Democrats slowly close in on crucial Senate wins in Arizona, Nevada

Democrats inched toward keeping control of the Senate on Friday as they widened their advantage in Arizona and appeared poised to grab the lead in Nevada.

With half a million ballots remaining to be counted Friday in Arizona, Republican candidate Blake Masters would need to win more than 60% of them to defeat Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly. In the governor’s race,

Republican Kari Lake would need to win just over half to overtake Democrat Katie Hobbs.

By early Friday afternoon, Kelly led Masters by 5.6 percentage points, while Hobbs was ahead of Lake by just 1.4 points.

Republicans, who are convinced the remaining ballots strongly favor them, have been pressuring election officials in Maricopa County, which includes the majority of Arizona voters, to speed up the count.

County Board of Supervisors Chair Bill Gates, a Republican, has said the team is working as fast as it can but it takes time to follow the detailed steps required under Arizona law.

County officials have said they were inundated with far more early ballots dropped off on Election Day than they’ve ever before had to process. Counting those ballots is time-consuming because officials have to verify that each one came from a legitimate voter, a process that couldn’t begin until Wednesday.

In Nevada, Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto was running slightly behind Republican Adam Laxalt, but with the remaining tens of thousands of uncounted ballots mainly coming from the state’s urban cores, her campaign expressed optimism she could overtake her challenger. Laxalt, meanwhile, has steadily predicted he’ll stay in the lead.

“We are doing everything in our power to move ballots forward just as quickly as we can,” Joe Gloria, the registrar in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, said Friday, adding there were 50,000 ballots still to be counted.

Nevada is one of three undetermined races that will determine which party controls the Senate. If either party wins the state plus the race in Arizona, it will have a majority even before a December runoff in Georgia between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker. If the Arizona and Nevada seats split between parties, control of the Senate will be decided in Georgia.

In Colorado, Rep. Lauren Boebert’s race remained extremely tight Thursday and could be headed for a recount in the GOP firebrand’s bid for reelection against Democrat Adam Frisch. The close race has garnered national attention as Republicans inch closer to the 218 seats that would give them control of the House.