What you need to know as states count the votes and key races are on the line
The key races to determine control of the Senate in Arizona and Nevada have yet to be decided, as both states compete to count hundreds of thousands of ballots yet to be processed.
It may still be hours, if not days, before enough votes are counted in those states to determine who won the Senate. There are also many contested congressional races that will determine how the House will look when the new Congress sits.
The unofficial results, and lingering uncertainty over who will control Congress next year, have not prevented Republican apprehension over the results of the election, where an expected “red” wave never materialized.
Here’s what you should know as the countdown continues:
This is how things are in Arizona and Nevada, and why it takes so long to count the ballots
The main reason for the delay is the way each state handles ballots other than those cast at polling places on Election Day, including early voting and the mail.
In Arizona, for example, some 600,000 ballots still remain to be counted. Most of them, about 400,000 ballots, are in Maricopa County, the most populous county in the state that includes Phoenix.
Of those ballots, about 290,000 were dropped off at polling places on Election Day, Bill Gates, chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, told CNN on Thursday. Those ballots must be processed before they can be counted, leading to a tabulation delay.
Additionally, the county has about 17,000 ballots that were attempted to be counted on Election Day but were not read by the tabulator due to a printer error, and those ballots must be counted as well.
In Nevada, state law allows you to receive ballots by mail until Saturday, as long as they are postmarked by Election Day. That means counties are still getting ballots to be counted.
Clark County, the largest in the state that includes Las Vegas, received more than 12,000 postmarked ballots from the post office Wednesday, Clark County Recorder Joe Gloria said.
In addition, Nevada counties have tens of thousands of mail-in ballots that were dropped on Election Day in drop boxes located at polling places. Clark County said its Election Day drop boxes contained nearly 57,000 mail-in ballots.
Trump vs. DeSantis
The lackluster performance of several candidates backed by former President Donald Trump has cast new doubts on his expected 2024 campaign.
At the same time, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ resounding re-election victory is fueling calls for him to seize the moment and challenge Trump for the 2024 nomination.
The Trump-DeSantis matchup has simmered for months, but it could come to the fore when the primary officially begins.
After ‘red wave’ subsides, McCarthy faces a tougher road
Republicans are still closing in on a majority in the House, even after Democrats had a better-than-expected night on Tuesday.
House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy is moving quickly to secure the votes needed to claim the speaker’s gavel in the next Congress. CNN has yet to screen a Republican shot of the camera.
But the eventual size of a Republican majority could determine how difficult it will be for McCarty to become president, as a slim majority could see the pro-Trump House Freedom Caucus caucus stand in the way of McCarthy’s leadership ambitions. .
A source familiar with the deliberations of the House Freedom Caucus told CNN on Wednesday morning that there are about two dozen current and incoming members willing to vote against McCarthy if he does not offer them concessions.
CNN’s Ellie Kaufmann, Bob Ortega, Gary Tuchman, Paul Vercammen, Kristen Holmes, Gabby Orr, Manu Raju and Melanie Zanona contributed to this report.