Democrats will control the Senate after a late Saturday call in the Nevada Senate race went to Democratic incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto. Her opponent, Republican Adam Laxalt, had held the lead in the race for several days, but as late ballots came in, Masto managed to narrow the gap and finally overtake Laxalt. The AP called the race for Masto late Saturday.
Masto was up by around 5,000 votes as of Saturday evening. With most of the outstanding ballots coming from Clark County, home to Las Vegas, Masto is expected to maintain and even grow her lead over the coming days.
Laxalt seemed to be trying to temper expectations on Saturday morning. In a tweet, he said, “we are up only 862 votes. Multiple days in a row, the mostly mail in ballots counted continue to break in higher DEM margins than we calculated. This has narrowed our victory window.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer took a victory lap Saturday night, telling the AP: “We got a lot done and we’ll do a lot more for the American people. The American people rejected — soundly rejected — the anti-democratic, authoritarian, nasty and divisive direction the MAGA Republicans wanted to take our country.”
Masto’s win takes some of the pressure off the race in Georgia, where Republican Herschel Walker is trying to unseat incumbent Democrat Sen. Raphael Warnock. Their race will be decided by a runoff election officially set for Dec. 6.
The AP called the Arizona Senate race for incumbent Democrat Sen. Mark Kelly on Friday night. Kelly defeated Republican candidate Blake Masters, a venture capitalist and political newcomer.
“It’s been one of the great honors of my life to serve as Arizona’s Senator,” Kelly said in a statement to the AP. “I’m humbled by the trust our state has placed in me to continue this work.”
The seat was called for Kelly after Maricopa County released a batch of votes Friday night, putting Kelly’s lead out of reach for Masters. Kelly was ahead by over 123,000 votes, with 52% of the vote compared to Masters’ 46%. In a tweet, Masters said he wouldn’t concede the race until all the votes were counted.
With 50 seats, Democrats will now retake control of the Senate. Democrats can control the Senate in a 50-50 split because of the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris.
The GOP needed a net gain of only one seat to regain control of the Senate, but after Democratic nominee John Fetterman secured a victory Tuesday night against Republican Mehmet Oz, flipping the Pennsylvania seat from red to blue, the Republican path to victory became much harder.
Both parties are focused on Georgia, where incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock held off Republican nominee Herschel Walker 49.4% to 48.5%. But since neither reached 50% of the vote, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced on Wednesday that a runoff election will be held next month, as required by state law.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee just bought TV ad space in Georgia, according to AdImpact, marking the first move by a national party to prepare for a battle in the Georgia runoff election.
Voters in several other states stuck with the status quo, including:
- New Hampshire, where incumbent Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan held off Republican challenger Don Bolduc. The Granite State Democrat was viewed as vulnerable, but Donald Trump-endorsed Bolduc fell well short of a serious challenge. Hassan earned roughly a 10-percentage-point victory.
- North Carolina Republican Senate candidate Ted Budd held off Democratic nominee Cheri Beasely, a former chief justice of the state’s Supreme Court. Excluding the blue city centers, Budd nearly ran the table in the rest of the state, earning him a 3-percentage-point victory. Trump endorsed Budd early in the contest and a number of high-profile Republican surrogates helped him excite the Republican base that voted primarily in-person on election day.
- Ohio’s open Senate seat featured a fight between Republican candidate J.D. Vance and Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan. Vance, a venture capitalist and bestselling author, won the seat 53% to 46%. His win shows Ohio continues to move away from its designation as a historic battleground state.
- Wisconsin Republican incumbent Sen. Ron Johnson won reelection in a nail-bitter race against Democratic candidate Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes. The Associated Press waited to call this election until Wednesday due to a less than 30,000 vote spread. Johnson is one of Trump’s biggest backers in a state that the former president narrowly lost to President Joe Biden two years ago.
- Utah incumbent Republican Sen. Mike Lee defeated independent challenger Evan McMullin by double digits. The race attracted national attention when the state’s Democratic Party declined to field a candidate and chose instead to back McMullin.