Comment Sen. Mark Kelly (D) is projected to win re-election in Arizona over Republican Blake Masters on Friday, boosting Democrats’ chances of retaining control of the Senate for another two years. The victory gives Democrats a 49th Senate seat, just short of the 50 needed to control the chamber, where Vice President Harris has the power to break ties. Republicans, who have also secured 49 seats, must now flip seats in both Nevada and Georgia to take control of the House. While the Georgia race won’t be decided until the December runoff, Democrats are cautiously optimistic they can win the majority sooner as more mail-in ballots are counted in the close Nevada contest. Democratic control of the Senate would give Biden some leverage for his agenda on Capitol Hill regardless of the outcome in the House, which also remained volatile late Friday. Republican control of the Senate would further complicate Biden’s agenda for the next two years, positioning the GOP to slow or block the confirmation of Biden’s cabinet officials and judges. Republicans entered the midterm elections needing to win just one seat to take control of the upper chamber of Congress, which is evenly divided this year. Their path to victory narrowed on election night as Democrats won a crucial Senate seat in Pennsylvania, with Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) beating celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz, another first-time Republican candidate by former President Donald Trump in the primaries. . The Arizona game was one of the most intense games of the year. Kelly, a former astronaut, beat Masters, a venture capitalist, after an expensive race in which the Democrat emerged as a moderate who would work across the aisle. Some Republicans were disheartened about their chances in the purple state this fall, as Democrats outspent them and held a sizable lead with independents. But polls have shown the race is tightening in the final stretch. Kelly led by nearly six percent with more than 80 percent of ballots counted late Friday. Arizona once seemed ripe for a statewide surge, with particularly high inflation and a backlash in the state to the Biden administration’s border policies. Masters tried to cast Kelly as a rubber stamp for Biden. But like so many other races this year, Democrats prevailed despite the scary political environment, portraying their opponent as extreme and angry about tough new abortion bans that followed the end of Roe v. Wade. Masters won the nomination with Trump’s endorsement and $15 million in support from tech billionaire Peter Thiel, a friend and mentor. He repeated the former president’s false claims about the 2020 election in a campaign ad, saying Trump won. A first-time candidate, Masters quickly caused some anxiety in the GOP that their candidates in key races were underperforming. The Senate Leadership Fund, a group aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R), began dropping out of the race weeks after the primary — though other GOP groups eventually helped Masters compete on the air with Kelly, a of the Senate’s best fundraisers. Masters was critical of McConnell during the primary and renewed that criticism this week, calling McConnell and the Republican establishment “incompetent” on Fox News. “If he had chosen to spend money in Arizona, this race would have been over,” Masters said. “We would be celebrating a majority in the Senate right now.” Masters gave Democrats an opening during a summer debate when he considered privatizing Social Security. Democrats also spent heavily to highlight his progressive comments on abortion, as he rejected calls for a sweeping “federal personhood law” in the general election and endorsed a proposed national ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Kelly’s campaign had already created and tested negative ads against Masters before the Aug. 3 primary, Kelly aides said, and found the strongest ads used Masters’ language, particularly on abortion and Social Security. In August, when Masters had limited resources and Republican groups had few television bookings supporting him, Kelly’s campaign used that vacuum to dramatically increase its television budget. Internally, this strategy became known as “the wave” – a bet that spending resources early would be worthwhile because it would help determine the Masters for voters in the general election. In Kelly campaign polls conducted from late July to early September, unfavorable ratings for Masters rose from 35 percent to 48 percent, said the aides, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private strategy decisions. Masters himself identified the Democrats’ strategy, saying in an Aug. 19 radio interview, “They’re trying to nuke me, you know, they’re trying to kill the baby in the cradle here.” Meanwhile, Kelly’s ads aimed to bolster his brand as an independent-minded Democrat and sought to distance himself from Biden on the border issue. His first ad dealt with the economic hardship created by inflation by telling the story of his upbringing as the son of two policemen. “From day one, this campaign has been about the many Arizonans — Democrats, Independents and Republicans — who believe in working together to address the significant challenges we face,” Kelly said in a statement Friday after the race was announced. Masters’ campaign had no comment Friday night when asked if he would concede. A fundraising appeal by Masters’ campaign on Thursday did not allege impropriety, but argued that “some of the issues that we’ve seen come up during this election are troubling.” He added, “We expect a contentious path forward and legal battles.” In an appearance Friday night on Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s show, Masters went further, claiming without providing evidence that Maricopa County, home to more than half of Arizona’s voters, had “tampered” with ballots in two cases. A campaign spokesman did not respond to a request for the evidence underlying those claims, and a county spokesman also did not immediately respond. In Georgia, Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D) ran narrowly ahead of Republican candidate Herschel Walker, a former football player. But none of the candidates achieved the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff. Also in Arizona, Democrat Adrian Fontes was projected to win the secretary of state race, defeating Republican Mark Finchem, a far-right state lawmaker who sought oversight of Arizona’s elections while pushing unfounded to ratify the 2020 results. Finchem was one of several GOP candidates for secretary of state who campaigned on Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. If elected, he would have served as the top election official for a battleground state in 2024. The secretary of state certifies statewide results. “We know Republicans and independents care about the truth,” Fondes said in an interview moments after announcing his race. “We know they don’t care about lies. What he is saying is that democracy, at least for now, will survive in this democracy.” In Nevada, where votes were still being counted, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D) was narrowly trailing GOP candidate Adam Laxalt, the state’s former attorney general, on Friday. But Democrats see encouraging signs that mail-in ballots from urban areas will catch on. While Republicans have long expected to retake the House, a goal they have yet to achieve, they face a more uncertain race for the Senate. Republicans held competitive seats in North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin in Tuesday’s election, while incumbent Democrats swept Colorado, New Hampshire and Washington state. The GOP only needs to pick up five seats for a majority in the House, and they have expressed confidence that they will prevail there. But their gains so far have fallen short of a red wave, paving the way for a narrower majority in which the leadership will need more unified support from an often divisive caucus to implement its agenda. Republican Joe Lombardo was also projected to unseat Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak in Nevada on Friday, giving Republicans their first pickup in a gubernatorial race this election cycle. In a statement released ahead of Friday night’s race, Sisolak said it “looks like we’re going to be a percentage point or so short of victory” and that he believes in “our electoral system, democracy and honor of the will of the voters of Nevada.” He noted the struggles of the past four years — including the pandemic and inflation — and said he reached out to Lombardo to wish him well. During the campaign, Lombardo, the sheriff of Clark County – which includes Las Vegas – criticized Sisolak’s handling of crime, education and the coronavirus pandemic. He said he would be a “pro-life governor” but tried to downplay the issue and said he would follow “the people’s vote” as Sisolak accused him of switching positions out of political convenience. “Our victory is a victory for all Nevadans who want our state back on track,” Lombardo said in a statement Friday night. “It’s a win for small business owners, for parents, for students and for law enforcement.” Lombardo’s win marks the first GOP pickup in a year when many Democratic incumbents defied GOP hopes for a red wave, winning tight races in Wisconsin, Michigan, Kansas and Oregon, where an independent candidate split the vote of the Democrats. Stanley-Becker reported from Arizona. Yvonne Wingett Sanchez in Arizona contributed to this report.
