The 2020 Election: Where Are the Republicans? How Do Candidates in Arizona Run Their Way? A Case Study with Blake Masters, Blake Lake, and Mark Finchem

One of the big questions heading into the cycle was if Republican candidates would reflect the views of the GOP base in the 2020 election. Poll after poll has shown that a clear majority of Republicans falsely believe that President Joe Biden did not legitimately win the 2020 election.

There are a lot of Republicans running for office and they all believe in this as well. Can any of them run states where elections tend to be close? For most of the time, the answer is no. Most election deniers who run for governor have little to no chance of winning, just like the President Donald Trump did.

Lake has to stay competitive with independents to win Arizona. Unlike many other battleground states, a plurality of Arizona voters are Republican. This means Democratic candidates usually need some mixture of winning more Republican voters than Republican candidates winning Democratic voters and winning independents by a wide margin. Put another way, Lake can win even if she loses independents and retains less of her base than Hobbs.

Lake is one of the most prominent election deniers on the ballot this year and he is in a close race with Hobbs in the governor’s race with 290,000 votes to be counted.

Lake is running considerably stronger than Blake Masters, the the state’s GOP nominee for US Senate. Masters trails his Democratic opponent, Sen. Mark Kelly, by more than 5 points in in the average of all polling.

Losing elections for governor in blue and swing states has been a hallmark of 2020. The current governors of both Maryland and Massachusetts are getting overrun by their opponents in the polls, even though both are Republicans.

Lake is not the only one. Masters pushed several conspiracy theories about the election. There is never any evidence of votes being set aside because of questionable activity. Mark Finchem is the Republican nominee for secretary of state.

In regards to the upcoming Arizona elections, a mere 6% of voters do not believe that the election will be run fairly and accurately. Another 23% are not very confident; the vast majority (71%) are confident it will be.

The 2020 Midterm Secretariat Race: A Litmus Test for Election Denialism in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives

Lake has a secret. She worked as a television anchor, so it’s possible that is paying off. She seems to be doing a good enough job reaching voters in the middle of the electorate.

In all, voters in 27 states will choose secretaries of state in the midterms. Fourteen of those seats currently are held by Republicans and 13 by Democrats.

CNN counted 19 Republican nominees in the US Senate who refused to affirm the results of the 2020 election. Senators have less power than state or governor but they still have the power to vote on certifying the Electoral College results. CNN has projected 10 of those candidates as winners and eight as losers. One is in a race too early to call.

That could be quite a big deal in two years’ time, if another close presidential election – like 2020’s between Biden and Trump – is on the line and Arizona is once again in the mix.

Arizona is then, as Obama said, something of a pure litmus test: Is election denialism something that voters are, at minimum, willing to accept in their candidates? Or is it something that appeals these candidates to voters?

The biggest thing she shares in common with Trump is that election denialism sits at the core of her messaging. She has claimed that if she had been governor, she would not have certified the 2020 election results.

Lake does not plan to accept the results of her race. “I’m going to win the election, and I will accept that result,” she told CNN’s Dana Bash recently.

There won’t be a fair and transparent result in one of the likely swing states for the next election, if Lake and Finchem are in charge of the election machinery.

The races of secretary of state, typically low-profile contests that determine who helps administer elections in a state, have drawn national attention this year as several Republican candidates question the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.

But the presence of election deniers on general election ballots in key battlegrounds has set off alarms for voting rights advocates because of the pivotal role these offices will play in affirming the outcome of future elections, including a potential 2024 rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.

Georgia: The Georgia contest features one of the country’s best-known election chiefs – Republican Brad Raffensperger, who refused Trump’s request to “find” the votes needed to overturn his loss in the Peach State. A special grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia is looking into the campaign by Trump and his allies.

In Michigan, the incumbents are facing off against republicans who have made false claims about the 2020 election and who were behind the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

Karamo, a community college professor who secured an endorsement from Trump last year, has said he won the election, and she signed on to an unsuccessful Supreme Court lawsuit that challenged Biden’s victory in four states.

The End of Congress: Resolving the Counting Boundaries of Democratic Representatives in Illinois, Georgia, and the 7th District

Control of the House is also still in the balance as ballots are counted in states such as California. More than two dozen congressional races remain uncalled, and Republicans are inching toward a majority though they have not yet secured enough wins to take control.

Polls close at 6 p.m. ET in most of Indiana and Kentucky. The outcome of the Indiana Senate race is dependent on whether or not Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly survives a challenge from Republican Mike Braun.

It might not be a great national bellwether. In an uncommon twist, the race has become focused on whether or not she is a good choice for the district, rather than being a referendum on Trump or the incumbent congressman. But it will be an early indicator of the environment, and a Barr loss would give Republicans reason to panic.

How about a building wave? It might be the most important sign of where the House is going. The Democrats’ must-win there is in the 10th District, where strategists in both parties say Republican Rep. Barbara Comstock is unlikely to hold onto her seat in the DC suburbs. Republican Rep. Scott Taylor’s race in the Norfolk-area 2nd District, though, is a much better bellwether for the national environment. If the Republican congressman in the 7th District loses, that could be an early sign of a building Democratic wave.

Democrats were able to claim victory in the 5th District, where a former journalist is up against a businessman who has distillery and Air Force experience. A Democratic win here would be a sign of a tidal wave threatening to wipe out Republicans whose races weren’t even on the national radar.

The Atlanta suburbs feature two wave-maker districts – if Democrats win either, it’d mean they’re in for a big night. In Georgia’s 6th District, Republican Rep. Karen Handel – who won a ballyhooed special election against Jon Ossoff last year – faces Lucy McBath, a challenger whose unarmed son was shot and killed over a dispute about loud music. And in the 7th District, Republicans are furious that Rep. Rob Woodall never took his race seriously. “If you don’t think it behooves you to put paid media on air, we’re not going to come help you. A Republican official said that they are not a welfare organization.

Miami is a house battleground. There are two House battlegrounds in South Florida. The 26th District has a GOP congressman, Carlos Curbelo, who has run well to his left on issues like climate change and immigration, and the Republicans need him to survive. What should be an easy pick-up for Democrats in the 27th District has become more difficult since Donna Shalala is a non-Spanish speaking candidate.

History-makers. In Georgia, the headliner is the governor’s race between Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp and Stacey Abrams, an emerging Democratic star who has combined a progressive platform with an appeal to black voters – all with a chance to become the nation’s first black female governor. The race will head to a second round if no one tops 50%.

In Florida, a small portion of the panhandle is in Central time, so we’ll need to wait an extra hour for full results to come in for the governor’s race between Democratic Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, a progressive favorite, and DeSantis, who has aligned himself so closely with Trump that this is a potential preview of 2020.

Democrats in the Senate must win. The Florida Senate contest, between Bill Nelson and Rick Scott, is one of the nation’s most expensive and closely watched contests and a loss would diminish the Democrats’ shot at a majority.

A revival at the state level? Democratic former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau head Richard Cordray will try to win the governor’s office in Ohio, a state Trump won by 9 percentage points in 2016. He faces Republican state Attorney General Mike DeWine. Democrats hope to reverse GOP gains in Michigan, Iowa and Wisconsin and so they are testing it.

Tennessee is one of Democrats’ best pick-up opportunities on the map. In order to get the Republicans away from GOP Rep. Marsha, Phil Bredesen has pledged to work with Trump.

And Missouri, where Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill faces Republican state Attorney General Josh Hawley, is one of the GOP’s three or so (along with North Dakota and Indiana) best pick-up opportunities.

The most crucial hour for House control. The next House could begin to take shape this hour. Pennsylvania and New Jersey are the most important battlegrounds.

In New Jersey, the Democrats must win at least two races with two of their top recruits of the cycle: the open 2nd District and the 11th District.

The next two Republicans who will be up for reelection, Leonard Lance and Tom MacArthur, are both involved in the politics of health care repeal and tax reform. If MacArthur loses, it’d show how potent health care is as an issue for Democrats.

Democrats could also pick off House seats in Illinois. Sean Casten is their best bet – he faces GOP Rep. Peter Roskam in the Chicago suburbs. Lauren was endorsed by former President Barack Obama over the weekend, and now she faces a stiff challenge from Randy Hultgren. The 12th and 13th Districts are two more wave-maker types with GOP incumbents Mike Bost and Rodney Davis.

– Mississippi Senate: Does Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith hold off conservative Chris McDaniel and advance to a one-on-one runoff against Democratic former Rep. Mike Espy?

There is a House race in Arkansas where Democrats have the strongest chance of getting a challenger against the Republican incumbent. It’s another member of the wave-maker category of districts that would signal a huge Democratic night.

All eyes will be on Minnesota, where Democrats are now poised to turn the state blue two years after it came close to going for Trump in 2016. Democrats appear likely to hold the state’s two Senate seats and the governor’s mansion, but four closely watched House contests, including two where Democrats are on defense, will indicate how successful Democrats are in breaking down Trump’s red wall.

The poll closing at 9 p.m. will be the end of the year for the suburban revolt against Republicans. Republicans have all but written off Kansas’ 3rd and Colorado’s 6th districts, both suburban seats currently held by Republicans, but Democratic wins in suburban Dallas with Colin Allred, Houston with Lizzie Fletcher and Detroit with Elissa Slotkin and Haley Stevens could cement House majorities for Democrats.

The night could become an exceptional one for Democrats due to the fact that they could win in deep red districts without having to worry about large population centers. There are two good examples of that, in upstate New York where Democrats Antonio Delgado and Anthony Bristow are challenging Republicans and in Kansas City where Republican Paul Davis is trying to oust Steve Watkins.

History in Texas? Texas hasn’t elected a state-wide Democrat since 1988. But Rep. Beto O’Rourke, fueled by Democratic enthusiasm and a Brinks Truck worth of cash, has given Sen. Ted Cruz a real race. The race has become a national affair and with high early voting numbers and national attention, O’Rourke has a chance of winning the election. A win here would be earth-shattering for Democrats.

A big loss for Democrats could happen when the polls close. The polls show that the most vulnerable Democratic incumbent in the Senate is Heitkamp, who is likely to lose on Tuesday night. She’s had a few campaign missteps, including the defining mistake of incorrectly identifying victims of sexual assault in a campaign ad.

Democrats hope that a loss in North Dakota (or earlier in the night) could be erased by a win in Arizona, where two congresswomen – Democrat Kyrsten Sinema and Republican Rep. Martha McSally – are fighting in a state Trump won in 2016.

Is Scott Walker done? Democrats are also on offense in governor’s races in Kansas, Michigan and New Mexico, but the tightest race is in Wisconsin, where state schools chief Tony Evers is challenging Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican who Democrats have long hoped to oust from office but failed to beat three times.

The race has become a judgment on Walker, who is asking voters for a third term in the state, an ask that even Republicans admit makes his re-election difficult.

The dark horse governor’s race is in South Dakota, where the Republican incumbent is in a tough race against a pro-gun Democrat.

If the Democrats take control of the House, it will cause a lot of problems for the country. California is notoriously slow at counting votes, meaning races could be decided in days and weeks, not hours.

Katie Hill, Gil Cisneros, Katie Porter, Harley Rouda and Mike Levin are the five Democrats looking to flip seats in the traditionally Republican area. Depending on how races earlier in the night go, these five seats in Southern California could either be the cherry on top of a good night for Democrats or the focus of considerable attention over the next weeks.

The Nevada Senate race has been deadlocked for months, but it could ultimately determine the balance of power in the upper chamber. CNN is reporting that Democrats are trying to hold onto a Georgia senate seat, where there are two Republican candidates going to a December 6 runoff.

The most unexpected race of the night could be in Alaska, where the current governor, independent Bill Walker, ended his re-election campaign in October to back former Sen. Mark Begich, the Democratic candidate running against Republican Mike Dunleavy. Republicans believe the race will be an easy pick up for them, but the lack of reliable polling and unexpected withdrawal of the current governor has a chance of delivering a late-night surprise.

Many of the other undecided races are in California, where counting mail-in ballots can take weeks and significant shifts can occur late in that process. Other states with large quantities of mail-in ballots, including Arizona and Oregon, also have undecided races.

The Delayed Counting of Voting in Arizona During the 2020 Presidential Campaign: Apologies to the PLANCK Project and to the ACLU

If Republicans win the House, McCarthy’s task of becoming speaker is more complicated than McConnell’s because he needs 218 votes to win the gavel – not just a majority of Republicans.

Gates explained why it takes longer for Arizona to count ballots than states such as Florida, which reported most of its results on election night. He pointed out that Florida does not allow for mail-in ballots to be dropped off on Election Day, while Arizona does. The process is slowed down because hundreds of thousands of ballots need to be processed and verified before they can be counted.

When races are within a percentage point or two, those outstanding ballots are enough to keep the election from being projected. It was expected that there would be a lag because of the increase in mail-in voting during the presidential race, but it did not happen until the Saturday after Election Day in 2020.

There are several key races in the Silver State that haven’t been called as of Friday morning.

The elections director for Pima County told CNN on Friday that they were expecting roughly 85,000 ballots to be left to count.

“We will be working through the weekend and get through most of those ballots – not all of those ballots – probably by no later than Monday morning,” Hargrove said.

The delay in calling the Arizona races has caused accusations and conspiracy theories similar to those made after the 2020 election, including false claims about felt tipped Sharpies.

The elections officials in Arizona denied the false claims about the woman in glasses being the secretary of state.

Lake, the GOP gubernatorial nominee who has embraced former President Donald Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen, said on Charlie Kirk’s right-wing talk show Thursday, “I hate that they’re slow-rolling and dragging their feet and delaying the inevitable. They don’t want to put out the truth, which is that we won.” There is no evidence that the election officials were deliberately delaying the reporting of results.

Comments on “Slow-Rollin’ Dave Gates and the Counting of Voting Ballots” by J. P. Gates

Gates said it was offensive for Lake to say he and his friends were slow-rollin when they were working 14- 18 hours.

Everyone is still paying attention to the close races, because they have so many. The races were not close in those other states. Gates said nobody is paying attention anymore.

More than 15,000 additional ballots could also eventually be counted if they meet eligibility requirements. Voters who want to get their ballots cured must contact the Clark County elections department by Monday. Gloria said 9,759 are eligible to be cured. Another 5,555 in-person provisional ballots could be added as well once they are validated.

Joe Gloria, the Clark County Registrar of Voters, spoke during a news conference on Saturday to deny Trump’s claim. Ballots postmarked on Election Day in Nevada can be counted if they arrive by Saturday.

Jamie Rodriguez, interim registrar of votes for Washoe County, said the county disqualified 400 mail-in ballots on Thursday – about two-thirds of the mail-in ballots the county received – because they were postmarked late.

Rodriguez said that the county expected to get through most of the remaining ballots on Friday.

The Senate Race in Colorado: Counting Votes in the Causal Campaign to Undermine Speaker Candidate Corrected Scott Perry

CNN says the pro- Trump House Freedom Caucus is threatening to undermine McCarthy’s speakership bid if he doesn’t get their demands met.

ScottPerry met with McCarthy in his office on Friday. He said later that the meeting “went well” but wouldn’t say if McCarthy has his – or the caucus’ – support for speaker.

Many of the key House races are still not called, some are razor thin and could head into recounts. One such race is in Colorado, where GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert was ahead by just 1,122 votes as of 9 a.m. ET Friday. Votes are still being counted in the district.

With Kelly taking the Senate seat, Democrats are on the verge of retaining control of the Senate. The Democrats will need 50 seats if Masto is elected in the Georgia Senate. If Laxalt wins, the Georgia run-off will determine Senate control, as it did in 2021.

Political organizations, especially Democratic-leaning unions, that spent months urging people to vote in Nevada’s key Senate race are now turning their focus toward “curing” flawed mail-in ballots in the still-uncalled contest.

The Republican National Committee and Rural Elections in Pima County: Is there a hand counting audit going forward in the midterm elections?

Hargove hopes that Pima County will have a majority of the votes counted. She had told CNN that the votes would be counted by Monday. On Friday night, however, she clarified that would no longer be the case due to a large batch of around 80,000 votes received from the recorder’s office earlier that day.

Gates said that he would prefer for the Republican National Committee to communicate their concerns to him directly. “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,” he said.

“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,” he said.

On Friday night, the RNC and the Republican Party of Arizona released a statement, which criticizes the county’s process and demands that it take “around-the-clock shifts of ballot processing” until all of the votes are counted. The groups warned they would take legal action if necessary.

“Over the past couple of decades, on average it takes 10 to 12 days to complete the count. That’s not because of anything Maricopa County has decided to do. Because of how law is set up in Arizona, we follow the law to make sure the count is accurate.

Arizona officials who have tried to conduct a hand count audit of rural election results are considering a scaled down version that may cause more chaos in the process of certifying the state’s results.

On Thursday, a state appeals court made clear in a 2-1 vote that it would not be reversing a court order barring the full hand count in time for the plan to be revived for the midterms. A lawyer for Cochise County. David Stevens said that the county wouldn’t give up on attempts to conduct a hand conduct that goes beyond the usual procedures.

Investigating Trump’s Decay into a Democratic Senator: The Effects of the Covid-19 Epidemic on the Maricopa County Elections Department

Trump, who saw several key endorsed candidates disappear in the general election, is trying to blame McConnell for the demise of his candidacy, CNN reported.

Democrats’ defied political gravity to deliver a surprisingly strong midterm showing. CNN exit polls showed that 49% of voters who said they somewhat disapprove of Biden voted for Democrats while 45% backed Republicans; of the 38% of voters who said the condition of the economy is “not so good,” 62% voted Democratic compared to 35% for the GOP.

But this has been a complex cycle with many different crosscurrents affecting voter behavior, including the Supreme Court’s decision in June overturning abortion rights that angered many voters across the country. The Republicans were hamstrung by Trumps decision to support far right candidates who were loyal to him but too extreme for the voters who decide elections. In the end, many independent voters and moderates appear to have rejected candidates they viewed as too extreme or too closely aligned with Trump – and Democrats turned out in droves to protect their incumbent candidates.

Republican Joe Lombardo was elected governor of Nevada, ousting Democrat Steve Sisolok, CNN projected. During the Covid-19 epidemic, when unemployment in Nevada had peaked at nearly 30%, the popular Clark County sheriff reminded voters of their struggles. Lombardo contended that Sisolak’s policies had hindered the state’s economic recovery.

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

“Because ballots are tabulated by batch, we are able to isolate the results from those specific locations and reconcile the total ballots against check-ins to ensure it matches. This is done with political party observers present and is a practice that has been in place for decades,” the spokesperson said.

What Happens When President Joe Biden Invented His Dreams About the 2020 U.S. Election: Election Day becomes Election Weekend

They have the right to take the issue to court if they so choose and we will allow that to happen.

Kelly entered the 2022 cycle well positioned to withstand the headwinds facing Democrats – even in a purple state like Arizona that Joe Biden narrowly won – because of his formidable fundraising and unique personal brand as a retired astronaut, a Navy veteran and the husband of former Rep. Gabby Giffords.

Masters, a first-time candidate, was able to navigate the GOP primary gauntlet with significant financial backing from conservative tech billionaire Peter Thiel, his former boss. He appealed to Republicans by saying that he would prioritize immigration issues in his campaign and he also said that he believed President Trump would win the election.

But Masters seemed to reverse course after receiving a phone call from Trump urging him to “go stronger” on election denialism, a conversation that was captured in a Fox documentary. In the last week of the campaign, Masters told CNN’s Lah he didn’t believe moderates were bothered by his comments about the 2020 election, and voters were more focused on inflation, crime and the border.

Throughout the campaign, Kelly portrayed Masters as a candidate who was outside of the mainstream, who would jeopardize abortion rights, as well as Social Security and Medicare. In a state where lawmakers passed a new ban on abortion at 15 weeks earlier this year – and where there are legal efforts underway to ban abortion in almost all cases – Kelly’s campaign kept a relentless focus on Masters’ anti-abortion stances.

It’s Saturday, and election workers are still counting votes in important races. Here is what you need to know as Election Day becomes Election Weekend.

The Arizona Senators Are Running on the Same Program: Sen. Joe Biden, Attorney General John Fetterman, a Democratic Minority Leader, and a Voice for Women’s Rights

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

Many of the dishonest candidates who ran for office in 2020 will not be re-elected by voters, according to CNN. The defeated candidates, CNN projects, will include gubernatorial nominees Doug Mastriano of Pennsylvania and Tudor Dixon of Michigan, secretary of state nominees Mark Finchem of Arizona, Jim Marchant of Nevada and Kristina Karamo of Michigan, and US Senate nominee Adam Laxalt of Nevada.

The party defied the historical trend of midterm elections breaking against parties in power and overcame anxiety over high inflation, cementing its majority as voters rejected Republican candidates who had aligned themselves with former President Donald Trump and in many cases parroted his lies about widespread election fraud.

The Senate control will give President Joe Biden a huge boost in his second term of office, as the Senate race in particular will determine the balance of power in the chamber.

Shortly after CNN and other news outlets projected that Democrats would keep their Senate majority, Biden said it was a reflection of the quality of their candidates. “They’re all running on the same program. Biden said, that wasn’t anybody who wasn’t running on what we did.

Both candidates have passed the 50% threshold, but will face off on December 6.

Biden is looking forward to the next couple of years with Democrats, but acknowledged it would be better if there were more Senate seats.

The Senate is currently evenly split, with Vice President Kamala Harris holding the tie-breaking vote, but that’s meant that Democrats have no votes to spare.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Saturday night called the Democrats’ hold on the Senate a “vindication” of the party’s agenda and said it amounted to a rejection of “anti-Democratic, extremist, MAGA Republicans.”

“Oh and one other thing we did, which I cannot forget, we staunchly defended a woman’s right to choose,” Schumer said, referring to the battle over abortion rights after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

He said that there is a chance for a nation wide abortion ban threat to be defeated because the American people elected Democrats to the Senate.

John Fetterman, the Democratic lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania, defeated Mehmet Oz, the celebrity doctor endorsed by former President Donald Trump, to take the Senate seat that went to the Republicans.

The Republicans won seats in Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin in hard-fought elections while Democrats won seats in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and New Hampshire.

Donald J. Laxalt in Clark County after the 2016 Nevada Supermajority Election: ‘What have we learned in the last four years?’

Laxalt spoke with a different tone than Trump. Before the Saturday evening ballot drop in Clark County, Laxalt had a small lead over Masto.

Laxalt was a co-chairman of Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign in Nevada and played a leading role in legal efforts to reverse the results in that election, which he said was “rigged.” Cortez Masto had argued that the lies and election conspiracy theories embraced by Trump and allies like Laxalt led to the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

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.

The results could be released sometime this afternoon or early evening, but he estimated it would happen at the earliest.

Democrats retained their majority in the Senate, leaving the question of control of the House unanswered.

Republicans have won 211 of the 218 seats they’d need to take the majority, according to CNN projections, while Democrats have won 204, with 20 undecided as of Saturday evening.

CNN projected on Saturday that Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Democrat, would defeat Republican Joe Kent in the 3rd District, which was once dominated by the Republican Party.

Her victory was caused by Trump trying to punish Republicans who voted to impeach him. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, a moderate who was widely viewed as a lock for reelection, did not finish in one of the top two slots in the primary and therefore didn’t advance to the general election.

He said that the Democrats beat some flawed challengers who had no faith in democracy, fidelity to truth or honor. And even when the polls looked bleak, our candidates never gave up and never lost faith.”

The 2021 Senate Runoff in Georgia: Jon Ossoff, DJ Perdue, Raphael Warnock, and Lisa Murkowski

Senate control already being settled will take some of the national spotlight – and the television advertising spending – away from the Senate runoff in Georgia.

“It’s about who has the competence and character to represent us; who’s willing to tell the truth; who has the knowledge needed for the job,” a narrator says in the spot.

It’s the second straight election in which overtime in Georgia, which is triggered when no candidate tops 50% of the vote in the general election, will be necessary.

In 2021, Democrats swept two Georgia Senate runoffs – Jon Ossoff’s race against then-Sen. David Perdue and Raphael Warnock’s match-up with then-Sen. Kelly Loeffler. Loeffler had been appointed to the Senate in 2019 when former Sen. Johnny Isakson resigned for health reasons. Warnock defeated her in the special election for the remainder of Isakson’s term.

He said he was confident that the majority of votes would be recorded by Tuesday. He said that the county will keep reporting about 85,000 votes a night until they’re done.

Ranked-choices will determine whether the state has an at-large House or Senate seat. Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola, who won a special election this summer, is in a strong position to eclipse the 50% mark. But Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski faces a stiffer challenge from Republican Kelly Tshibaka, who is backed by Trump as part of his bid for retribution against Murkowski and others who for his impeachment after the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

“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. If the ballots are postmarked by Election Day, then we process them and put them in the count.

Still, Laxalt acknowledged in a tweet Saturday morning that the mail-in ballots that had arrived over the past couple of days continued to break in higher Democratic margins than his team had calculated. He said that this had narrowed the victory window. He said the race was coming down to the more than 20,000 Election Day Clark County drop-off ballots. “If they are GOP precincts or slightly DEM leaning then we can still win. If they continue to trend heavy DEM She will overtake us.

Masters said that he would make sure every legal vote was counted, since his people knocked doors in 115 degree heat. If Senator Kelly has more of them than I do, I’ll congratulate him on his hard-fought victory. The media should count the votes, not the voters.

Maricopa County Election officials pushed back on Masters’ earlier contention – one that Lake had also made – that the vote counting in Arizona was moving too slowly in Arizona’s most populous county.