places that could not be read by recording machines — reportedly a widespread occurrence in Maricopa — must now be counted at central polling locations. Richer placed that number at about 17,000. Officials said before the election that they hoped to have 99% of the ballots counted by Friday. Pinal County, a red-leaning county south of Phoenix, said Wednesday morning it had nearly 27,000 ballots remaining, most of which were filed at the polls over the weekend or returned to polling places on Election Day. And Pima County, a blue county, had at least 50,000 ballots to go as of Wednesday morning, the Tucson Sentinel reported. In Georgia, Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock narrowly leads Republican Herschel Walker. The problem for Warnock – and the Democrats – is that the incumbent fell short of a majority of the vote, prompting a Dec. 6 runoff between Warnock and Walker. The match was officially sent to a second round on Wednesday afternoon. If the two parties split Arizona and Nevada, control of the Senate would once again fall to the Peach State, just as it did in 2020. Two years ago, Democrats swept two runoffs in the state, securing a 50/ 50 in the state chamber and making Vice President Kamala Harris the tiebreaker. Warnock will finish first in the November election, but that does not guarantee he will prevail in December. In one of two 2020 runoffs, then-Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.) also finished just short of the 50 percent mark. But now-Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) passed him to win the race for a full term in the early 2021 runoff. Warnock, meanwhile, also won the 2021 Senate runoff, defeating then-Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) after the pair emerged from a broken November field. Warnock’s victory then gave him two years in the Senate, while this year’s contest will determine a full six-year term. A major difference for this year’s runoff is the timing. The runoff in the state took place in early January. But after suffering those losses in 2021, Georgia Republicans changed state law to move up the runoffs by about a month, setting them for early December.
The GOP is ahead in the House battle — but with smaller-than-expected gains
Republicans still lead the race for the House majority, but the number of uncalled races indicate how surprisingly close the battle for the House has been. Of POLITICO’s 26 races predicted as “blowouts,” just 11 remained up for grabs as of Wednesday afternoon. Another 19 POLITICO races rated “Lean Democratic” or “Lean Republican” have also not been called. In all, that includes nine races in California, a slow-counting state — one of the many reasons why majority control of the House may take some time to resolve. Perhaps the most shocking seat still up for grabs is in Colorado, where controversial Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), who represents a heavily Republican seat turned redder by redistricting, is narrowly trailing Democratic challenger Adam Frisch with over 90 percent of the vote. . Back to the upset districts: In New York, two upstate races are undecided, the GOP-led 22nd District and the Democratic-led 18th District. A swing district in Pennsylvania remains unknown — but Democratic Rep. Susan Wild has the lead.
