The latest on the 2022 midterm election

Bill Gates, the GOP chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, called out Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake for baselessly claiming that election officials were “slow-rolling” the release of election results.

“I feel 100% confident we are going to win this. I hate that they’re slow-rolling and dragging their feet and delaying the inevitable," Lake said Thursday on Charlie Kirk’s right-wing talk show. "They don’t want to put out the truth, which is that we won.”

There is no evidence that the election officials were tampering with results to make any candidate look good or bad.

At a press conference Thursday, Gates responded to Lake’s comments.

Gates said election workers in Maricopa County will continue working very long days through the weekend, including Friday which is a federal holiday, to deal with the strong vote-by-mail turnout seen in this election.

On CNN later Thursday, Gates said: "We're going to do it on a timeline, which is frankly consistent with what it takes, how long it takes us to get this done every two and every four years. So there's nothing out of the ordinary -- it makes me wonder if Kari Lake has really been following elections in the past, in Maricopa County."

Lake is a leading promoter of conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and voting procedures in Arizona.

Former President Donald Trump is back to disparaging Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

It comes after a brief hiatus, apparently prompted by complaints from top Republicans that he went too far in criticizing the governor just days before the midterm elections.

On the heels of DeSantis' resounding reelection victory, which has intensified speculation that he will seek the GOP presidential nod in 2024, Trump issued a blistering statement Thursday.

The former president also repeated his claim that his endorsement of DeSantis in the 2018 GOP primary for Florida governor, when the former congressman was widely considered a longshot, paved the way for DeSantis' meteoric rise in the Republican Party.

"Ron came to me in desperate shape in 2017," Trump said, likening his endorsement at the time to "a nuclear weapon" in the gubernatorial primary. "I also fixed his campaign, which had completely fallen apart." 

More background: Trump's comments come days after he first tested his "DeSanctimonious" nickname at a pre-midterm rally in Pennsylvania, drawing the ire of Republicans who wanted to avoid an early 2024 showdown between the two men, particularly as Republicans in tight midterm races were delivering their closing pitches to voters.

The blowback caused the former president to tamp down his criticism of DeSantis at subsequent rallies in Miami and Ohio. Though DeSantis was notably absent from Trump's Florida rally with Sen. Marco Rubio last Sunday, Trump encouraged the crowd at one point to reelect their Republican governor.

DeSantis won his reelection contest against Democrat Charlie Crist by a 19-point margin Tuesday. He did not seek Trump's endorsement and has consistently declined to weigh in on speculation about his presidential ambitions.

This midterm election results were a "clear victory for team normal," Republican Rep. Liz Cheney said Thursday while speaking at the Anti-Defamation League's Never Is Now Summit on Antisemitism and Hate.

"I think that it was a clear victory for team normal, and we have a huge amount of work to do," Cheney said, adding that the election showed "a real rejection of the toxicity and the hate, and vitriol and of Donald Trump."

Cheney also spoke about crossing party lines and campaigning for Democrats this election. Cheney, who represents Wyoming, lost her primary election in August.

Cheney said that defeating anti-democratic forces will require "a level of bipartisanship that you might not have seen otherwise."

Speaking on the rise in antisemitism hate speech and hate crimes, she said "we know from history" that it cannot be tolerated.

"I do think it was the American people generally sending a message they want to pull us back from the brink. They don't want this nation to go, you know, over the edge to go into the abyss and we have to make sure that you know, the incentives are there to elect the kind of people who are going to make sure that they're part of the solution," Cheney said.

Some context: Cheney is leaving Congress at the end of her current term after losing the Republican primary for her at-large Wyoming seat in August. Her continued criticism of Trump for his role in inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol was seen as a key factor in her defeat.

Cheney said last month that she would not remain a Republican if Trump is the GOP nominee for president in 2024.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund, is teaming up with Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp to fund a get-out-the-vote operation to help push Herschel Walker in the Dec. 6 runoff, according to a spokesperson for the super PAC.

It's a sign of how all factions of the GOP are uniting behind a race that could determine the balance of power in the Senate.

The committee is dropping $2 million to bankroll the turnout operation that Kemp build, according to the spokesperson Jack Pandol, who confirmed a Politico story that said there would be more than 100 field workers as part of the effort.

Some context: With the Georgia runoff campaign already underway, money is pouring into the state as the parties and interest groups seek to shape its outcome. 

On the other side, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee announced a $7 million field organizing investment to boost Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock. 

Election officials in Arizona are still counting ballots as several key races are too close to call. CNN estimates that about 675,000 votes still remain to be counted in the state.

Maricopa County, the most populous county, has about 400,000 votes left to count and Pima County also has about 160,000 ballots left.

The results from thousands of more ballots will be released between 10 and 11 p.m. ET Thursday, Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chair Bill Gates said at a news conference.

Officials there tell CNN that they expect that drop to include ballots from Saturday night, Sunday and most of Monday.

The ballots will be "more than the 62,000" that were released Wednesday night, "but not significantly more."

Some context: Gates told CNN earlier Thursday that a large percentage of the ballots left to count include votes that were dropped off on Election Day.

In Arizona, mail-in ballots that were dropped off right before and on Tuesday don’t even start the important process of signature verification until the Wednesday after Election Day

Watch Maricopa County official give an update:

House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy is taking initial steps to show House Republicans he won't lead as a top-down speaker dictating his demands to the rank-and-file, a hallmark of speakers' past but one that would lead to a revolt internally.

CNN is yet to project which party will win the House as several key races are too early to call, but Republicans appear to be moving toward a slim majority, and McCarthy has already started jockeying for support.

Today, he set up working groups to help develop a GOP agenda and investigative priorities. His allies say the moves are intended to show he will listen to his colleagues. And in his private pitches to members, he is trying to convince them that his way of leading was successful in bringing the GOP back to the majority over two election cycles.

Yet members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus spent the day behind closed doors strategizing about how to empower their faction in what is expected to be a narrow GOP majority. They are asking for McCarthy to commit to a series of rule changes, including making it easier to call for a vote to oust a sitting speaker — an idea that McCarthy has flatly rejected. But Lauren Boebert and other members of the Freedom Caucus call that a "red line."

McCarthy reached out to another Freedom Caucus member, Ralph Norman, who on Thursday wouldn't commit to supporting him. Norman indicated McCarthy seemed open to meeting with them as a group.

Some members of the Freedom Caucus are threatening to put up a challenge against McCarthy in next week's leadership elections — even if it's a long-shot bid. Next week, the House GOP will vote on nominating McCarthy as speaker. He only needs a majority of his conference's support to win that nomination. But he will need 218 votes of the full House to become speaker in January, and GOP defections in a narrow majority could complicate that effort.

Members of the pro-Trump House Freedom Caucus are withholding their support for House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy’s speakership bid and have begun to lay out their list of demands, which includes rule changes and stronger commitments on investigations into the Biden administration. 

Although many races are still too early to call, the Republican Party is inching toward gaining a slim majority in the House.

GOP Rep. Chip Roy told reporters he wants McCarthy to list in greater detail his plans for a wide array of investigations, while Rep. Andy Biggs complained that McCarthy seemed to backpedal on whether he’d be willing to launch impeachment proceedings into President Joe Biden or members of his cabinet.

Members of the group, who huddled all day Thursday for their new member orientation, are also pushing to make it easier for lawmakers to call for floor votes on ousting a sitting speaker. That is something that McCarthy is adamantly against and was wielded over former Speaker John Boehner before he eventually resigned. 

Rep. Lauren Boebert said it was a “red line” for her. But not everyone in the Freedom Caucus is united on whether to make that a hard line. 

Rep. Ralph Norman said McCarthy personally called and asked for his support for speaker, but Norman wouldn’t commit. He told McCarthy there’s a group of them that wants to meet, which he said McCarthy was amenable to, but so far the GOP leader hasn’t caved into their demands. 

Norman said the group hopes to formalize a lengthier list of all the rules changes they are seeking. They are also pushing to delay next week’s internal leadership elections, though there is no indication McCarthy plans to do so.

“I'm not supporting anybody until I know what the blueprint is,” Norman said. 

When asked whether McCarthy should get credit for delivering the majority, Norman responded: “The taxpayers that voted the representatives in deserve the credit.”

Pima County will report a new batch of around 10,000 votes to the Arizona Secretary of State’s office around 8 p.m. ET, county elections officials said Thursday. 

As of Thursday, about 52,692 ballots had been processed by Pima County recorder Gabriella Cázares-Kelly’s office and sent to Pima County elections director Constance Hargrove.

Cázares-Kelly said her office has another approximately 53,773 ballots awaiting processing, which will be sent to the elections office and reported to the state in the coming days. 

Responding to criticism from some campaigns that vote counting is taking too long, Cázares-Kelly said local officials were on a schedule in line with past elections and suggested counting could be done by Monday.  

“Looking at our numbers, we’re going to be finished up pretty soon,” she said. “Monday is a really good goal. We’ve been able to transfer over 52,000 ballots over to the election department; that’s kind of phenomenal.”

She added there are about 1,000 ballots that need additional information like signature verification from voters who dropped them off. The county has contacted voters with these ballots, and the public has until Nov. 16 to cure their ballots, Cázares-Kelly said. 

“We’re doing everything we can, recognizing how eager the public is to hear from our offices,” she added. 

Retiring Republican Sen. Pat Toomey was sharply critical of Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano on Thursday, blaming him for dragging down the candidacy of Mehmet Oz in the race to replace Toomey in the Senate.

The outgoing senator made the remarks in an interview with CNN's Erin Burnett.

Toomey started by saying that he thought Oz "ran a very good campaign."

"So the question that I think arises is, 'Why did a good candidate, running a good race, in what should be a very good environment, not prevail in a state like Pennsylvania — which is very, very competitive?" Toomey said.

Toomey said it's "very, very hard" for a Republican down-ballot to win with someone so unpopular at the top of the ticket. He pointed out that Oz's loss to Democrat John Fetterman was relatively narrow when compared with Mastriano's margin against Democratic candidate Josh Shapiro.

Toomey, who has been sharply critical of former President Donald Trump and the Republican party's shift under his leadership, blamed the former president for involving himself in the selection of candidates across the country.

"This is a huge problem, and I think my party needs to face the fact that if fealty to Donald Trump is the primary criteria for selecting candidates, we're probably not going to do really well," he told Burnett.

Some background: The Trump-endorsed Mastriano came to national attention for his vehement election denialism and his presence in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.

As the election went on, he did little to hedge his far-right positions or reach out to groups beyond his base of supporters, CNN's Chris Cillizza wrote.

Oz, meanwhile, focused on bringing “balance” to the Senate in the final days of the race – casting himself a moderate voice who could navigate between extremes within the two parties.