It’s the end of the day after Election Day, and we still don’t know which party will control either the Senate or the House. Here’s where things stand:
Senate
Both Democrats and Republicans have clinched 48 Senate seats, so control of the chamber will come down to these four states:
- Arizona: Democrat Mark Kelly currently leads 51 percent to 46 percent, with an estimated 72 percent of the vote reporting. We’re expecting to get an update from Maricopa County tonight.
- Nevada: Republican Adam Laxalt leads Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto, 50 percent to 47 percent, with an estimated 80 percent of ballots counted. However, there are thousands of mail ballots left to count, so Cortez Masto isn’t out of it.
- Georgia: This is going to a runoff between Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker on Dec. 6.
- Alaska: A Republican is virtually guaranteed to hold this seat, but the question is whether it will be pro-Trump Kelly Tshibaka or anti-Trump Lisa Murkowski. Currently, Tshibaka is at 44 percent and Murkowski is at 43 percent, but two minor candidates are at 13 percent. That’s important because if no candidate gets a majority, ranked-choice voting will determine the winner here on Nov. 23.
House
Republicans are currently projected to win 213 seats to Democrats’ 194, so the GOP is slowly creeping toward that magic number of 218.
Governors
We have projections in 32 of the 36 gubernatorial races that were on the ballot in this midterm election. Overall, Republicans hold 24 governorships to Democrats’ 22 in the 46 where we know who currently governs or will soon take over the job. That leaves four races in doubt:
- Nevada: Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak trails Republican Joe Lombardo by about 5 points, 51 percent to 46 percent, with 80 percent of the expected vote reporting. As with the Senate race, we know there are thousands of votes left to process and count, so we may not get a call here for a few days. Still, given the margin, Sisolak will need to win a huge percentage of the untallied votes to catch Lombardo.
- Arizona: Democrat Katie Hobbs holds a razor-thin lead over Republican Kari Lake, 50.3 percent to 49.7 percent, with 72 percent of the expected vote reporting. But Lake is probably going to take the lead here, given the GOP-trending count as votes cast on Election Day continue to be added to the totals.
- Oregon: In this open-seat contest, Democrat Tina Kotek leads Republican Christine Drazan by about 2 points, 46 percent to 44 percent, with 78 percent of the expected vote reporting. The race is tight, but Kotek may have an ace in the hole: About half the untallied votes are from deep-blue Multnomah County (Portland) and blue-leaning Washington County (west of Portland).
- Alaska: Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy leads with 52 percent of the vote, putting him ahead of Democrat Les Gara (23 percent) and independent former Gov. Bill Walker (20 percent). If Dunleavy can stay above 50 percent, that would eliminate the need to go through the ranked-choice voting process that we’ll likely see in the state’s Senate and House races.