Nov. 12, 2022 US election coverage

Our live coverage of the midterm elections has moved. You can find the latest news and results here.

President Biden celebrated Democrats’ win in the Senate, telling reporters in remarks that the party is now focusing on the upcoming Georgia runoff election.

“We feel good about where we are, and I know I’m a cockeyed optimist, I understand that, from the beginning, but I’m not surprised by the turnout. I’m incredibly pleased by the turnout,” Biden said.

Biden said he believes the turnout is a reflection of “the quality of our candidates” and that they all are “running on the same program.”

“And so, I feel good, and I’m looking forward to the next couple of years,” Biden said.

The president noted that the future of his agenda is “always better” with 51 Democratic senators.

“Because we are in a situation where you don’t have to have an even makeup of the committees —  so that’s why it is important, mostly,” Biden said. “But, it’s simply better, the bigger the number the better.”

President Biden spoke Sunday with Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the White House said.

Biden spoke with Cortez Masto at 10:08 a.m. local time and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer at 10:28 a.m. local time, following the news that Democrats have held onto their majority in the Senate, according to the White House.

Cisco Aguilar, the Democrat who will be Nevada’s next secretary of state, said the “future of American democracy hinged on the outcome” of his race in his matchup with avowed election denier Jim Marchant, who baselessly insisted that the 2020 presidential election in Nevada was “rigged.” Marchant said he would not have certified President Joe Biden’s win in Nevada if he had been secretary of state in 2020.

“My opponent was an election denier who ran a campaign on conspiracy theories,” Aguilar said in remarks prepared for delivery. “My campaign focused on protecting democracy for all Nevadans and ensuring our elections remain free and fair in the future.”

He praised voters “who put country over the party and rejected extremism so that the will of Nevada’s continues to determine the future of our believed state.”

Aguilar will be the first Latino to serve in that role in Nevada.

Although Democrats are already projected to win control of the Senate, CNN chief political Gloria Borger said the upcoming Dec. 6 Georgia runoff is still really important to the party.

“They want to have a clear majority,” Borger said on CNN. “But, I think that one vote actually does matter in so many ways because it doesn’t give anybody the kind of leverage that say a Joe Manchin had.”

“And no Democrat will tell you that they are going to fight any less hard for that seat,” she said.

In remarks to reporters tonight, President Biden celebrated Democrats’ win in the Senate and said the party is now focusing on the Georgia runoff. He noted that the future of his agenda is “always better” with 51 Democratic senators.

“Because we are in a situation where you don’t have to have an even makeup of the committees — so that’s why it is important, mostly,” Biden said. “But, it’s simply better, the bigger the number the better.”

More on the runoff: Neither Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock nor Republican challenger Herschel Walker surpassed the 50% threshold needed to win the race outright Tuesday evening, CNN projected, forcing a runoff election.

With Democrats’ projected win in the Nevada Senate race, they now have 50 Senate seats to Republicans’ 49 seats. 

Even if Republicans win the Georgia runoff, though, Vice President Kamala Harris would continue to cast the tie-breaking vote in an evenly divided Senate to guarantee the Democratic majority.

CNN’s Eric Bradner contributed reporting to this post.

Democrat Cisco Aguilar will win the contest for Nevada secretary of state, CNN projects, defeating Republican Jim Marchant, who repeatedly spread falsehoods about the legitimacy of recent elections in the state. 

Aguilar, a Las Vegas attorney and former aide to the late US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, will be the state’s first Latino secretary of state. During the campaign, Aguilar said he wanted to “remove barriers to voter participation” and make elections more transparent “to maintain the public trust.” 

But much of the attention in the race focused on Marchant, who falsely attributed former President Donald Trump’s 2020 loss to a “rigged” election in the state and encouraged hand-counting of ballots, rather than the use of vote-tallying machines – a process critics say would lead to chaos and errors in running elections. 

Aguilar will fill an open seat now held by a Republican Barbara Cegavske, who was censured by her party for refusing to go along with false claims pushed by allies of former President Donald Trump that he lost Nevada in 2020 because of widespread fraud.  

Cegavske is term limited. 

Aguilar’s previous roles have included working as general counsel to the management company of husband-and-wife tennis legends Andre Agassi and Steffi Graff and serving on the state’s athletic commission. 

Moments after CNN projected Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto will keep her Senate seat, the senator’s campaign director of communications took to Twitter to say that the first Latina senator has never lost an election. 

“You know who always said we were going to win this race? Catherine Cortez Masto,” Josh Marcus-Blank, the campaign’s communication director, tweeted. “So many people outside Nevada counted her out, but she knows her state, she campaigned everywhere, and she just beat the top Republican recruit in the country to deliver the Senate majority.”

Marcus-Blank went on to post, “What did people get wrong about this race? The first Latina Senator knows her community better than anonymous sources. The daughter of a Teamster knows how to fight for working families. And CCM’s a former AG — the crime attacks couldn’t stick.” 

“Catherine Cortez Masto has never lost an election and delivered the Democratic majority as Chair of the DSCC in 2020. After a cycle as the most vulnerable incumbent Senator, she proved everyone wrong again,” he added.

With Cortez Masto’s win, the Democrats will keep their narrow Senate majority for the next two years.

See his tweet:

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called the midterm elections and the Democrats’ win in his chamber “a victory and vindication” for the party.

“This election is a victory — a victory and a vindication for Democrats, our agenda,” Schumer said in remarks from New York, adding that it was also a victory for the American people.

Schumer, who spoke after the Senate race in Nevada was called in favor of incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, said three things helped the Democrats secure the chamber: “One, our terrific candidates. Two, our agenda and our accomplishments. And three, the American people rejected the anti-democratic extremist MAGA Republicans.”

Schumer said Democrats had “faith we were talking to what American people really cared about.”

“And we knew the negativity, the nastiness, the condoning of Donald Trump’s Big Lie, and saying that the elections were rigged, when there’s no proof of that at all – would hurt the Republicans, not help them,” he said.

A Democratic majority in the US Senate also means Schumer remains leader in the upper chamber.

“I feel good,” Schumer said. “I feel good for the country because so many people worried – I did – about this democracy, with all the negativity and all the threats and even some people doing violence.”

“America showed that we believe in our democracy, that the roots of democracy are deep and strong, and it will prevail as long as we fight for it,” he added.

Schumer signaled that he would try to work across the aisle in the Senate, but isn’t opposed to taking on legislation “on our own.”

“My first choice is always to do it bipartisan,” Schumer said. “But on issues that really matter to the American people and when the Republicans aren’t being bipartisan, won’t be bipartisan, we try and do it on our own.”

Following CNN’s projection that Democrats will keep control of the Senate, CNN chief political analyst Gloria Borger said Republicans now have “an awful lot of soul-searching” to do.

Borger said that this may be the moment that shows that former President Donald Trump “is not a kingmaker any longer.”

“This is it. His candidates did not do well. His election denial was not a big issue in this campaign. And I think that Republicans are going to have to do an awful lot of soul-searching about whether they actually ran on issues that were geared to them and how they could have lost the Senate with an election that was about inflation, that was about crime, that was about immigration, yes it was also about abortion rights,” she said on CNN.

“But I think that the fact that the Republicans couldn’t pull this off is going to force them to go to the couch and have a little bit of therapy and say, ‘Why did we do this? Were we following the wrong leaders? And how can we fix this?’” she said.

“One short-term answer might be to tell your voters that they should vote by mail because maybe it is easier and maybe more people do it,” she added.

CNN political director David Chalian explained what the win means for President Biden and his administration.

“This is very good news for the Biden administration, because things like judges and Cabinet appointments and what have you, that will not be under the purview of Mitch McConnell to navigate through the Senate, that will be under the purview of Chuck Schumer who will maintain his role of majority leader,” Chalian said.

“In terms of the balance of power shifting in Washington, with this Senate projection it doesn’t, because the most vulnerable Democratic incumbent figured her path to victory,” he added.

Democrats will keep their narrow Senate majority for the next two years, CNN projects, after victories in close contests in Nevada and Arizona. Democrats now have 50 Senate seats to Republicans’ 49 seats. 

In Nevada, CNN projects that Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, a former prosecutor and state attorney general, will defeat Republican Adam Laxalt, her successor in the attorney general’s office and the son and grandson of former senators.  

In Arizona, CNN projects that Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and the husband of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, will defeat Republican Blake Masters, a venture capitalist who was endorsed by Trump and supported by tech mogul and emerging GOP megadonor Peter Thiel. 

Georgia’s race between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker is headed to a December runoff after neither candidate cleared the 50% threshold on Tuesday.  

Even if Republicans win the Georgia runoff, though, Vice President Kamala Harris would continue to cast the tie-breaking vote in an evenly divided Senate to guarantee the Democratic majority. 

Only one Senate seat has changed hands so far in the 2022 midterm elections: Pennsylvania, where Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who campaigned as he recovered from a May stroke, defeated Republican Mehmet Oz, the celebrity doctor who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump.  

Republicans successfully defended seats in hard-fought races in Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin, while Democrats retained their seats in competitive contests in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and New Hampshire.  

More on the Democrats’ Senate win: Retaining Senate control is a huge boost to President Biden over the remaining two years of his first term in the White House.  

It means Democrats will have the ability to confirm Biden’s judicial nominees — avoiding scenarios such as the one former President Barack Obama faced in 2016, when then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to hold a vote on his Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland. It also means that Senate Democrats can reject bills passed by the House and can set their own agenda.  

Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto will win reelection in Nevada, CNN projects, clinching a critical victory that will allow Democrats to keep control of the US Senate.  

Cortez Masto had long been viewed as one of the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents as she fended off a challenge from former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt in a state whose economy had been hard hit by the Covid-19 pandemic and inflation.  

With Cortez Masto — the first Latina senator — securing a second term, Democrats will hold 50 seats and Republicans will hold 49. Democrats are also defending a seat in Georgia, where Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker are headed to a December 6 runoff. Even if Republicans pick up that seat, Vice President Kamala Harris will still hold the tie-breaking vote, as she does now in the evenly divided chamber. Democrats were able to hold the majority, in part, because they picked up a seat in Pennsylvania, where Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democrat, defeated Trump-backed Mehmet Oz in the contest to replace retiring Republican Sen. Pat Toomey.  

Control of the US House still hangs in the balance and may not be determined for some time with ballots left to be counted in closely contested races in California, as well as other states. 

Clark County, Nevada, will release results from its remaining 22,000 mail ballots tonight, according to county registrar Joe Gloria.

This batch of results will be released “sometime this afternoon or early evening,” he said earlier today.

Why these votes are key: Clark County is home to Las Vegas and is the largest county in Nevada. Results from the vote-rich county could be pivotal in deciding Nevada’s razor-thin race for US Senate between Republican Adam Laxalt and incumbent Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto, which is still uncalled. 

An additional 268 ballots arrived in the mail today, which is the last day ballots can arrive. Only ballots that were postmarked by Election Day will count. 

In addition, there are 7,139 mail ballots that could still be “cured,” Gloria said at a press conference Saturday. That means there was an issue with the ballot — such as a missing signature – that a voter can fix to have their vote counted. Not all of these 7,139 ballots will get “cured,” meaning they won’t all ultimately get counted. 

There are also still 5,555 provisional ballots that need to be adjudicated and potentially counted, Gloria said. Provisional ballots are used when there is an issue at an in-person polling place, like if it’s unclear whether someone is registered or if they show up at the wrong precinct. The county examines the provisional ballots and verifies that the voter was eligible – so some, but not all, of these 5,555 ballots will count. 

What’s taking so long to determine which party has control of the US House and Senate? Blame California, Nevada, Washington and the whole vote-by-mail West Coast, really.

Actually, don’t blame them. This is just how elections work in 2022.

Blame an evenly divided electorate: If elections weren’t so close, it wouldn’t take so long to figure out who won.

CNN has still not projected who will control either the House or the Senate in large part because of close races on the West Coast.

Read this more detailed report on the latest state of play from CNN’s Jeremy Herb.

Probably worth the wait: The benefit of knowing who won on Election Day is arguably outweighed by allowing more people access to the vote and the cost savings of not having to staff so many polling places.

Bill Gates, the chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, told CNN’s Sara Sidner on Thursday why it takes longer to count mail-in ballots and those placed in ballot drop boxes in the days immediately prior to and on Election Day. Maricopa is Arizona’s most populous county that includes Phoenix.

“This is how we run elections in Arizona,” Gates told Sidner. “If people don’t like that, they can go to the legislature and have them pass new laws.”

It’s a process that’s been in place in Maricopa County since the 1990s, he said. It’s also overseen by both Republican and Democratic Party officials.

Verifying signatures: With election officials visible, busily working behind him at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center, Gates said those 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.

“We have experts here who go through, compare the signature on the outside of the ballot envelope with the signature that we have in our voter registration file,” Gates said. “That takes a while because we got to get that right.”

Most states have some sort of signature verification system for their absentee and mail-in ballots, according to a tally from the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Keep reading here.

An estimated 290,000 votes are yet to be counted in Arizona, and the governor’s race is still on the line.

The vast majority of these votes are in Maricopa County, CNN political director David Chalian explains.

Republican candidate Kari Lake needs in the range of 55 to 57% of that outstanding vote, Chalian said.

Watch him break down the numbers:

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01:31 - Source: cnn

Marie Gluesenkamp Perez will be the first Latino Democrat elected to Congress from Washington state, CNN projects, winning election to the state’s 3rd Congressional District.

Gluesenkamp Perez, an auto repair shop owner whose father immigrated to the US from Mexico, will defeat Republican Joe Kent to succeed GOP Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, who finished behind Gluesenkamp Perez and Kent in the August top-two primary.

Gluesenkamp Perez’s defeat of Kent is a significant victory for Democrats in a race that had been rated Lean Republican by Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales.  

Democrats had long targeted this seat, but GOP Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler had proven a strong incumbent. Her vote to impeachment Donald Trump after the US Capitol riot, however, made her a target of the former president. When she failed to advance to the general election in Washington’s top-two system, she became one of four Republicans who voted to impeached Trump who failed to make it to the general election — and the 3rd District became an open seat.

Kent, a former Green Beret and gold star spouse endorsed by Trump, had tried to shift his campaign rhetoric toward the center – including by removing calls to adjudicate the 2020 election from his website sometime between June and July. But as CNN KFile has reported, his campaign had been bogged down by associations with white nationalists and extremists, whom Kent has repeatedly had to distance himself from.

Pima County, Arizona, will post 19,944 newly counted votes on Saturday night by 8 p.m. ET, county officials said.

These officials added that the votes being released tonight are primarily mail ballots that were received or dropped off prior to Election Day. 

Pima County is a Democratic stronghold and is home to Tucson.

There are just under 50,000 votes left to be processed in the county and this remaining vote is primarily mail ballots that were dropped off on Election Day, according to the officials.

The county will not be posting any vote totals on Sunday and will not be holding a news conference, although they will continue to process ballots and tabulate results. After Saturday night’s post, the next vote dump and news conference will be on Monday.  

The county has also completed verifying early ballots and will begin work on processing the remaining 2,400 provisional ballots.

The political world’s attention is on the western US Saturday as officials work through another day to tally the votes in key races.

The razor-thin elections for Nevada’s Senate seat and Arizona’s governorship have yet to be called. Large counties in both states are working to whittle down the tens of thousands of ballots that still need to be counted.

Races we’re watching

In Nevada: Republican Adam Laxalt is holding onto a slim lead of about 860 votes over Democratic incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto.

If Cortez Masto wins, Democrats are projected to take control of the Senate. If she loses, the fate of the upper house will be decided in December’s Georgia runoff.

In Arizona: Democrat Katie Hobbs leads Republican Kari Lake by about 31,000 votes in the governor’s race.

It’s been a fiery campaign marked by Lake’s unfounded claims about the 2020 election and Hobbs’ role as the Arizona secretary of state.

Where we expect results this evening

In both states taking center stage tonight, large counties will release a significant number of results.

Clark County, Nevada: Clark County, which is Nevada’s most populous and encompasses Las Vegas, will release results from its remaining 22,000 mail ballots tonight, according to county registrar Joe Gloria.

This batch of results will be released “sometime this afternoon or early evening,” he said, and he estimated that this could happen around 7 p.m. ET at the earliest.  

Washoe County, Nevada: Washoe County plans to release its next batch of results on Saturday night around 11 p.m. ET, according to election officials.

There are approximately 12,000 ballots remaining to be counted there, officials said, though it’s unknown how many will be in Saturday night’s batch of results.

Washoe County, which encompasses Reno, is Nevada’s second-largest by population and is considered a swing county.

Maricopa County, Arizona: More results are expected around 10 p.m. ET Saturday from Maricopa County, which is the most populous in Arizona.

Elections supervisor Bill Gates told CNN he expects a vote drop similar to last night, when the county reported about 80,000 more votes.

Gates said Friday that there are about 275,000 ballots left to count in the county, which includes Phoenix.

In a series of tweets Saturday, Maricopa County, Arizona, officials pushed back against election disinformation and baseless fraud claims as they continued to count the vote in Arizona. 

“VOTERS: All legal votes will be counted. Your vote will count equally whether it is reported first, last, or somewhere in between. Thank you for participating,” wrote the Maricopa County Twitter account.

The message continued: “CANDIDATES: All legal votes will be counted, including votes for you. If you have the most votes in the final tally, you will be elected. If you do not have the most votes, you will have lost your election.”

They also addressed people spreading misinformation, writing: “DISINFORMATION SUPER SPREADERS: Please read Arizona election law & the elections procedures manual before asking leading questions about how something seems suspicious. There are processes + checks and balances in place to make sure every legal vote is only counted once.”

The account adds, wryly: “SOCIAL MEDIA BOTS: Your disapproval is duly noted but your upvotes and retweets will not be part of this year’s totals. This is not meant as an affront to your robot overlords, it’s just not allowed for in Arizona law.” 

Some background: On Friday night, the Republican National Committee and the Republican Party of Arizona tweeted a statement criticizing the vote-counting process as too slow in Maricopa County.

Arizona GOP gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake baselessly claimed Thursday that election officials were intentionally delaying results to make her look worse. And former President Donald Trump has claimed, without proof, that county officials are rigging the vote in favor of Democrats.

The county’s top election official, a Republican, has repeatedly pushed back on those claims.

“It’s really, really unfortunate that some candidates, some activists are deciding to spread this misinformation,” the chairman of the county’s Board of Supervisors, Bill Gates, told CNN’s Jim Acosta. “We have spent weeks at Maricopa County, getting that word out that people should not anticipate results on election night or even the next day. That it does take this long.”

CNN’s Tara Subramaniam contributed to this report.

Clark County Registrar of Voters Joe Gloria repudiated former President Donald Trump’s claim that they are corruptly “finding all sorts of ballots” in his county – and stressed that his team is simply following the law as they continue to count the remaining votes. 

“We’re taking ballots in that we’re required to take in according to the law, there’s no way that we can ‘find’ ballots,” Gloria said. “They’re brought here by the United States Postal Service. As long as it’s postmarked (by Election Day), we process those ballots and put them in the count.”

Gloria was referring to ballots that are still trickling into election offices. In Nevada, ballots that are postmarked by Tuesday, Election Day, can still be counted, as long as they arrive by Saturday. About 270 such ballots arrived on Saturday, Gloria said, though it’s unclear how many were postmarked by Tuesday.

Trump’s claims: In a Truth Social post on Friday night, Trump baselessly accused the county of “finding” ballots and attempting to steal the election from Republicans. 

“Now they’re finding all sorts of Ballots in Clark County, Nevada. They are pulling out all stops to steal the Election from Adam Laxalt,” Trump falsely claimed, referring to the GOP nominee for Senate, Adam Laxalt, who is running against incumbent Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto.

At Gloria’s press conference Saturday, he also said that his office hasn’t heard from any candidates with complaints about voter fraud.

“We haven’t heard anything from any campaign related to fraud or questioning” the results, Gloria said.

While Trump has baselessly claimed that the Senate election is being stolen from Laxalt, the candidate himself hasn’t peddled those same unfounded allegations. Laxalt acknowledged in a series of tweets Saturday morning that Masto has a legitimate path to victory if the remaining ballots from Clark County break her way.

Maricopa County, Arizona, elections supervisor Bill Gates said Saturday that protesters outside the building where ballots are being counted are “peaceful” and that he has “every reason to believe they will continue to be peaceful.”

“The folks here in the building, they’re aware of what’s going on outside. There is a crowd that is peaceful out there right now. We have every reason to believe that they’ll continue to be peaceful. And look, the people who are here, who are counting the votes, they believe in democracy, they believe in the First Amendment, and they acknowledge the right of those people to be out there. But again, I trust it will remain peaceful. And I think it is very important to continue to talk to our workers here so that they don’t get discouraged in any way by what some people might be saying out there in the community,” Gates told CNN’s Jim Acosta.  

“But I’ll tell you what, the people in Maricopa County overwhelmingly appreciate the work that’s being done by these folks, the long hours that they’re working. But people are excited to get the results, and I completely understand that. We just ask for their patience,” he added.

Gates said he anticipates a vote drop similar to last night, when the county reported about 80,000 more votes, which included many of the mail-in ballots that were dropped off at polling places on Election Day.

Gates said Friday that there are about 275,000 ballots left to count in the county, which includes Phoenix.

“I’m not a prognosticator. Our job here is to continue counting the votes and to get closer to having that completed,” he told Acosta on Saturday.

When asked when the count could be completed, Gates said, “Based upon the way the numbers are going, I would say early next week. I feel really confident about Tuesday at this point.” 

As voters wait for the final results, some on social media have baselessly claimed Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who is also the Democratic nominee for governor, had been present in a Maricopa County room where ballots were being counted.

Asked about the false claim by Acosta, Gates called it a “head-scratcher.”

“For folks to put that sort of information out there, that that woman was Katie Hobbs is just a real head-scratcher for me, and what it says to me is that these people think that the people of Maricopa County are pretty gullible, and quite frankly, the people of this country,” Gates said.

The image is a screenshot of video from a tabulation room in Maricopa County. In Arizona, live video feeds showing the ballot-counting process across the state are available to the public. 

The woman wrongly identified as Hobbs has shoulder-length brown hair and wears glasses.

“Not every woman with glasses is Katie Hobbs,” reads a post from Maricopa County’s official Twitter account. “We can confirm this was a party Observer. Please refrain from making assumptions about workers who happen to wear glasses.”

Washoe County, Nevada, plans to release its next batch of results on Saturday night around 11 p.m. ET, according to election officials.

There are approximately 12,000 ballots remaining to be counted in Washoe County, though it’s unknown how many will be in Saturday night’s batch of results.

Why it matters: Washoe County, a swing county home to Reno, is the second-most populous county in Nevada.

A tiny margin separates the two candidates in Nevada’s pivotal Senate race. As of Saturday morning, Republican Adam Laxalt had a lead of only 862 votes over Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto.

The Nevada Senate race could ultimately determine the balance of power in the upper chamber. With CNN projecting Sen. Mark Kelly to win his race in Arizona, Democrats need to win one more seat: Nevada or Georgia, which is headed to a December runoff.

More context: The other big county to keep an eye for this race is Clark County, Nevada’s largest.

An election official there said the county will release results from its remaining 22,000 mail ballots tonight, around 7 p.m. at the earliest.

There are thousands more provisional ballots to process and mail ballots that need to be “cured” in Clark County, though it’s not clear how many will ultimately be counted.

In a victory speech in Phoenix on Saturday, Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly thanked state elections officials for their work through the midterms.

Kelly called them “honorable Republicans and Democrats, who are doing the important work of making sure that Arizonans’ votes and voices are heard, their votes are counted as quickly and as transparently as possible.”

CNN projected Friday that Kelly will defeat Republican Blake Masters.

Meanwhile, Masters was not ready to concede, tweeting Saturday that “we are going to make sure that every legal vote is counted.”

“If, at the end, Senator Kelly has more of them than I do, then I will congratulate him on a hard-fought victory,” he added.

View live results here.

The senator told CNN after his speech that he was not concerned that Masters would not concede and said his opponent “ran a good race” and that he looked forward to talking to him.

“It’s clear we won the election. I mean the math … I’m OK, I’m pretty decent at math and you know the math supports the calls that the media, you know, has made that I won this election,” Kelly told CNN.

During his speech, Kelly called out the embrace of conspiracy theories by some members of the GOP, promised to represent all Arizonans and brought up the legacy of late Sen. John McCain.

“After a long election, it can be tempting to remain focused on the things that divide us, but we’ve seen the consequences that come when leaders refuse to accept the truth and focus more on conspiracies of the past than solving the challenges that we face today,” Kelly said in the speech.

Masters has denied the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.

A tiny margin separates the two candidates in Nevada’s pivotal Senate race, and a GOP strategist told CNN the mood inside Republican Adam Laxalt’s campaign is “awful.”

Different factions of the Republican’s operation have begun the internal blame game, feeling it is a forgone conclusion that Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto will take the lead soon, the strategist said. When asked by CNN to describe the current mood, the strategist said, “shocked and depressed.”

Publicly, Laxalt laid out what he described as a “narrowed” path to victory in a pair of tweets Saturday.

As of Friday evening, Laxalt had a lead of only 862 votes over Cortez Masto. An early lead for the Republican eroded further Friday as election workers counted and released the results of more ballots.

“Multiple days in a row, the mostly mail in ballots counted continue to break in higher DEM margins than we calculated,” Laxalt wrote. “This has narrowed our victory window.”

In Clark County, Nevada’s largest, CNN estimates there are roughly 24,000 more mail-in ballots to be counted, along with about 15,000 provisional ballots and ballots that need to be cured.

Laxalt said the race will come down to those ballots, saying that “if they continue to trend heavy DEM then (Cortez Masto) will overtake us.”

If they come from GOP-leaning precincts or from only slightly Democrat-leaning areas, “then we can still win,” Laxalt claimed.

For its part, Cortez Masto’s campaign told CNN the team remains “confident” as it awaits further results.

Laxalt campaign responds: Brian Freimuth, Laxalt’s press secretary, responded to CNN’s reporting later Saturday, saying: “Our campaign team remains confident and hopeful, and any reporting to the contrary is inaccurate and poorly-sourced.”

Why it matters: The Nevada Senate race has been deadlocked for months, and it could ultimately determine the balance of power in the upper chamber.

With CNN projecting Sen. Mark Kelly to win his race in Arizona, Democrats need to win one more seat: Nevada or Georgia, which is headed to a December runoff.

Republicans need 51 seats for majority control. Democrats would have control in a 50-50 tie with Vice President Kamala Harris casting tie-breaking votes.

View Laxalt’s tweets below:

President Joe Biden has called Maryland Rep. David Trone and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly after both Democrats were projected to win their respective races.

Biden “made a congratulatory call to Congressman David Trone from Phnom Penh, Cambodia at 11:39pm local time,” the White House said Saturday.

Biden is in Cambodia at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit.

Trone won a competitive House race in Maryland this week, defeating Republican Neil Parrott. 

Biden also made congratulatory call to Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly earlier, the White House said. 

Kelly defeated Republican Blake Masters, who was backed by former President Donald Trump, to secure the Senate seat, CNN projected late Friday.

The president also called Rep. Pat Ryan from Phnom Penh, the White House said Saturday. Ryan won his competitive House race in New York’s 18th District.

Did the Republican “red wave” failing to materialize mean the polls were wrong again?

Not necessarily, says one analyst, who believes the hype got ahead of what the numbers were actually saying in the aggregate.

“People who are expecting the polls to be accurate,” says Washington Post political columnist and data analyst David Byler, “are asking a little bit more than really any predictive measure can deliver.”

Watch his interview with CNN’s Michael Smerconish below:

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05:27 - Source: cnn

A top Democratic super PAC will begin airing a new ad targeting Republican Herschel Walker Saturday, as both parties turn their focus to a Georgia Senate runoff that may end up determining control of the Senate.

Whether the runoff will determine control of the Senate is yet to be known, given CNN has not projected a winner in the tight Nevada race. But both Democratic and Republican organizations are prepared to pour money into the Georgia contest.

The Walker attack ad:

The ad from Georgia Honor — a group tied to the predominant Democratic super PAC focused on Senate control — is backed by $4 million for one week of airtime.

It calls Walker a liar who has a “long record of violence toward women.”

In a 2008 interview with CNN, Walker’s ex-wife, Cindy Grossman, said that Walker had held a razor to her throat, and at one point, “he held [a] gun to my temple and said he was going to blow my brains out.” Grossman did not respond to CNN’s request for comment when CNN reported on the interview again in September 2021.

GOP groups are also on the attack:

Meanwhile, the National Republican Senatorial Committee has opened a joint fundraising committee with the Walker campaign and the Georgia Republican Party.

The group launched its own ad this week, comparing the Georgia Senate race to “a miniseries” and arguing that Warnock “belongs in Hollywood, not Washington,” noting some of the Democrat’s more unique campaign ads.

“Warnock is a great actor,” says a narrator, “he just doesn’t act like your senator. Spending, taxes, energy, you name it, Warnock votes with Joe Biden 96% of the time, and that act is getting old.”

Remember: CNN projected this week that the race between Walker and Warnock would go to a runoff after neither candidate was able to get more than 50% of the vote, extending what was already one of the most expensive Senate races in the country by a month.

Here’s more on how the process works.

It remains uncertain which party will control the Senate or the House of Representatives next year, with votes still being counted and key races too early to call. But it’s clear that the “red wave” wished for by Republicans did not materialize in 2022.

Voters were broadly discontented with the state of the nation, the economy and President Joe Biden, a national exit poll found – the sort of political environment that conventionally leads to a midterm backlash against the party in the White House. But other factors, including views on abortion and Biden’s predecessor, may have helped keep Democrats competitive.

Here are some of the factors that were on the minds of voters:

President Biden: Biden’s approval rating was underwater among the electorate, with only about 44% of voters approving, about 55% disapproving and roughly 45% saying they strongly disapproved. Voters were more likely to say Biden’s policies had hurt than helped the country and more likely to say their vote was meant to oppose the president than say it was in support of him.

The economy: A slim plurality of voters, about 31%, called inflation their top issue, and roughly 8 in 10 said inflation had been a hardship for them personally. By roughly a 12-point margin, voters said they trusted the GOP over the Democratic Party to handle inflation.

But the closeness of the election suggests it wasn’t solely a referendum on an unpopular president or a reaction to grim views of the economy.

Abortion rights: The Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade brought abortion to center stage, with about 27% of voters calling it their top issue. About 6 in 10 voters felt negatively about the decision, with nearly 4 in 10 expressing anger. Democrats had a roughly 11-point edge over the GOP when it came to which party voters trusted to handle issues related to abortion.

Former President Donald Trump: Trump was on voters’ minds nearly as much as the incumbent. Roughly 28% of voters said they intended their vote to express opposition to him, only a few points lower than the roughly one-third who said they were expressing opposition to Biden.

Democrats win over Biden skeptics: The strength of individual candidates likely helped Democratic candidates win over some voters who were disenchanted with the Democratic president. In New Hampshire, for instance, Democratic incumbent Maggie Hassan kept her seat by winning nearly all voters who approved of Biden, as well as roughly one-fifth of those who disapproved.

In Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial race, the projected Democratic winner, Josh Shapiro, picked up roughly one-quarter of commonwealth voters who disapproved of Biden. In a number of races, Democratic candidates won outright among voters who somewhat disapproved of Biden.

What are exit polls?

CNN Exit Polls are a combination of in-person interviews with Election Day voters and in-person interviews, telephone and online polls measuring the views of early and absentee by-mail voters. They were conducted by Edison Research on behalf of the National Election Pool. Read more here.

Two envelopes that were sent to Kari Lake’s campaign headquarters in Phoenix last week did not contain powder or harmful substances, the Phoenix Police Department said in a statement.

Police responded to reports of suspicious mail at the GOP gubernatorial candidate’s headquarters around 10:15 p.m. last Saturday, police said.

The day before, a volunteer said they opened an envelope containing a “white powdery substance and a letter” that included vulgar language, police said. The volunteer threw the letter and the powder in the trash, which was disposed of by cleaning staff, they said.

It’s not known where the initial envelope from Friday was thrown away, Scott Masino, head of security for the Kari Lake campaign, told CNN.

The next day, the same volunteer found two more pieces of mail that resembled the letter, but the head of security wasn’t informed until later in the evening, police said. When the head of security found the unopened letters, he said he felt a powdery substance in them and called the police, according to the statement.

Specialized units responded that evening and placed the two envelopes in separate, sealed bags that were then sent to the Arizona State Public Health Laboratory for processing, police said. The lab analysis showed “there was no powder present and no harmful substance in either of the envelopes,” but that they did have two letters containing “additional derogatory and vulgar statements,” they said. 

The campaign volunteer was under medical supervision after the incident and is fine, Masino said. Lake’s campaign provided no further comment. 

It’s Saturday, and election workers are still tallying the votes in pivotal races across the country. Here’s what to know as Election Day turns into Election Weekend:

Key races in Nevada and Arizona:

The razor-thin elections for Nevada’s Senate seat and Arizona’s governorship have yet to be called Saturday as counties in both states work to whittle down the tens of thousands of ballots that still need to be counted.

Democrat Katie Hobbs leads Republican Kari Lake by about 31,000 votes in the Arizona governor’s race as of Saturday morning, following the reporting of roughly 80,000 ballots in Maricopa County, the state’s most populous. And as of Friday evening, Republican Adam Laxalt is holding onto a slim lead of just more than 800 votes over Democratic incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto.

Balance of power in the Senate:

CNN projected Friday that Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly will defeat Republican Blake Masters in Arizona, and Republican Joe Lombardo will defeat Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak in Nevada.

Kelly’s Senate win puts Democrats one seat away from maintaining control of the Senate, with just the Nevada race uncalled. If Cortez Masto wins, Democrats have at least 50 seats needed regardless of the outcome of the Georgia Senate runoff. If Laxalt wins, the Georgia runoff will determine Senate control, as it did in 2021.

Control of the House:

The state of the House, meanwhile, remains up in the air, with 21 races still uncalled. Democrats have won 203 seats so far, while Republicans have won 211 (218 seats are needed to control the House), according to CNN projections. Many of the uncalled House races are in California.

The GOP still appears to be inching toward a majority.

Regardless of the ultimate makeup of both chambers next year, Republicans’ lackluster midterm performance has prompted a backlash against House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy, while a handful of Senate Republicans are calling for a delay in next week’s scheduled leadership elections.

Republicans attack the count:

The Arizona Senate candidate Masters, the Republican National Committee and the Republican Party of Arizona criticized the tabulation process in Maricopa County Friday.

The groups demanded “around-the-clock shifts of ballot processing” until all of the votes are counted, along with “regular, accurate public updates,” and threatened potential legal action.

“The suggestion by the Republican National Committee that there is something untoward going on here in Maricopa County is absolutely false and again, is offensive to these good elections workers,” said Bill Gates, the county’s board of supervisors chair.

Addressing the specific accusations from the RNC statement, Gates said: “I would prefer that if there are concerns that they have, that they communicate those to us here. I’m a Republican. Three of my colleagues on the board are Republicans. Raise these issues with us and discuss them with us, as opposed to making these baseless claims.”

You can read more here.

Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly will win a full six-year term, CNN projects, defeating Republican Blake Masters, a venture capitalist who was backed by former President Donald Trump and had repeated some of his falsehoods about the 2020 election.  

The win by Kelly, who was elected in 2020 to fill the term of the late GOP Sen. John McCain, is a critical victory that edges Democrats one step closer to their goal of maintaining control of the US Senate – which would be a stunning feat given the low approval ratings of President Joe Biden and the unfavorable economic climate that seemed to be driving momentum toward the GOP.  

With Kelly’s win in Arizona, Democrats will hold 49 seats and Republicans will hold 49. With the Arizona seat in their column, Democrats would need to notch just one more seat to hold the majority in the upper chamber, following their pickup in Pennsylvania where Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democrat, defeated Trump-backed Mehmet Oz in the contest to replace retiring Republican Sen. Pat Toomey. (The Senate is currently divided 50-50, but Vice President Kamala Harris casts the tie breaking vote).  

Both parties are still eyeing an incredibly close race in Nevada where Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto is trying to fend off a challenge from Republican Adam Laxalt, the state’s former attorney general. Democrats are also defending a seat in Georgia, where Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker are headed to a December 6 runoff, CNN projects.  

Control of the US House still hangs in the balance, but it is clear that even if Republicans win a majority, it will be a far more slender advantage than GOP leaders had hoped.  

To read more, click here.

Democrat Adrian Fontes will win Arizona’s secretary of state race, CNN projects, and defeat Republican state Rep. Mark Finchem.

Finchem is one of Arizona’s most strident backers of former President Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election. Finchem, a self-proclaimed member of the far-right extremist group the Oath Keepers, has called the 2020 election “irredeemably compromised,” co-sponsored a bill that would’ve allowed the legislature to reject election results and attended Trump’s speech on Jan. 6 (but he’s denied he participated in the riot).

Fontes had called Finchem’s ideas “dangerous” and shortly after announcing his campaign called the state representative a “traitor clown.”

Arizona’s secretary of state serves as next in line to the governor, as the state doesn’t have a lieutenant governor.

The race had been one of the most closely watched contests for state election chief in the country, and national Democratic groups spent heavily to keep the open seat in their party’s column – as Finchem outraised Fontes. 

The current officeholder, Democrat Katie Hobbs, ran for Arizona governor this year. 

Fontes oversaw the 2020 election in Maricopa County, home to Phoenix. But he lost his reelection bid as county recorder that year after facing criticism for some of the changes he made to the county’s procedures during the pandemic. 

Republican Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo will defeat Democratic Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak, CNN projects.

Sisolak issued a statement conceding the race.

“While votes are still coming in – and we need every ballot tallied and every voice heard – it appears we will fall a percentage point or so short of winning,” Sisolak said. “Obviously that is not the outcome I want, but I believe in our election system, in democracy and honoring the will of Nevada voters.”

In his concession statement, Sisolak also voiced his support for fellow Democrat Catherine Cortez-Masto, who is locked in a tight race against Republican candidate Adam Laxalt.

Nevada has been a battleground state since the early 1990s, but Joe Biden narrowly clinched victory in the Silver State in 2020 despite a significant effort by Donald Trump, particularly in Nevada’s rural areas. Democrats have made gains in competitive races in recent years by relying, in part, on turning out working-class voters and Latinos, two key constituencies in a state that is heavily reliant on tourism as well as the hospitality and service industries.  

But those two voter blocs were among the hardest hit by the economic downturn during the pandemic, which sent unemployment in Nevada soaring to 30% in April of 2020 – the highest in the nation and more than twice the US unemployment rate at that time. The state’s workers then faced a double hit as inflation rose and gas prices topped $5 a gallon in a state where many people must drive long distances to work.  

That created an especially sour mood among voters as Sisolak embarked on his reelection campaign. Though the Democratic governor touted the recovery in the state’s labor market, Lombardo argued that Sisolak was painting a distorted picture of Nevadans’ economic struggles, because many Nevadans are still underemployed, he said. Lombardo also accused Sisolak of crushing businesses in the state with Covid-19 restrictions and onerous regulations. He said Sisolak was too slow to reopen schools and businesses, slowing the state’s recovery. But the Democratic governor pushed back by stating his primary focus was to “save lives.”  

Lombardo was one of the rare GOP candidates backed by both Trump and the Republican establishment. During the general election, he, at times, sought to keep his distance from Trump as he tried to win over moderate and independent voters. During a debate with Sisolak, Lombardo said he wouldn’t describe Trump as a “great” president and said he did not agree with Trump’s false assertions that the 2020 presidential election was rigged.  

But Sisolak suggested that Lombardo was giving different answers to different audiences. He also relentlessly attacked Lombardo’s shifts on abortion, which is protected in Nevada up to 24 weeks by a 1990 voter referendum. Lombardo argued that Nevada’s current law should stay in place, but Sisolak noted that he had changed his position several times during the course of the campaign. In May, for example, Lombardo told a columnist he would support sending voters a referendum moving the 24-week limit to 13 weeks. But he later said he had thought more about that potential change and no longer supported it. Still, Sisolak portrayed his Republican opponent as a threat to women’s reproductive rights.  

Sisolak did not invite Biden to campaign with him in the final stretch, but he also argued the president was being unfairly blamed for inflation, as well as problems that he inherited from Trump.  

Several Republican senators are calling for a delay in next week’s Senate GOP leadership elections. While Mitch McConnell is widely expected to easily win the top spot again, making him the longest Senate party leader in history, he is facing some dissension in the ranks.

Sens. Marco Rubio and Josh Hawley both called for the elections, which are scheduled for Nov. 16, to be postponed

“I don’t know why Senate GOP would hold a leadership vote for the next Congress before this election is finished. We have a runoff in #GASenate — are they saying that doesn’t matter? Don’t disenfranchise @HerschelWalker,” Hawley tweeted.

Rubio tweeted: “The Senate GOP leadership vote next week should be postponed. First we need to make sure that those who want to lead us are genuinely committed to fighting for the priorities & values of the working Americans (of every background) who gave us big wins in states like #Florida.”

Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Rick Scott of Florida and Mike Lee of Utah are also urging members of the GOP conference delay the voting, according to sources familiar with the matter, and are circulating a letter that underscores Senate Republicans’ frustration with the outcome of the 2022 elections. 

The comments come as Politico reported that Rick Scott was considering a long-shot bid against McConnell but ultimately dropped the effort amid the lackluster GOP showing on Tuesday. Scott had little chance of defeating McConnell, who has been working for months to lock down the votes and told CNN last month that he has the votes.

CNN has reached out to McConnell’s office about the Hawley and Rubio comments.

House Democrats are eagerly awaiting word from Speaker Nancy Pelosi about whether she will continue to run the caucus she has dominated for the past two decades as they decide whether to run for the top job.

Pelosi is widely expected to announce her decision once it is clear which party will have the majority in the House and after she returns from her trip to a climate conference in Egypt.

That could come as soon as next week when the House returns to session, with members meeting Monday evening for the first time since the election and the full caucus on Tuesday. The leadership elections are scheduled for Nov. 30.

If she steps aside, as most members believe she will, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries is seen as the front-runner for the top position, though he could face a challenge from Rep. Adam Schiff and others.

But all eyes are also on the two Democrats currently below Pelosi: Steny Hoyer and Jim Clyburn. Hoyer has long coveted the top position, but with many in the caucus calling for generational change and diversity in the ranks, the 83-year-old Hoyer could have a difficult time winning the votes.

“I’ve told all the younger members, I’ll be out of here by 2036,” Hoyer told reporters when asked about his next moves. He indicated he would wait for the House to be called before announcing his next steps.

Clyburn has recently signaled he wouldn’t block Jeffries’ ascension to the top spot, but he might want to stay in leadership, which could prevent other Democrats from ascending. Rep. Katherine Clark is seen as the frontrunner for the No. 2 job, depending on what Hoyer and Clyburn do.