With Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly’s re-election victory over Republican Blake Masters, Democrats are now just one seat away from maintaining control of the Senate in what was predicted by many to be a GOP wave election year, but one that never materialized.
Tuesday’s election results were a bitter disappointment for Republicans, as Democratic senators in Arizona and New Hampshire were able to fend off challengers endorsed by former President Donald Trump, while Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., and Republican Herschel Walker are headed into a runoff election on Dec. 6 after neither could win a 50% majority of the vote. Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet was handily re-elected in Colorado, as was Sen. Patty Murray (D) in Washington state.
Each party currently holds 49 seats, and Democrats need just one more victory to hold onto their majority with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris breaking ties.
All eyes now turn to Nevada, where the Senate race remains too close to call, but Republican Adam Laxalt’s early lead is shrinking radpidly. Updating his supporters on Saturday morning, Laxalt shared that he is only leading incumbent Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto by 862 votes.
The Nevada U.S. Senate race between Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Republican Adam Laxalt is still undecided.
(Associated Press)
“Multiple days in a row, the mostly mail-in ballots counted continue to break in higher [Democratic] margins than we calculated. This has narrowed our victory window,” Laxalt tweeted. “The race will come down to 20-30K Election Day Clark drop off ballots.”
“If they are GOP precincts or slightly DEM leaning then we can still win,” he added, optimistically. “If they continue to trend heavy DEM then she will overtake us. Thanks for all the prayers from millions of Nevadans and Americans who hope we can still take back the Senate and start taking our country back.”
If Cortez Masto is re-elected, control of the U.S. Senate will remain in Democratic hands. But if Laxalt prevails, the matter will be decided in four weeks in Georgia. Outside political groups have already ramped up spending there, with the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) making a six-figure ad purchase to attack Warnock as a “great actor” who “votes with Joe Biden 96% of the time.”
Republicans hope to avoid a repeat of the 2020 runoff elections in Georgia.
Warnock, who is the minister at Atlanta’s famed Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Martin Luther King Jr. once preached, narrowly edged Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler in Georgia’s twin Jan. 5, 2021, Senate runoff elections. His victory, coupled with now-Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff’s razor-thin win over GOP Sen. David Perdue, gave the Democrats the Senate majority.
REPUBLICANS SPLIT ON TRUMP’S EFFECT ON LACKLUSTER MIDTERMS AS CONTROL OF CONGRESS HANGS IN BALANCE
(AP Photo/Brynn Anderson
