(New York) Two days after the midterm elections, the outcome of the battle for control of both chambers of the US Congress remains uncertain, and could remain so for days or even weeks.
Posted at 8:01 p.m.
Republicans are still the most likely to win the House of Representatives: they have won or lead in 221 of 435 races, enough to secure a three-seat majority, if they convert their lead into victories. For their part, the Democrats have won or taken the lead in 214 races, according to data from the Associated Press (AP), a reference in the field.
In total, the outcome of more than 30 House races, including many on the West Coast, has yet to be decided. Vote counting could span days, especially in California, where voters could mail in their ballots on Election Day.
One of the races that gets the most public attention pits Colorado Republican Representative Lauren Boebert, the face of the Trumpist right, against Democrat Adam Frisch, a former city councilor for the city of Aspen. After the counting of 98% of the votes, the two candidates are still neck and neck.
In theory, the Democrats still have a chance of pulling off a feat, namely successfully defending their slender majority in the House. But party strategists acknowledge that such a scenario is quite unlikely.
On the other hand, the Democrats’ chances of winning the battle for the Senate are as good as, if not better than, those of the Republicans.
States to follow
“After the counting of the postal vote [de mercredi] evening in Nevada, there is a good chance that the Democrats will have 50 Senate seats in hand before the second round of the Georgia senatorial election,” said Thursday morning Dave Wasserman, data guru at Cook Political Report.
Wasserman was referring to two of the senatorial elections that remain to be decided. Nevada’s pits former state attorney general Adam Laxalt, a Republican, against incumbent Democratic senator Catherine Cortez Masto. Laxalt is slightly ahead of its rival.
But there are still more than 50,000 votes to be counted in Clark County, Nevada’s most populous, where Masto is expected to make gains. Election officials in that county, of which Las Vegas is the seat, are also awaiting ballots that were mailed out in the final days of the campaign or on the day of the midterm elections. This means that the final result of this race may not be announced until next week.
However, if a strong enough trend emerges during the Friday or weekend vote count, the media may declare a winner sooner. In 2020, for example, the Associated Press declared Joe Biden the winner in Nevada on November 7, four days after the presidential election.
Meanwhile, without providing evidence, Donald Trump accused Clark County of having “a corrupt electoral system”, as is the case according to him in “several places in our country which will soon be part of the third world”.
“They want more time to cheat!” “, he fumed on Truth Social.
In a written statement, county election officials denounced the “scandalous” allegations.
[Trump] is clearly still misinformed about the law and our electoral processes that guarantee the integrity of elections.
Clark County, Nevada Election Officials
The second round of Georgia’s senatorial election will take place on December 6. However, if the scenario mentioned by Wasserman materializes, this election will not be decisive in the battle for the majority in the Senate. Which won’t stop millions of dollars from raining down on both sides over the next few days to fund ads and election activities.
Like other analysts, Dave Wasserman takes for granted that the Democrats will emerge winners of the other senatorial election whose official result is not yet known, that of Arizona. After 70% of the votes were counted, incumbent Democratic Senator Mark Kelly enjoyed a 5.2 percentage point lead over his Republican rival, venture capitalist Blake Masters.
The counting of votes in Arizona is even more laborious than in Nevada due to the heavy use of postal voting. As of Thursday afternoon, there were still 619,000 ballots to be counted, the office of the Arizona secretary of state said.
In Maricopa County, the most populous in the state, 290,000 advance ballots were cast on election day. They are inside envelopes bearing the signature of the elector, a signature which must be compared with that which is found in the electoral registers. All this before starting to count the votes in question.
“It takes time, because we have to do it right,” Maricopa County election official Bill Gates told CNN.
In the 2018 midterm elections, a week passed before future Arizona Democratic Senator Kyrsten Sinema was declared the winner. The same could happen again this year.
Arizona’s gubernatorial election is also attracting attention. After 70% of the votes were counted, Secretary of State Kathie Hobbs, a Democrat, enjoyed a 0.9 percentage point lead over her Republican rival, Kari Lake, a Donald Trump emulator, who denies the validity results of the 2020 presidential election.
Lake could manage to close the gap that separates her from Hobbs.