Key races to determine control of the Senate in Arizona and Nevada have yet to be contested as both states scramble to count hundreds of thousands of ballots that have yet to be processed.
It could still be hours – or days – before enough ballots are counted in those states to determine who won the Senate and the caucuses in both states. There are also several key congressional races undecided in California and Colorado that will determine what the House looks like when the new Congress is installed in January.
The unofficial results — and lingering uncertainty over who will control Congress next year — didn’t stop Republicans from worrying about the election results, where an expected GOP surge never materialized. The results raised new questions about House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy’s path to the speech and added a new layer to a potentially looming 2024 showdown between former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Here’s what you need to know as the countdown continues:
The biggest reason it’s taking so long is how each state handles ballots other than those cast at the polls on Election Day, including both early voting and mail-in ballots.
In Arizona, for example, CNN estimates there are about 540,000 ballots to be counted. The majority of those, about 350,000 ballots, are in Maricopa County, the state’s most populous county that includes Phoenix.
Of those ballots, about 290,000 were cast at polling stations on Election Day. A top official told CNN late Thursday that the county expects to begin releasing the first results from those pending ballots Friday night.
“We’re going to start seeing them tomorrow, I believe — we’re going to start seeing them come in,” said Bill Gates, chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.
These ballots must be processed before they can be counted, which results in a delay in ranking. The rejected mail-in ballots were a “record” for the county, Gates said.
In addition, Maricopa County has approximately 17,000 ballots that were not read from the ballot table on Election Day due to a printer error, and those ballots must also be counted.
The county had not yet begun counting the 290,000 ballots cast on Election Day, Gates said Thursday.
In Pima County, Arizona’s second-most populous, Elections Director Constance Hargrove told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and John King that the county was able to report batches of about 20,000 ballots a day and expected another drop of 20,000 on Friday.
“We’ll be working through the weekend and we’ll be processing most of these ballots – not all of these ballots – probably by Monday morning at the latest,” Hargrove said.
In Nevada, state law allows mail-in ballots to be received until Saturday as long as they are mailed on Election Day, meaning counties are still receiving ballots for counting.
As of Thursday afternoon, CNN’s Decision Desk estimates about 95,000 votes remain outstanding.
In Clark County, the largest state that includes Las Vegas, there are still more than 50,000 ballots to be counted, Clark County Clerk Joe Gloria said Thursday.
The poor performance of several Trump-endorsed candidates in battleground states has cast fresh doubt on Trump’s potential 2024 campaign launch, which is expected at an event scheduled for Tuesday.
At the same time, DeSantis’ resounding re-election in Florida is fueling calls for him to build on his momentum and challenge Trump for the 2024 nomination.
The beginning of presidential jockeying right after the midterms is nothing new, but the potential battle in the GOP looking toward 2024 is especially notable after Trump leaked the night before the election that he would make an announcement in Florida next week .
The Trump-DeSantis showdown has been simmering for months, but it could explode as the 2024 primary season officially begins. A Trump adviser told CNN on Wednesday that DeSantis was “already having a moment, but the spotlight just quadrupled in tension” after Tuesday’s election.
McCarthy is moving quickly to narrow the votes needed to claim the speaker’s gavel in the next Congress, as Republicans still appear to be closing in on a majority in the House, even as Democrats had a better-than-expected night on Tuesday. CNN has yet to predict a Republican takeover of the chamber.
McCarthy spoke privately with his closest advisers and confidants in a phone call Wednesday morning. The California Republican tapped a group of members to be on the whip team that will help him secure the votes to win the speakership in January, with GOP lawmakers on the call pledging to “work hard to get him elected.” , according to a known source. with the subject.
And several allies were seen in and out of McCarthy’s office Wednesday as they began to hash out and execute their game plan. “Yes,” McCarthy said confidently Wednesday night as he left Capitol Hill and was asked if he had the votes to take over the speech.
But the sheer size of the Republican majority could determine how difficult it will be for McCarthy to become speaker, as a narrow majority could prompt the pro-Trump House Freedom Caucus to stand in the way of McCarthy’s leadership aspirations.
A source familiar with the Freedom Caucus’ discussions told CNN Wednesday morning that there are about two dozen current and incoming members who are willing to vote against McCarthy if he doesn’t offer them concessions.
