CNN
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Elections for a Nevada Senate seat and Arizona’s gubernatorial seat were not held on Saturday, as counties in both states struggled to reduce the tens of thousands of votes still to be counted.
As of Saturday morning, Democrat Katie Hobbs led Republican Lake Cary by about 31,000 votes in Arizona’s gubernatorial race, after the state’s most populous Maricopa County reported about 80,000 votes. It seemed Friday night that Republican Adam Laxalter had a narrow lead over the Democratic incumbent by just over 800 votes. Catherine Cortez Masto.
While those races are still underway, CNN predicted Friday that the Democratic senator from Arizona. Mark Kelly will defeat the Republican Black Masters in Arizona, and Republican Joe Lombardo will defeat the Democratic governor. Steve Sisolak in Nevada.
Kelly’s victory in the Senate puts Democrats one seat away from maintaining control of the Senate, with only the Nevada race not being called. Democrats need at least 50 seats if Cortez Masto wins, regardless of the outcome of the Georgia Senate runoff. If Laxalt wins, the Georgia runoff will determine control of the Senate, as it will in 2021.
Meanwhile, control of the House remains up in the air, with 21 games remaining. According to CNN’s forecast, Democrats have won 203 seats so far, while Republicans have won 211 (218 are needed to control the House of Representatives). Many unconvened House races are held in California.
Regardless of the final makeup of both chambers next year, Republicans have had a lackluster midterm performance, sparking a backlash against House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, while a handful of Senate Republicans have called for a delay in next week’s scheduled leadership election.
If Election Day becomes Election Weekend, learn the following:
In Clark County, Nevada’s largest, which includes Las Vegas, CNN estimates there are about 24,000 mail-in ballots to be counted, and about 15,000 provisional ballots and ballots to process.
In Washoe County, Nevada’s second most populous, about 10,000 ballots were counted on Friday, with CNN estimating about 12,000 remaining.
Clark County Registrar Joe Gloria said Friday that the county expects to complete the remaining mail-in ballots by Saturday. Gloria said the ballots are being checked by the county’s ballot counting board.
State law allows mail-in ballots to be received in Nevada by Saturday, but ballots must be postmarked by Election Day to be valid.
Political groups, especially Democratic-leaning unions, which have spent months urging people to vote in Nevada’s key Senate race, are now turning their attention to “curing” flawed mail in the still-unconvened race vote.
“Cure” is the process by which voters correct a problem with a mail-in ballot to ensure it is counted. This could mean verifying that the votes really came from them by adding missing signatures or resolving signature matching issues. Under state law, the deadline for voters in Nevada to “cure” their ballots is Monday, November 14.
Maricopa County, Arizona, which includes Phoenix, reported about 80,000 ballots late Friday, including many mail-in ballots delivered to polling places on Election Day.
According to Bill Gates, chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, the county still has about 275,000 ballots to be counted.
Gates said he expects that if they continue to count votes at the same pace — about 60,000 to 80,000 votes a day — the county should finish counting by “early next week.”
Constance Hargrove, the county’s election director, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and John King on Friday that the county The Arizona population, Constance Hargrove, the election director, told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and John King on Friday. The second-most-popular Pima County, home to Tucson, is expected to have about 85,000 more ballots to be counted by the end of Friday.
Hargoff said she hopes Pima County will count the majority of the remaining ballots by Monday. She previously told CNN that all ballots would be counted on Monday morning. However, on Friday night, she clarified that this would no longer be the case due to the large volume of about 80,000 ballots received from the record office earlier in the day.
On Friday night, Gates pushed back against allegations of wrongdoing by Masters, the RNC and the Arizona GOP, saying they “offended” election workers.
“The RNC’s suggestion that something unpleasant has happened in Maricopa County is absolutely wrong and once again offended these fine election workers,” he said.
On Friday night, the RNC and Arizona Republican Party tweeted a statement criticizing the county’s process and requiring it to “process ballots in 24/7 shifts” until all ballots have been counted, with “regular, accurate public updates.” .” The groups also threatened to “will not hesitate to take legal action” if necessary.
Referring to the specific allegations in the RNC statement, Gates said: “If they have any concerns, I want them to communicate with us here. I’m a Republican. Three of my colleagues on the board are Republicans. Raise these issues and discuss them with us instead of making these baseless claims.”
“They’re hyping it up here, and that’s exactly what we don’t need to do,” he added.
Responding to claims that the count was “taking too long,” Gates said the county’s pace was in line with previous years.
“Over the past few decades, it has taken an average of 10 to 12 days to complete the count. It’s not because of anything Maricopa County decides to do. It’s because of how the laws are made in Arizona, and that’s what we have in Maricopa What the county does, we follow the law to make sure the count is accurate.”
After a setback in court, Arizona officials trying to hand-audit election results in rural counties are considering scaling back their version of a plan that could still create confusion and delays in the state’s certification process for election results.
The Cochise County confrontation has led to concerns about potential delays in determining a winner in a state where key games are still too close to be determined. Arizona’s current deadline to verify results is November 28, 20 days after the last day to vote.
Cochise County, home to about 125,000 Arizonans, plans to manually review 100 percent of ballots, a few of the places that pushed for manual vote counting due to former President Donald Trump’s lies in the 2020 election one.
On Thursday, the state appeals court made it clear by a 2-1 vote that the court order would not be reversed unless a full count was made in time to resume the program in the midterms. But attorneys for Cochise County Recorder David Stevens — a proponent of hand audits — said the county has not given up on its efforts to conduct hand conduct that goes beyond routine procedure.
Trump is trying to place blame on Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell after seeing several key candidates lose in the general election, CNN reported on Friday. Incite opposition to Kentucky Republicans ahead of the election.
While McConnell has locked in enough support to stay on as leader, he is facing calls from Senate Republicans to delay next week’s leadership race — which some GOP sources say is unlikely .
Meanwhile, McCarthy is facing fresh resistance from the pro-Trump House Freedom Caucus, who refused to support McCarthy’s speaker bid and began laying out a series of demands.
If Republicans win the House, McCarthy’s task of becoming Speaker is more complicated than McConnell’s, since he needs 218 votes to win the House — not just a majority of Republicans.
House Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry met with McCarthy in his office Friday. He said afterwards that the meeting “went well” but did not say whether McCarthy had his — or that of the Freedom Caucus — a supporting speaker.
“We’re in discussions,” Perry said.