Democrats close in on US Senate control with race in Arizona and Nevada

With Senator Mark Kelly winning Arizona Friday night, Democrats only need one seat to retain control of the US Senate, while all eyes turn to neighboring Nevada, where The race is increasingly tilting in the direction of the Democrats.

Kelly’s victory (who was elected in 2020 to fill the term of late Republican Senator John McCain) complemented a streak of Democrats’ Friday night victories as votes continue to be meticulously counted in the west. Kelly defeated investor Blake Masters, who supported former President Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, demonstrating voters’ rejection of a Trump-backed candidate, which Democrats portrayed as an extremist.

So far, Democrats will hold 49 seats in the Senate, and Republicans 49 – meaning the Democratic party only needs one more seat to win a majority in the Senate (with Vice President Kamala Harris having the tie-breaking vote) . They could reach that critical 50-seat number if they succeed in Nevada, where Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto is closing in on Republican Adam Laxalt, the former state attorney general — who has accused the 2020 presidential election of being ” rigged” and filed lawsuits on behalf of Trump trying to overturn Biden’s victory in the state.

Nevada’s Senate race has been at an impasse for months, but it could set the balance of power in the house. Democrats are also defending a seat in Georgia, where Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker will run in the runoff on Dec. 6, according to CNN projections.

Control of the US House is still open. However, it is already clear that even if the Republicans win a majority, it will be by a much narrower margin than the GOP leaders had hoped. This unexpected result has already sparked recriminations and doubts from Republican leaders, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who had hoped to emerge from these elections with a clear term to become the next Majority Leader.

The Democratic winning streak on Friday night marked an impressive turn of fortune for a party that appeared to be in serious trouble ahead of Tuesday’s election. Candidates like Kelly and Cortez Masto ran amid President Joe Biden’s low approval ratings, an unfavorable economic climate (with inflation and high fuel prices squeezing the budgets of families across the country), and a historic trend towards a large defeat in the first midterm elections of a new president.

However, this has been a complex cycle with many countercurrents affecting voter behavior, including the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in June to overturn a court ruling allowing broad access to abortion, something that angered many voters across the world. country. Republicans were also hurt by Trump’s decision to support far-right candidates who were loyal to him but too extreme to win over “pendulum” voters who ultimately decide the vote. In the end, many independent and moderate voters appear to have rejected candidates deemed to be extremist or too closely aligned with Trump — and Democrats turned out en masse to protect their incumbent candidates.

Masters’ defeat in Arizona came after prominent Democrats, including former President Barack Obama, stormed the state in the final days of the race to warn that the fate of the country’s democracy was at stake. Voters in Arizona also rejected the candidacy for secretary of state of Mark Finchem, a strident denialist Republican congressman backed by Trump. Instead, Democrat Adrian Fontes is expected to be elected Arizona’s next secretary of state, according to CNN projections Friday night.

The only bright spot for Republicans was in Nevada, where voters elected Republican Joe Lombardo as the state’s next governor and ousted Democrat Steve Sisolak, as CNN projected. Lombardo, the popular Clark County sheriff, reminded voters of the hardships during the Covid-19 pandemic, when unemployment in Nevada peaked at nearly 30%. Although the economy recovered, Lombardo argued that Sisolak’s policies were too restrictive and made it difficult for the state to recover.

As in 2020, some Republicans, including Masters, are already trying to stir up controversy over the vote count in Maricopa County, Arizona — insinuating that the count there is unreliable because of the handling of certain ballot boxes. Both Masters and Kari Lake, the Republican nominee for state governor, have suggested that the count is too slow.

On Friday, Masters alleges the same as Lake, calling the count process in Maricopa County – Arizona’s largest and where Phoenix is ​​located – “incompetent” and highlighting a problem with printers, the which meant that some ballot boxes were not properly tabulated on Tuesday (8), even though electoral agents said that the issue was resolved in a few hours on election day. Bottom of the form

Masters also accused the county of mixing uncounted urns with ones that had already been counted. The Republican National Committee and the Arizona Republican Party released a statement declaring that the election “exposed deep flaws in Maricopa County’s electoral management. Arizona deserves more – transparency, certainty, efficiency – and most importantly, an accurate and rapid announcement of election results that can be accepted by all voters.”

A spokeswoman for the Maricopa County Elections Department told CNN’s Kyung Lah that the entity has “redundancies in place that help us ensure that each ballot is counted only once.”

“Because the ballots are tabulated by lot, we can isolate the results from these specific locations and reconcile the totals with the check-ins to ensure they match. This is done with observers from the political parties present, and it is a practice that has been in place for decades,” the spokeswoman said.

Bill Gates, chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, rejected Masters’ suggestion that the county should zero the tally and start counting from zero, saying “that’s simply not allowed under Arizona law.” Gates also said the county’s reporting pace is in line with previous years.

When asked by CNN about the specific allegations by the Republican National Committee, Gates replied that he would like to hear about those concerns directly. “I’m a republican. Three of my colleagues on the board are Republicans. Raise and discuss these issues with us rather than making baseless accusations,” he commented.

“Let the count continue and in the end, if there are issues they want to take to court, they have every right to do so, and we’ll let the process run its course,” Gates added.

Kelly entered the 2022 cycle in a good position to weather the headwinds facing Democrats (even in a divided state like Arizona, where Joe Biden narrowly won) on account of his incredible fundraising and his personal brand of retired astronaut, Navy veteran and husband of former Representative Gabby Giffords.

Masters, a first-time candidate, made it through the GOP primaries with significant financial backing from Peter Thiel, a tech billionaire and his former boss. He appealed to Republicans pledging to prioritize immigration issues and, in a campaign video released last year, said he believed Trump had won the 2020 presidential election.

Next, Masters apparently modulated his tone on the 2020 election results, as well as the conservative stance he had taken during the abortion primaries — something that initially seemed like an effort to appeal to a broader swath of Arizona’s electorate. (Although Republicans represent a plurality of votes in Arizona, independents make up about a third of the electorate and often set up close races.)

After his primary victory in August, Masters deleted information from his website, including the false claim that the elections were stolen. When questioned by the moderator during a debate with Kelly, Masters admitted that he had seen no evidence of fraud in the 2020 vote count or election results that could have changed the outcome. In that debate and during his campaign, Kelly argued that the “gears” of the “wheels of democracy” could come loose if deniers like Masters were elected.

However, Masters appeared to have backed off after receiving a call from Trump urging him to “get tighter” on the election denial, a conversation that was captured in a Fox documentary. In the final week of the campaign, Masters told CNN’s Kyung Lah that he didn’t think moderates were bothered by his comments about the 2020 election, insisting voters were far more concerned about inflation, crime and borders.

Throughout the campaign, Kelly portrayed Masters as a candidate who was outside the “mainstream” who would jeopardize abortion rights as well as Social Security and Medicare. In a state where lawmakers earlier this year passed a new ban on abortion after 15 weeks’ gestation — and where legal efforts are underway to ban abortion in nearly all cases — Kelly’s campaign has kept a relentless focus on women. Masters’ anti-abortion positions.

Masters had said he would support a nationwide abortion ban after 15 weeks, a proposal that was introduced by South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. The bill includes exceptions in cases of rape, incest, and to protect the mother’s life.