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Tag: 2022 Midterm elections

  • Election certification avoiding chaos, except in Arizona

    Election certification avoiding chaos, except in Arizona

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    SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Certification of this year’s midterm election results appears to be proceeding smoothly with little controversy across the country, with a small Arizona county being a rare exception, calming fears that local commissions consumed by talk of election conspiracies would create chaos by refusing to validate the will of the voters.

    Action has been orderly even in places where suspicions about election fairness ran deep and led to bitter clashes at local public meetings.

    In Nevada, a state that has been a hotbed of election conspiracy accusations and movements to ditch voting machines in favor of hand-counting all ballots, all 17 counties met a Friday-night deadline to certify election results.

    In rural Elko County, the county commission unanimously certified the results just weeks after questioning the reliability of voting machines and expressing support for hand-counting all ballots.

    Commissioners praised county Clerk Kris Jakeman for a post-election audit that included random hand-counts backing up the results from machine tabulators. Some commissioners had watched the audit and said it helped relieve some of their skepticism.

    “I’ve learned a lot this year,” said Commissioner Delmo Andreozzi. “And I appreciate everybody’s willingness to help educate me and help me become more aware about the whole process.”

    It was much the same story in New Mexico, where several rural county commissions have been under intense pressure by some residents to reject certification since the state’s primary election in June.

    In Otero County, where a crisis occurred this summer when commissioners initially denied certification after the primary, the general election results were certified this week with a drama-free unanimous vote.

    “In my heart of hearts, I think Otero County does a good job,” Commission Chairwoman Vickie Marquardt said. “I have no reason not to certify this election.”

    In another rural New Mexico county, where a livid crowd in June berated county commissioners as “cowards” and “traitors” as they certified the primary results, the room fell silent this week as the all-Republican board pored over vote tallies and signatures from poll judges. Commissioners peppered Torrance County election officials with questions before voting 3-0 to certify.

    The commission had spent months responding to doubts about voting systems with a hand recount of the primary ballots and invitations to attend security testing of ballot-counting machines.

    “I’m not seeing any discrepancies, commissioners. Are you?” Republican commission Chairman Ryan Schwebach told colleagues. He won reelection to the local post with roughly two-thirds of the vote, defeating a challenger who said vote-counting machines can’t be trusted. All but one county in New Mexico certified vote tallies this week.

    Conspiracy-focused protesters rallied Friday outside an election board meeting in Reno, Nevada, with signs reading “Don’t certify before hand count” and “We the people demand hand count.” Despite the protests, the Washoe County commission voted 4-1 to certify the results.

    County Commissioner Jeanne Herman, who represents the most rural part of the county, which stretches north to the border with Oregon, cast the lone dissenting vote. She made a failed attempt earlier this year to push an election reform package that, among other things, would have posted National Guard troops at polling places and relied almost exclusively on paper ballots.

    Christiane Brown, a Reno gun control activist, told the commission that the system worked this year, and even most candidates who had embraced the 2020 election falsehoods conceded defeat.

    “Denying results does not change them,” she said. “The people rejected lies, disinformation, intimidation and ignorance, as well as hatred. The voters spoke, the system worked, and the rule of law held.”

    In Arizona, the state’s 15 counties are just beginning to certify their election results and have until Nov. 28 to do their canvass and send final vote tallies to the secretary of state. Kari Lake, the Republican who lost the race for governor, has refused to concede and in a Thursday video said she has a team of lawyers reviewing whether Election Day issues at the polls disenfranchised some voters.

    The two Republicans who control the board in southeastern Arizona’s Cochise County delayed their certification Friday night after hearing from a trio of conspiracy theorists who argue vote-counting machines are not certified. The board ignored testimony from the state elections director, who said the contention was false.

    The board delayed the vote until the Nov. 28 deadline, saying they wanted to see proof and have the three men evaluate it. State Elections Director Kori Lorick threatened legal action “to compel compliance” and ensure that votes from about 46,000 residents were property reported.

    The state is set to certify results from all 15 counties on Dec. 5, a move needed before a recount can proceed in the race for state attorney general, which is too close to call.

    Under Arizona law, the only role of the elected county boards is to accept the numbers as they are tallied by their elections departments. If they refuse to do so, either the secretary of state or a candidate would sue.

    Election certification emerged as an issue after the 2020 presidential election in Michigan, where Trump and his allies pressured Republicans on both the state certification board and the one for Wayne County, which includes Detroit. The results, showing Democrat Joe Biden winning the state by 154,000 votes, were eventually certified.

    Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey said her office anticipates having no problems with certification of the Nov. 8 general election. By midday Friday, 71 of the state’s 83 counties had certified results.

    “More Michigan citizens cast ballots than ever before in a midterm election, and now bipartisan canvassing boards across the state are certifying the results in accordance with state law,” said Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. “We are optimistic that all canvassers will continue to demonstrate this level of professionalism and commitment to upholding the will of the voters.”

    ___

    Sonner reported from Reno, Nevada. Associated Press writers Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta, Ken Ritter in Las Vegas, Gabe Stern in Reno; and Corey Williams in Detroit contributed to this report.

    ___

    Learn more about the issues and factors at play in the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections. And follow the AP’s election coverage of the 2022 elections at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections.

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  • In Pelosi, women admire a leader with calm, cool confidence

    In Pelosi, women admire a leader with calm, cool confidence

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    PHILADELPHIA (AP) — As they watched House Speaker Nancy Pelosi step forward to wrangle an unruly Congress over the years or stare down a bombastic president, many women across the country saw a version of the calm, confident leader they hoped to be themselves.

    Pelosi, in rooms full of powerful men, was tenacious, tactical, tough. All while being a devoted mother and grandmother at home. And rarely finding the need to raise her voice.

    “The image of her coming out in the red coat was just always amusing to me because it just kind of personified how badass she is,” said Gina Lind, 61, of Phoenix, a marketing director for an airline. “It completely represented a woman in quiet control.”

    After her announcement this week that she would step down from Democratic leadership after two decades, many people reposted that meme of Pelosi confidently striding out of the Trump White House in sunglasses and a long red coat following a tense meeting. The moment was a reminder of how Pelosi, the first woman to become House speaker, redefined outdated expectations about the role of women in the highest levels of government.

    Fans of Pelosi, a California Democrat, have taped the image to their refrigerator, downloaded it as a screensaver or emblazoned it on coffee mugs. They likewise savor the photos of her confronting then-President Donald Trump in the White House Cabinet Room or ripping up his final State of the Union speech.

    “When I look at that (Cabinet Room) picture, I think, ‘Okay, stand up and say what you have to say,’” said Kelly Haggerty, 49, an engineer for the city of Syracuse, New York, who works on construction projects and often finds herself, like Pelosi, squaring off in a room full of men.

    “I mean, these guys across the table from me are not the president of the United States, but it’s not fun to always be the only woman in the room,” said Haggerty, who called the photo inspiring. “I did put it on my refrigerator because I have two teenage girls, and I want them to be the same way. I don’t want them to ever stand down,” she said.

    Like many other women of her generation, Pelosi did not formally start her career until she was in her late 40s and her five children were mostly grown. But her father had been in politics, serving first as the mayor of Baltimore and then in Congress. And Pelosi, in her leadership farewell speech from the House floor on Thursday, recalled being awed by the sight of the Capitol building at the age of 6.

    “Make no mistake, though, she’s been in politics since she was born, whether she was running for office or not,” said Rep. Karen Bass, a fellow California Democrat who is now the incoming mayor of Los Angeles.

    In her view, Pelosi embraces her power without being “heavy-handed about it.” She credits Pelosi with standing firm during the tumultuous Trump years.

    “Women do lead differently, and have to leverage their power in a way that is just different, and I think she has perfected that,” she said. “(But) if anybody has to go up against her, good luck.”

    And that female strength and tenacity are what angers people about Pelosi, Hillary Clinton and other female leaders, some women believe.

    “People expect us to be nice all the time. If and when we don’t behave in that particular ‘box,’ people can get pretty emotional and angry about that,” said Maryland state Sen. Sarah Elfreth, 34, a Democrat.

    “I think she took an undue amount of criticism for doing the job the same way and often times better than men had done that job,” Elfreth said. “And in doing so she paves the way for other women in elected office to be just as tough and just as resilient.”

    If the country has yet to see a female president, the younger generations have at least seen Pelosi and a growing number of other women in Congress working beside her. When Pelosi first came to Congress in 1987, she had only two dozen female colleagues among the 535 lawmakers. This year, there are 147 women in the House and Senate — and a growing number of female governors.

    “I think we take for granted how that (Pelosi’s leadership) has transformed what it means to be a woman in power, maybe what it means to be a woman executive, and I think that in years to come we’ll be especially grateful to her for breaking that glass ceiling,” said Cecilia Ritacco, a 22-year-old graduate student in government studies at Georgetown University.

    ___ Follow Maryclaire Dale on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Maryclairedale

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  • Election conspiracists claim some races for local offices

    Election conspiracists claim some races for local offices

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    As voting experts cheered the losses of election conspiracy theorists in numerous high-profile races on Election Day, Paddy McGuire prepared to hand over his office to one of them.

    McGuire, the auditor of Mason County in western Washington, lost his reelection bid to Steve Duenkel, a Republican who has echoed former President Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election. Duenkel, who invited a prominent election conspiracist to the area and led a door-to-door effort to find voter fraud, defeated McGuire by 100 votes in the conservative-leaning county of 60,000.

    “There are all these stories about the election denier secretary of state candidates who lost in purple states,” said McGuire, referring to the state office that normally oversees voting. “But secretaries of state don’t count ballots. Those of us on the ground, whether we’re clerks or auditors or recorders, do.”

    Republicans who supported Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election lost bids for statewide offices that play key roles in overseeing voting in the six states that decided the last presidential election, as well as in races across the country.

    But an untold number won in local elections to control the positions that run on-the-ground election operations in counties, cities and townships across the country.

    “Without a doubt, election denial is alive and well, and this is a continuing threat,” said Joanna Lydgate of States United, a group highlighting the risk of election conspiracy theorists trying to take over election administration.

    Of the nine Republicans running for secretary of state who echoed Trump’s lies about the 2020 presidential election or supported his efforts to overturn its results, three won — all in Republican-dominated states.

    In Alabama, state Rep. Wes Allen isn’t even waiting to take office before making waves. Last week, he announced that once he becomes secretary of state he will withdraw from ERIC, a multistate database of voter registrations. The system is designed to notify states when voters need to be removed because they’ve relocated, but it’s become a target of election conspiracy theorists.

    Allen echoed those conspiracy theories during his campaign, but in a statement last week he instead said he was motivated by a desire to protect the privacy of Alabama voters. His call to exit ERIC drew a stark rebuke from the state’s outgoing secretary of state, John Merrill, a fellow Republican.

    “So, if Wes Allen plans to remove Alabama from its relationship with ERIC, how does he intend to maintain election security without access to the necessary data, legal authority, or capability to conduct proper voter list maintenance?” Merrill’s office said in a statement, referencing how ERIC flags when a voter has moved out of state and can be removed from Alabama’s rolls.

    In deeply conservative Wyoming, Republican Chuck Gray was the only candidate for secretary of state on the ballot. Once he won the GOP primary in August, his ascension was guaranteed.

    In Indiana, Diego Morales ousted the incumbent secretary of state, a fellow Republican, during the party’s nominating convention by echoing Trump’s conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election. He reined in his rhetoric during his successful general election campaign.

    Morales did not respond to a request for comment. He was the only one of 17 Republican election conspiracists in a group called the America First Secretary of State Coalition to win his general election race.

    The record is far murkier at the local level, where elections are actually run and ballots are counted.

    There are thousands of separate election offices in the U.S. In many states, elections are conducted by county offices overseen by clerks or auditors, though in some they are administered at the municipal level in cities or even townships.

    No organization tracks local election offices. The Democratic group Run for Something, alarmed at the prospect of election conspiracists occupying these posts, started an initiative to support candidates it dubbed “defenders of democracy” this year. It estimated 1,700 separate elections were being held either for posts to run elections, or for bodies such as county commissions that appoint election directors.

    Amanda Litman, co-founder of the organization, said the group was tracking 32 races where they supported candidates. Their candidate won in 17 races and lost in 12, while three have yet to be called. Most significantly, she said, they won eight races against election deniers, and lost only three.

    “It’s generally a good sign that when you’re able to make the stakes of the race about democracy, you win,” Litman said.

    Still, she added, it’s hard to track all the potential election conspiracy theorists who got into local office: “It’s a little bit unknowable.”

    Some prominent election conspiracy theorists did win local posts.

    In the Atlanta area, Bridget Thorne, who attended numerous meetings of the Fulton County Commission to talk about conspiracy theories revolving around the 2020 election, won a post on the commission. However, it’s dominated by Democrats, so she likely will have limited ability to bring pressure on the county’s elections department.

    In Washoe County, the swing area in Nevada that includes Reno, Republican Mike Clark won one of the five county commission seats. He told a local newspaper that “I don’t have any personal knowledge” of whether President Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 election.

    And in Mason County, Duenkel spread conspiracy theories about local and national elections. He helped lead a group of volunteers who went door-to-door checking for voters who didn’t live where they were registered, and claimed they had found thousands. A local television station retraced their steps and found numerous errors by the group.

    Still, every Republican on the ballot won Mason County this election. McGuire said he called Duenkel to congratulate him and left him a voice mail, but never got a call back. Duenkel also did not respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press.

    “He got more votes than me and he won,” McGuire said. “That’s what an election professional does — respect the will of the voters and stand behind the results, whether one is happy about the outcome or not.”

    ___

    Learn more about the issues and factors at play in the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections. And follow the AP’s election coverage of the 2022 elections at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections.

    ___

    Associated Press coverage of democracy receives support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Democrats and the 2022 midterm surprises —

    Democrats and the 2022 midterm surprises —

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    Donald Trump is weaker than he was in 2020, President Biden is primed to “beat him like a drum,” Democrats still have a branding problem and Florida is now a party “reclamation project” — those are just some of the midterm takeaways from Mr. Biden’s pollster, John Anzalone, who appeared on “The Takeout” this week.

    Anzalone said that he, like many Democratic strategists and pollsters, was far more worried than Mr. Biden about widespread Democratic loses in House, Senate and gubernatorial races.

    “Joe Biden was right and I was wrong,” Anzalone said. “A bunch of things happened that we haven’t seen happen in a long time. All the rules have been thrown out since 2016.”

    Anzalone described these midterm surprises:

    • Mr. Biden’s approval rating improved from the summer to the fall, despite persistently high inflation, recession worries and stock market declines.
    • Independents broke late for Democrats, something the party in power had not seen since 2002, a midterm deeply influenced by the national trauma of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
    • Democrats narrowly won late-deciding voters, those who made up their minds in the last week of voting. Typically, the party in power in tough economic times, Anzalone said, loses these voters by margins of 3-1 or 4-1.

    “The other thing is that those people who had a soft unfavorable view of him broke big towards the Democrats,” Anzalone said. “He wasn’t a part of the bad part that people thought was going to happen.”

    Democrats also had unexpected help, Anzalone said.

    “Republicans gave us an assist,” he said. “One of the reasons those late deciders decided for Democrats is that there was just nominees that they couldn’t vote for. This election cycle was between headwinds and head cases.”

    As for Trump, who announced a third bid for the White House this week, Anzalone said nothing about his candidacy will deter Biden — who has said he intends to run for re-election but will not make a final decision until early 2023.

    “I know enough about President Biden and his team that he believes he can beat Donald Trump, and I think he can beat Donald Trump like a drum,” Anzalone said. “I think Donald Trump is weakened right now. And I think that people have always underestimated the strength of Joe Biden.”

    Anzalone, known in Democratic circles for his candor, said Democrats cannot afford to overlook their weaknesses.

    “We still have a branding problem,” Anzalone said. “The American people think we are more interested in prioritizing social problems than economic problems. We also have a problem with rural America. We have to work on crime and immigration.”

    Florida was a bright spot for Republicans, and Anzalone conceded the state’s 30 electoral votes may be out of reach in 2024.

    “Florida is a reclamation project,” Anzalone said. “Florida is really expensive. You have to make the resource allocation, that cost-benefit analysis. So the map changes.”

    Executive producer: Arden Farhi

    Producers: Jamie Benson, Jacob Rosen, Sara Cook and Eleanor Watson

    CBSN Production: Eric Soussanin 
    Show email: TakeoutPodcast@cbsnews.com
    Twitter: @TakeoutPodcast
    Instagram: @TakeoutPodcast
    Facebook: Facebook.com/TakeoutPodcast

    Major Garrett


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    Major Garrett is CBS News’ chief Washington correspondent. He’s also the host of “The Takeout,” a weekly multi-platform interview show on politics, policy and pop culture.

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  • Rep. Karen Bass projected to win Los Angeles mayor’s race

    Rep. Karen Bass projected to win Los Angeles mayor’s race

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    Democratic Rep. Karen Bass has defeated billionaire real estate developer Rick Caruso to win the Los Angeles mayor’s race, CBS News projected on Wednesday.

    Bass was leading Caruso by over 46,000 votes, or just over 6 percentage points, with 74% of precincts reporting. Results have been slowly trickling in for days. Caruso took an early 12,000-vote lead. Bass chipped away at it, before taking a lead herself which widened over the last several days.

    In a statement Wednesday night, Caruso acknowledged that he “came up short in the count.”

    And later, Bass disclosed in her own statement that she had received a “gracious call” from Caruso, adding that he “is someone who I hope continues his civic participation in the city.”

    Caruso, a Republican-turned-Democrat, spent over $100 million on his campaign, the vast majority of which was his own money, according to the Los Angeles Times.

    Bass, who was endorsed by both President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, has served in Congress since 2011. At one point, she was on a shortlist to be Mr. Biden’s running mate. She has said that tackling L.A.’s homeless crisis will be her No. 1 priority if elected.

    Karen Bass
    Los Angeles mayoral candidate Rep. Karen Bass during the Los Angeles County Democratic Election night party at the Hollywood Palladium in Hollywood on Nov. 8, 2022.

    Keith Birmingham/MediaNews Group/Pasadena Star-News/Getty Images


    “Day one, if I have the privilege and honor of being elected mayor, there is no question, that day one is declaring a state of emergency to address the people who are on our streets,” she told CBS Los Angeles in an interview last month.

    Her plan involves getting 15,000 people into temporary or permanent housing within her first year in office.

    Bass will replace outgoing L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti, who has served as mayor since 2013, but cannot run again due to term limits. Garcetti was nominated by Mr. Biden back in July 2021 to serve as ambassador to India, but his nomination has been derailed by sexual misconduct allegations against one of his former aides. 

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  • Rent stabilization measures win in US midterm election

    Rent stabilization measures win in US midterm election

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    SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Ballot measures in the U.S. to build more affordable housing and protect tenants from soaring rent increases were plentiful and fared well in last week’s midterm elections, a sign of growing angst over record high rents exacerbated by inflation and a dearth of homes.

    Voters approved capping rent increases at below inflation in three U.S. cities: Portland, Maine, and Richmond and Santa Monica in California. Another measure was leading in the vote count in Pasadena outside of Los Angeles. In Florida, voters in Orange County, which includes Orlando, overwhelmingly passed a rent stabilization measure but a court ruling means it’s unlikely to go into force.

    There were also dozens of proposals on the Nov. 8 ballot raising money for and authorizing construction of affordable housing, said Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Many passed.

    “Housing is a winning campaign issue. It’s one that voters show up for and it’s one that should cause policymakers at all levels to act,” said Yentel, adding that even a loss can be a win.

    “The act of organizing itself builds strength, it builds power, and it builds connections and it builds momentum,” she said.

    Calls for more affordable homes and policies to keep tenants housed have been growing as homelessness increases even in places outside coastal urban centers such as San Francisco and Los Angeles. Moreover, teachers, police and other public servants say they cannot afford to live in the places where they work, resulting in nightmare commutes and staffing shortages.

    Backers say rent control policies are needed to curb sharp increases that put tenants at risk of eviction. They say protections are especially needed now as more corporations snap up rental housing for profit. As of 2018, the U.S. Census Bureau found businesses owned nearly half of rental units.

    “The market is out of whack, the government needs to step in and regulate it so there can be stability,” said Leah Simon-Weisberg, a tenants rights attorney and chair of the rent board in Berkeley, California.

    Opponents say rent control increases costs for landlords, the majority of whom are mom-and-pop operations with a handful of units each. Restricting rents will spur disinvestment in rental stock and discourage construction of affordable housing.

    “Decades of empirical research have shown this policy does not help the underlying cause of the housing shortage that we have now. If anything, it makes the housing challenge more acute,” said Ben Harrold, public policy manager at the National Apartment Association.

    Most states preempt cities and counties from enacting rent stabilization, the result of lobbying by the real estate industry in the 1970s. Still, in cities accustomed to rent regulation voters approved stronger rent caps and more tenant protections.

    The California cities of Richmond and Santa Monica easily approved measures to tighten existing rent increase maximums to 3%, significantly less than the state cap of 10%. In Oakland, across the bay from San Francisco, voters expanded eviction protections for tenants.

    In Portland, Maine, 55% of voters approved a measure to slim down an existing rent cap, from 100% of the consumer price index to 70%. The proposal also dictates a host of other tenant protections, such as limiting security deposits to one month’s rent and requiring 90 days notice for a rent increase or lease termination.

    A ballot measure in Pasadena to cap annual rent increases at 75% of the consumer price index had more than 52% of the vote late Tuesday, and the campaign declared victory. The campaign’s finance coordinator, Ryan Bell, said organizers went all out to reach voters but also, the timing was right.

    “The pandemic really made it clear that people who are renting their housing are insecure by definition. Their housing could be taken away from them in some cities for no cause and a massive rent increase is functionally an eviction,” he said. “There’s just more and more stories.”

    Meanwhile, the rent cap overwhelmingly approved by voters in Orange County, Florida, is on hold. A court ruled it didn’t meet what it acknowledged was an “extremely high bar” set by a state law that requires a housing emergency be identified before a rent cap can be put in place.

    Nearly 60% of voters approved the measure after rents that jumped 25% between 2020 and 2021 and another double-digit increase this year. The Board of County Commissioners in Orange was scheduled to meet Thursday to decide whether to appeal.

    Tenant advocates and landlords do agree on the need for more affordable housing, and cities and counties in Arizona, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, Texas and Ohio were among those that approved bond measures for more units, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

    In Colorado, voters approved a sweeping measure to set aside roughly $300 million a year for programs that curb homelessness and promote affordable housing. But in Denver, where Zillow data shows median rental prices jumped $600 in two years, 58% of voters rejected a $12 million proposal to expand free legal counsel for all tenants facing eviction.

    The eviction fund would have been financed by a $75 annual fee on landlords.

    For Drew Hamrick, vice president of government affairs for the Apartment Association of Metro Denver, the opposing argument “that resonated the most was that this $12 million tax was going to end up being paid for by the consumer regardless of what political outlook you have.”

    ——

    Michael Casey in Boston, Patrick Whittle in Portland, Maine, and Jesse Bedayn in Denver contributed.

    ___

    Bedayn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

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  • GOP facing leadership challenge after tough midterm results

    GOP facing leadership challenge after tough midterm results

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    GOP facing leadership challenge after tough midterm results – CBS News


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    Republicans are holding their internal leadership elections to pick a speaker nominee, should they take control of the House, and determine the future direction of the party after unfavorable results in midterm elections. CBS News congressional correspondent Scott MacFarlane and CBS News chief election and campaign correspondent Robert Costa joined John Dickerson on “Prime Time” to discuss the latest.

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  • Democrats retain control of Senate with Nevada victory

    Democrats retain control of Senate with Nevada victory

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    Democrats will continue to control the Senate after the 2022 midterm elections, after Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto on Saturday was projected by CBS News to win a tight reelection race against Republican Adam Laxalt.

    Her victory gives Democrats 50 seats in the 118th Congress. Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote, should it be needed, gives them the majority, regardless of the outcome of the Georgia runoff election in December between Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker. 

    Before Election Day, some Republicans had begun to believe Senate control was within reach, since President Biden is suffering from underwater approval ratings amid high inflation and voters’ negative views of the economy in all the battleground states. 

    But in the months before the general election, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell expressed doubt that Republicans could take the Senate, which he blamed on “candidate quality.” Many of the Republican candidates who lost were far-right and endorsed by former President Donald Trump, which gave them momentum during the primary season. But they failed to appeal to independents and moderates in the general election. 

    Sen. Pat Toomey, who is retiring from the Senate, and whose seat was won by Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, blamed Trump for the missed GOP opportunity.

    “The data is overwhelmingly clear — the more candidates who are associated with Donald Trump, and the ultra MAGA movement, and this false notion that the election was stolen from him in 2020, the more that was the message, the more they lost, and in many places, it was a stark to a more conventional Republican who was winning,” he said in an interview on Fox News Saturday.

    Though he didn’t identify him by name, Toomey referred to the far-right Republican candidate for governor Doug Mastriano as “a weak candidate who loses by 15 points, the most for an open seat since the 1950s.” 

    He went on to note that “we lost three opportunities to flip House seats, lost control of the state House…and the party needs to get past Donald Trump.”

    Alaska, where three candidates are on the ballot in a ranked-choice voting system, has also not yet been called, but with the top two finishers both Republicans, CBS News projects it will stay in Republican hands.

    On Friday evening, CBS News projected Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly will win reelection over Republican challenger Blake Masters.

    In other battleground states, CBS News projected the races in Wisconsin, Florida, Ohio and North Carolina will go to Republicans, while Democrats will win in Colorado, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania. 

    In each of the Senate battlegrounds where CBS News has conducted exit polls, voters said control of the Senate was important to their vote. CBS News conducted statewide surveys in 11 key battleground states: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin.

    In each of these states, voters had negative views of the nation’s economy.

    In most of the Senate battleground states, the issue of inflation outpaced abortion in terms of the importance of the issue to voters. But in Pennsylvania’s closely-watched race, where Fetterman came out ahead of Republican candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz, exit polling showed abortion outpaced inflation as a concern for voters.

    According to early exit polling Tuesday, nearly three in four voters said they were dissatisfied about the country. That includes almost one-third who said they were angry. Almost three-quarters said the economy is bad, and nearly half of voters said their family’s finances are worse than they were two years ago.

    Thirty-five Senate seats were up for grabs in total in the 2022 midterm elections, but under one-third were expected to be close. 

    Musadiq Bidar and Jack Turman contributed to this report. 

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  • State Supreme Court wins shaped by abortion, redistricting

    State Supreme Court wins shaped by abortion, redistricting

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    LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Republicans have claimed key victories in state Supreme Court races that will give them an advantage in major redistricting fights, while Democrats notched similarly significant wins with help from groups focused on defending abortion access.

    The expensive fights over court control in several states in Tuesday’s election highlight just how partisan the formerly low-key judicial races have become. Observers say they’re a sign of what to expect as legal battles over abortion, voting rights and other issues are being fought at the state level.

    “Nothing about this election suggests to me that we’re going to see these races quiet down anytime soon,” said Douglas Keith, counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s law school, which tracks spending in judicial races.

    About $97 million was spent on state Supreme Court elections during the 2019-2020 election cycle, according to the Brennan Center. Once this year’s numbers are tallied, spending records are expected to be shattered in some of the 25 states that had races targeted by groups on the right and the left.

    One of the biggest players was the Republican State Leadership Committee, which focused heavily on the court races in North Carolina and Ohio.

    “Republican wins in the Tarheel State and Buckeye State ensure that the redistricting fights ahead in those states within the next decade are ruled on by strong conservatives who will follow the Constitution and don’t believe it’s their role to draw maps from the bench,” said Dee Duncan, president of the committee’s Judicial Fairness Initiative.

    North Carolina’s court flipped from a 4-3 Democrat majority to 5-2 Republican Tuesday night. The court in recent years has issued decisions favoring the Democratic majority in cases involving redistricting, criminal justice, education funding and voter ID laws.

    At least $15 million was spent on those races, with more than $8 million from two super PACS — one on the left that focused primarily on abortion and one on the right that focused on crime. Despite the outside groups’ involvement, candidates ran on a similar platform of keeping personal politics out of the courtroom.

    “Now, we’ll be watching to make sure that the justices sitting in those seats follow through on those promises,” said Ann Webb, senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina.

    In Ohio, Republicans maintained their 4-3 majority on the court, with two GOP justices fending off challenges and a sitting Republican winning her bid for chief justice. The state’s GOP governor, Mike DeWine, will appoint a justice to fill the resulting vacancy.

    The results may expand the conservative bent of the court even further, with cases regarding the state’s six-week abortion ban and redistricting on the horizon. Republican Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor, who did not seek reelection, has sided with court’s three Democrats on high profile cases.

    But Democratic groups working to protect abortion rights ramped up efforts to defend seats after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade and saw victories in several other parts of the country.

    In Illinois, which is surrounded by states with abortion bans that took effect after Roe was overturned, groups pushing to retain the state’s Democrat court majority had warned a GOP takeover could result in similar threats to access.

    “I don’t think there’s anyone who doesn’t think abortion was the critical issue in these races,” Terry Cosgrove, president and CEO of Personal PAC, an abortion rights group that spent nearly $3 million supporting the Democrats in the races.

    In Michigan, Democrats maintained their 4-3 majority on the Supreme Court after incumbent justices from opposing parties who had split on a key abortion ruling won reelection. Michigan’s high court races are officially nonpartisan, though the state’s political parties nominate candidates.

    Democratic-backed Justice Richard Bernstein, who voted with the court’s majority to put an abortion rights amendment on the ballot, won reelection along with Republican Justice Brian Zahra, who voted against it. Voters approved the measure Tuesday.

    “The Michigan Supreme Court election was critical especially since we didn’t know what the status of (the abortion rights amendment) would be,” said Ashlea Phenicie, communications director for Planned Parenthood Advocates of Michigan, which spent nearly $1 million on the races.

    Kansas voters kept all six state Supreme Court justices who were on the ballot for separate yes-or-no votes on whether they remained on the bench another six years. The state’s most influential anti-abortion group, Kansans for Life, pushed to remove five of them, largely over the court’s 2019 decision declaring access to abortion a “fundamental” right under the Kansas Constitution.

    Two of the six court members on the ballot were part of the 6-1 majority in that 2019 decision. Voters also retained the court’s most conservative member, the only dissenter in the 2019 abortion decision.

    Republican bids for court seats failed in even some of the most conservative parts of the country.

    Kentucky Supreme Court Justice Michelle Keller defeated Joseph Fischer, a Republican lawmaker who sponsored the state’s “trigger law” ending abortion following Roe’s reversal. Fischer also was the lead sponsor of an anti-abortion constitutional amendment that voters rejected Tuesday.

    Supreme Court Justice Robin Wynne in Arkansas, which has had some of the most contentious judicial races over the years, fended off a challenge from District Judge Chris Carnahan, a former executive director of the state Republican Party.

    Arkansas’ court seats are nonpartisan, but Carnahan had touted himself as a conservative and had the endorsement of the state GOP. A group formed by a Republican lawmaker ran TV ads calling Wynne, who served as a Democrat in the state Legislature in the 1980s, a liberal.

    An unprecedented partisan pitch by Montana Republicans to install a party loyalist on that state’s Supreme Court also fell short, with Justice Ingrid Gustafson defeating challenger James Brown, who had the backing of Gov. Greg Gianforte and other top Republicans. The unusually expensive campaign came as the court is preparing to hear challenges over Montana’s abortion restrictions and voting access.

    Gustafson called her win a sign that voters were more interested in experience than ideology.

    “The people in Montana think our judiciary is doing a good job and it is a very, very small minority that has some sort of other agenda,” she said.

    ___

    Associated Press writers Hannah Schoenbaum in Raleigh, North Carolina; John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas; Bruce Schreiner in Louisville, Kentucky; Ed White in Detroit, Michigan; and Amy Beth Hanson in Helena, Montana contributed to this report. ___ Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2022 midterm elections at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections. And check out https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections to learn more about the issues and factors at play in the midterms.

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  • McMullin loss in Utah raises independent candidacy questions

    McMullin loss in Utah raises independent candidacy questions

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    SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah Democrats’ decision to back an independent rather than nominate a member of their own party to take on Republican Mike Lee transformed the state’s U.S. Senate race from foregone conclusion to closely watched slugfest.

    Independent Evan McMullin, an anti-Trump former Republican best known for his longshot 2016 presidential bid, attracted millions in outside spending in his campaign against Lee. He forced the second-term Republican to engage with voters more than in prior elections and emphasize an independent streak and willingness to buck leaders of his own party.

    Ultimately, though, it wasn’t even close. Lee is on his way to a double-digit win.

    That’s spurring a debate: Did Democrats’ strategy create a blueprint to make Republicans campaign hard, compete for moderates and expend resources in future races? Or does the sizeable loss prove that Republicans’ vice grip is impenetrable in the short term, no matter the strategy?

    The answers could contain lessons for both red and blue states unaccustomed to competitive elections.

    Some Democrats say supporting McMullin was worth it — it shifted the political conversation, made the race competitive and forced Lee to spend almost double what he spent in his 2016 campaign. But other Democrats say the strategy hurt down-ballot candidates who didn’t have a strong top-of-the-ticket contender to help boost them.

    “Building my bench in that sense is going to be so much harder. How do I convince candidates, going forward, that the Democratic Party will support them?” said Katie Adams-Anderton, Democratic Party chair in Utah’s second largest county.

    Utah is among the fastest growing states, and Democrats hope they will be able to compete as the electorate becomes younger and more urban. Yet Republicans currently hold both Senate seats and all four congressional seats, occupy every statewide office, and this week expanded their supermajorities in the Legislature.

    Four years after running for U.S. Senate herself, Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson supported Democrats’ decision to back McMullin. She credits it with making Lee sweat. Though McMullin lost, she said, coalescing behind an independent benefited voters by making the race competitive. She hopes putting Lee on his heels will influence how he governs and votes in the U.S. Senate.

    “This was a unique moment, and I actually do think we’ve lost an opportunity by not electing Evan to help break up some of the hardened partisanship,” she said, noting that whether backing an independent was a good strategy depended largely on circumstances.

    Votes remain to be counted, but Lee is on track to defeat McMullin by double digits. That’s a narrower margin than his 41 percentage-point victory in 2016 over grocery store clerk Misty Snow but wider than McMullin’s team anticipated.

    McMullin won 100,000 more votes than Utah Democrats’ four congressional candidates did collectively, but preliminary results don’t suggest his campaigning against the two-party system energized voters enough to substantially buoy turnout.

    Independents have won Senate races in Vermont and Maine, yet in deeply red states like Utah, party politics remain entrenched and important to voters.

    To put together a fragile coalition of Democrats, Republicans and independents, McMullin focused closely on threats to democracy. Rather than campaign on traditional midterm election issues, he attacked Lee’s November 2020 text messages to Trump’s White House chief of staff about ways to challenge President Joe Biden’s victory.

    Both Lee and Democrats skeptical of his candidacy criticized McMullin for being unclear on issues such as abortion or infrastructure spending.

    “You say you want to put country over party. I respect that,” Lee said at an October debate, addressing McMullin. “But parties are an important proxy for ideas. You see, because it’s ideas more than parties that tell the people how you will vote.”

    Kael Weston, the Democrat Senate candidate who lost the party’s backing when it lined up behind McMullin, acknowledged it would have been difficult for a Democrat to defeat Lee. But he said McMullin’s focus came at the expense of local concerns, such as water or the closure of rural post offices. Focusing on those kinds of issues is the path to making elections competitive in red states, not becoming “Republican lite,” he said.

    Though outside spending from Democratic-donor funded PACs and conservative groups like Club for Growth reflect how the race was more competitive than usual, Weston said, McMullin’s attempts to distance himself from Biden and Democrats hurt Democrats who were lower on the ballot.

    “If all you see for three months is, Joe Biden is evil and Democrat is a four-letter word, that has an effect,” he said, noting the anti-McMullin television ads might have hurt Democratic candidates for statehouse seats.

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  • Democrat Katie Hobbs keeps lead in race for Arizona governor

    Democrat Katie Hobbs keeps lead in race for Arizona governor

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    PHOENIX (AP) — The release of ballots on Saturday from Arizona’s largest county netted Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake a few thousand votes, but she’s still trailing Democrat Katie Hobbs by tens of thousands of ballots.

    Hobbs led Lake by 1.6 percentage points after the release of roughly 85,000 votes from Maricopa County. Approximately 270,000 ballots remain uncounted statewide, and Hobbs leads by about 35,000 votes.

    Data analysts from both parties believe the count will eventually shift in Lake’s favor, but it’s not yet clear whether she will pick up enough votes to overtake Hobbs. Republicans have watched anxiously since Tuesday as Hobbs has defied their expectations and increased her lead each day, including Saturday when combined with results from the rest of the state.

    About 50 conservative protesters gathered outside the fence around Maricopa County’s election tabulation center in downtown Phoenix at midday Saturday to draw attention to their concerns about the slow pace of the vote count. Protracted counts are the norm in Arizona, where a record number of people returned mail ballots on Election Day.

    A few protesters wore ballistic vests or carried handguns as a number of county sheriff’s deputies nearby guarded the complex.

    Arizona was central to former President Donald Trump’s push to overturn the 2020 election and cast doubt on the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s victory. Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, who won his race Friday, pressed to move past false claims of a fraudulent election that have shaped the state’s politics for the past two years.

    “After a long election, it can be tempting to remain focused on the things that divide us,” Kelly said Saturday in a victory speech at a Mexican restaurant in Phoenix. “But we’ve seen the consequences that come when leaders refuse to accept the truth and focus more on conspiracies of the past than solving the challenges that we face today.”

    Kelly’s victory Friday combined with a win Saturday by Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada means Democrats will retain control of the Senate for the next two years.

    Kelly won after distancing himself from Biden and building an image as an independent lawmaker not beholden to his party. He cast himself in the mold of his predecessor, the late Republican John McCain, whose seat Kelly won in a special election two years ago. His victory this year gives him a full six years starting in January.

    “Sen. McCain embodied everything it was to be a leader at a time when our state and our country remain divided,” Kelly said.

    Kelly’s opponent, Republican Blake Masters, did not concede, saying in a statement that his team will make sure every legal vote is counted.

    “If, at the end, Senator Kelly has more of them than I do, then I will congratulate him on a hard-fought victory,” Masters said. “But voters decide, not the media; let’s count the votes.”

    The AP declared Kelly the winner after the release of results from 75,000 ballots in Maricopa County made clear Masters could not make up his deficit.

    Hours earlier, Masters said on Fox News that Maricopa County, which is by far the largest in the state, should stop counting ballots and start over because election officials had inadvertently mixed counted and uncounted ballots.

    Megan Gilbertson, a spokeswoman for the county elections department, confirmed ballots were mixed at two vote centers but said there are contingencies to reconcile each batch and get an accurate count. She said that similar mistakes have been made before and that the process has been in place for decades and is overseen by observers from both parties.

    “There is no legal process in place to stop counting and start over,” Gilbertson said. “At Maricopa County, we follow the laws as they are written.”

    Outside the elections building in Phoenix, some protesters carried American flags, campaign signs for Lake or signs with slogans such as “Kari Lake Won,” “Count The Votes” and “Hobbs is a Cheat.”

    Sheriff Paul Penzone said he pulled deputies from around the county and from other assignments to protect the ballots and the people counting them. Noting the protest was prompted by a tweet from a state lawmaker, Penzone urged elected officials not to summon demonstrators to the elections building.

    Aaron Kotzbauer, a 52-year-old Republican from the Phoenix suburb of Surprise who voted for Lake and the other GOP candidates, said he protested at the elections office after Trump lost in 2020 and came again Saturday to “see if we could get some sunshine to disinfect the Maricopa County election center.”

    ___

    Associated Press writer Bob Christie contributed to this report.

    ___

    Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2022 midterm elections at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections. And check out https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections to learn more about the issues and factors at play in the midterms.

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  • Trump vs. DeSantis: A simmering rivalry bursts into view

    Trump vs. DeSantis: A simmering rivalry bursts into view

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis have been on a collision course from the start.

    Eyeing the Florida governor as his most formidable foe within the Republican Party, the former president has sought to keep DeSantis in his place, often noting the role his endorsement played in lifting the relatively obscure congressman to the leader of one of America’s largest states.

    DeSantis, for his part, has long praised Trump and mimicked his style, but has notably declined to put aside his own White House ambitions as the former president prepares to seek his old job again. In the clearest sign of tension, the two held dueling Florida rallies in the final days of this year’s midterm elections. At his event, Trump unveiled his new derisive nickname for DeSantis, calling him Ron DeSanctimonious.

    The simmering rivalry between the Republican Party’s biggest stars enters a new, more volatile phase after the GOP’s underwhelming performance in what was supposed to be a blockbuster election year. DeSantis, who won a commanding reelection, is increasingly viewed as the party’s future, while Trump, whose preferred candidates lost races from Pennsylvania to Arizona, is widely blamed as a drag on the party.

    That leaves Trump in perhaps his most vulnerable position since he sparked the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. As he moves forward with plans to announce a third presidential bid on Tuesday, Trump is turning to a playbook that has served him through decades of personal, financial and political turmoil: zeroing in on his enemies’ perceived weaknesses and hitting them with repeated attacks.

    “This is how President Trump fights,” said Michael Caputo, a longtime adviser who worked on Trump’s first campaign.

    In the days since Tuesday’s election, Trump has made racist remarks about Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, another potential Republican presidential candidate, saying his name sounds Chinese. He’s blasted coverage from Fox News, which, like much of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, has shifted its tone on Trump in recent days. But much of his vitriol is directed at DeSantis, a sign of the threat Trump perceives from the Florida governor.

    In a lengthy statement, Trump knocked DeSantis as an “average REPUBLICAN governor with great Public Relations” and voiced fury that DeSantis has not publicly ruled out challenging him.

    The approach recalls Trump’s strategy in 2016, when he cleared a field of nearly a dozen rivals with a scorched-earth approach that included insulting his then-rival Ted Cruz’s wife’s appearance and claiming that his father may have played a role in John F. Kennedy’s assassination. (Cruz later became a top ally in Congress.)

    His attacks only become more ruthless when he found himself against the wall. After the release of the “Access Hollywood” tape, in which Trump used vulgar language to brag of sexual assault, he responded by inviting the women who accused his rival Hillary Clinton’s husband, the former president, of rape and unwanted sexual advances to a presidential debate.

    “The strategy worked in 2016, no doubt about it. The difference now, and I say this with all respect for Ron DeSantis, he’s never entered the ring with a pugilist like Donald Trump,” said longtime Trump adviser Corey Lewandowski, who ran his 2016 primary campaign. “Mike Tyson has an old saying: Everyone had a plan until you get punched in the face.”

    The question is whether the insults will land differently when it comes to DeSantis. Among many of Trump’s most loyal backers, DeSantis is seen as a member of the same team. In interviews over the last year at Trump’s rallies and other conservative gatherings, Trump supporters often said they see DeSantis as Trump’s natural successor. Many voiced disbelief that the two men would ever run against each other because they seem so closely aligned.

    DeSantis’ allies expect the governor to make a presidential announcement after the state legislative session, which ends in May. Until then, they expect him to focus on governing and avoid engaging directly with Trump, as he has done this week.

    Regardless of when a formal presidential campaign is announced, DeSantis’ supporters are encouraging him to take advantage of the interest he’s generating at the moment. Some point to former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie as a cautionary tale, noting he generated widespread attention in 2012 as a potential presidential candidate. He demurred, and by the time he sought the White House in 2016, the energy had shifted to Trump.

    “If you want to run for president, you’ve got to take your shot when it presents itself,” said Matt Caldwell, a vocal DeSantis ally in Florida.

    DeSantis won reelection by a nearly 20-point margin, performing well even in many longtime Democratic strongholds. That victory, his supporters say, demonstrates the extent of his political appeal beyond the GOP’s hardcore base, which stands in contrast with Trump. Caldwell noted that DeSantis’ coalition included Latinos and suburban voters, voting blocs that Trump has largely alienated.

    “The coalitions he’s built, the bridges he’s built, the voting groups that never touched a Republican before have now embraced Republicans and Republicanism in the form of the DeSantis administration,” said Brian Ballard, a longtime Florida lobbyist who served as DeSantis’ inaugural chairman and also raised millions for Trump. “He is certainly a leader and someone that I think has demonstrated the type of coalition building that we need to win back the White House.”

    Above all, Republican strategists say voters are looking for a winner.

    Conservative radio host Erick Erickson, who has vacillated on Trump over the years, said many of his listeners are ready for DeSantis.

    “They love Trump, thank him, wish him well and are ready to part ways,” Erickson said. “Trump voters like Trump because they like winners who fight. That’s exactly how they perceive DeSantis. The only guy between the two who is a loser is Trump.”

    Sensing weakness, some Republican establishment insiders have begun a series of preliminary conversations about how to use their resources to stop Trump in 2024, realizing that a crowded primary field might simply divide the electorate and allow Trump an easier path to the nomination. There is little sign the Republican establishment is ready or able to unify behind DeSantis or any single Trump alternative, however, even as some prominent Republicans begin to openly decry Trump as a political liability.

    Other potential 2024 candidates, meanwhile, are waiting in the wings, with some hoping Trump and DeSantis will bloody each other so badly that voters will be eager for a less pugilistic alternative.

    Sarah Longwell, a Trump critic who leads the Republican Accountability Project, said she’s for “anybody but Trump” in 2024, but she’s not necessarily excited about DeSantis.

    “I hope there is a robust Republican primary,” Longwell said. “I certainly want every Republican to run against Trump. But I also think the Republican Party can and should do better than a cheap imitation of Trump, which is what I think Ron DeSantis is.”

    Next week, DeSantis will be among several 2024 Republican prospects gathering in Nevada for a meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition. The guest list includes former Vice President Mike Pence, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and term-limited Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan. Trump declined an invitation.

    The Republican Jewish Coalition’s primary benefactor, Miriam Adelson, has vowed to stay neutral in the 2024 Republican primary, even after the group aggressively supported Trump in the last election.

    Hogan, a fierce Trump critic for years, is increasingly expected to run for the Republican presidential nomination himself.

    “Going forward, there is going to be a battle between whether we are the party that stands for common-sense conservative leadership, or whether we are the party than answers to the whims of one person,” Hogan told The Associated Press. “I am sick and tired of the losing and grifting. It’s time to get back to winning.”

    ___

    Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2022 midterm elections at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections. And learn more about the issues and factors at play in the midterms at https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections.

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  • Misinformation and the midterm elections: What to expect

    Misinformation and the midterm elections: What to expect

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    Conspiracy theories about mail ballots. Anonymous text messages warning voters to stay home. Fringe social media platforms where election misinformation spreads with impunity.

    Misinformation about the upcoming midterm elections has been building for months, challenging election officials and tech companies while offering another reminder of how conspiracy theories and distrust are shaping America’s politics.

    The claims are fueling the candidacies of election deniers and threatening to further corrode faith in voting and democracy. Many of them can be traced back to 2020, when then-President Donald Trump refused to accept the outcome of the election he lost to Joe Biden and began lying about its results.

    “Misinformation is going to be central to this midterm election and central to the 2024 election,” said Bhaskar Chakravorti, who studies technological change and society and is the dean of global business at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. “The single galvanizing narrative is that the 2020 election was stolen.”

    A look at key misinformation challenges heading into the 2022 election:

    MISLEADING CLAIMS ABOUT VOTING

    Political misinformation often focuses on immigration, crime, public health, geopolitics, disasters, education or mass shootings. This year, it’s mostly about voting.

    Claims about the security of mail ballots have grown in recent weeks, as have baseless rumors about noncitizens voting. That’s in addition to claims about dead people casting ballots, ballot drop boxes being moved or wild stories about voting machines.

    Trump, a Republican, attacked the legitimacy of the election even before he lost. He then refused to concede, spreading lies about the election that inspired the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. His contention was rejected in more than 60 court cases and by his own attorney general, William Barr.

    Together, these misleading claims about the nation’s electoral system have led some Republicans to say they’re going to hold onto their mail ballots until Election Day — a move that could slow down the count.

    Others vow to monitor the polls to prevent cheating, leading to concerns about intimidation and even the possibility of violence at election sites.

    Tech companies say they’ve implemented new policies and programs designed to ferret out misinformation.

    “We’ve seen hundreds of elections play out on our platforms in recent years and we’ve been applying lessons from each one to strengthen our preparations,” Facebook and Instagram owner Meta said in a statement.

    Yet critics say the volume of false claims spreading now shows there’s more to be done, such as better enforcement of existing rules or government regulations requiring more aggressive policies.

    “This is no longer a new problem,” said Jon Lloyd, senior adviser at the nonprofit Global Witness, which last week released a report showing that TikTok failed to remove many advertisements that contain election misinformation. Big social media platforms, he said, “are still simply not doing enough to stop threats to democracy.”

    MISTAKES WILL HAPPEN — WHILE CLOCK IS TICKING

    Elections involve the combined efforts of tens of thousands of people working under pressure. Mistakes are expected, which is why there’s a robust system of checks and balances to ensure errors are found and corrected.

    Taken out of context, stories about glitchy voting machines, mixed-up ballots or even “suspicious” vehicles arriving at election centers can become fodder for the next election fraud myth.

    And with so much work to do at such a fast pace, election workers, local officials and even the media can have little time to push back on such claims before they go viral.

    In Georgia in 2020, a water leak at a site where ballots were being counted was used to spin a far-fetched tale of ballot rigging. In Arizona, the choice of pens given to voters filling out ballots led to similarly preposterous claims.

    To avoid falling for a misleading claim, consult multiple sources including local election offices. Any significant voting irregularity will be covered by multiple news outlets and addressed by election officials. Be skeptical of claims from second-hand sources, said Shaye-Ann McDonald, a behavioral researcher at Duke University who studies ways to improve resistance to misinformation.

    The most viral misinformation often elicits anger or fear that motivates readers to repost it before they’ve had time to coolly consider the underlying claim.

    “When you read about something that provokes a strong emotion, that should be a warning sign,” McDonald said.

    A MULTILINGUAL CHALLENGE

    Just before the 2020 election, Spanish-language Facebook ads falsely claimed Biden, a Democrat, was a communist. On other platforms, posts warned Latinos in the U.S. not to vote at all.

    Misinformation in non-English languages is a particular concern cited by researchers who say the major platforms — most of them U.S.-based — are focused on content moderation in English. Automated systems written to detect misinformation in English don’t work as well when applied to other languages.

    “As bad as they (tech companies) are moderating content in English, they’re even worse when it comes non-English languages,” said Jessica Gonzalez, co-CEO of Free Press, a nonprofit that works on issues of racial justice and technology.

    MISINFORMATION BY TEXT?

    While misinformation about elections spreads easily on big social media platforms like Facebook, it also has taken root on a long list of less familiar platforms: Gab, Gettr, Parler and Truth Social, Trump’s platform.

    Meanwhile, TikTok has emerged as a key network for younger voters — and the politicians who want to reach them. The platform, owned by a Chinese company called ByteDance, has created an election center to connect users with trustworthy information about elections and voting. But nonetheless misinformation persists.

    The problem isn’t limited to social media. The number of false claims transmitted by text and email has steadily increased in recent years. Last summer, Democratic voters in Kansas received misleading texts telling them a yes vote on an upcoming referendum would protect abortion rights; the opposite was true.

    MUSK AND TWITTER

    Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter just weeks before the 2022 election upended that platform’s plans for combating misinformation ahead of the midterms.

    Musk quickly fired the executive who had overseen content moderation. Over the weekend he posted a tweet advancing a baseless conspiracy theory about the attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, before deleting it.

    Musk has called himself a free speech absolutist and had said he disagreed with the decision to boot Trump from the platform for incitement of violence on Jan. 6, 2021.

    He has said that a content moderation committee will examine possible revisions to Twitter’s rules but that no changes would be made until after the election.

    “We’re staying vigilant against attempts to manipulate conversations about the 2022 US midterms.” Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of safety and integrity, tweeted Tuesday.

    THREATS FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC

    Russian efforts to interfere in U.S. elections go back years, and there are indications that China and Iran are stepping up their game.

    Tech companies, government officials and misinformation researchers say they’re monitoring for such activity ahead of the midterms. But the misinformation threat posed by domestic groups may be far greater.

    ____

    Follow the AP’s coverage of misinformation at https://apnews.com/hub/misinformation. Follow the AP for full coverage of the 2022 midterm elections at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ap_politics. And check out https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections to learn more about the issues and factors at play in the midterms.

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  • Why was I given a provisional ballot?

    Why was I given a provisional ballot?

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    Why was I given a provisional ballot?

    Provisional ballots are issued to voters at a polling location when there are eligibility questions that prevent them from casting a regular ballot on Election Day.

    “They are a fail-safe method to ensure that everyone who is registered to vote gets to cast a ballot,” says Charles Stewart III, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Election Lab in Boston.

    The ballots, which are sometimes known as “challenge” or “affidavit” ballots, are currently offered in all but three states — Idaho, Minnesota and New Hampshire. Those states, however, offer same-day registration, which allows residents to both register to vote and cast a ballot on Election Day.

    Each state sets its own guidelines for when provisional ballots are required and how they’re processed.

    The most common reasons they’re offered include when an election official challenges a voter’s eligibility or when a voter’s name isn’t found on the list of eligible voters, they lack proper identification or do not reside in the precinct in which they’re attempting to vote, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, which publishes a nationwide analysis following every general election.

    Provisional ballots are set aside for review after polls close on Election Day, but the delay in counting them has led to confusion and allegations of voter fraud in recent elections.

    Former President Donald Trump and other election skeptics, for example, questioned why vote counts in some states continued to grow long after polls closed in 2020.

    Some have also suggested that being required to fill out a provisional ballot means someone else has already fraudulently voted in your place and that your vote won’t ultimately be counted.

    But all provisional ballots are reviewed by election officials in every election, says the National Conference of State Legislatures, a nonpartisan research group that serves lawmakers across the country. If a ballot is deemed legitimate, it will be counted, regardless of how wide the margin of victory in an election might be, the organization said.

    Election officials are also required to inform voters whether their provisional ballot was counted and the reason if it’s rejected. This is usually in the form of a toll-free telephone number or an online tool.

    As provisional ballots are verified, they’re added to the final tally, Stewart said.

    “If all you do is compare the vote totals from election night to the totals with the provisional ballots added, it might look like someone has been stuffing the ballot box,” he said in an email. “Instead, people who voted on Election Day are simply having their vote counted after Election Day.”

    Provisional ballots represent an increasingly small share of all votes cast, comprising less than 1% of all votes in 2020, down from 1.4% in 2016 and 1.7% in 2012, the two most recent presidential elections, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s most recent analysis.

    Overall, roughly 1.7 million provisional ballots were cast nationwide in 2020, of which about 78% were ultimately counted and about 21% were rejected, the commission found.

    ___

    The AP is answering your questions about elections in this series. Submit them at: FactCheck@AP.org.

    What happens if a ballot is damaged or improperly marked?

    How do states ensure dead people’s ballots aren’t counted?

    Can noncitizens vote in U.S. elections?

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  • Mishaps, distrust spur Election Day misinformation

    Mishaps, distrust spur Election Day misinformation

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    Voters casting ballots in Tuesday’s pivotal midterms grappled with misleading claims about glitchy election machines and delayed results, the final crest of a wave of misinformation that’s expected to linger long after the last votes are tallied.

    In Arizona, news of snags with vote tabulators spawned baseless claims about vote rigging, which quickly jumped from fringe sites popular with the far-right to mainstream platforms. It didn’t matter that local officials were quick to report the problem and debunk the theory.

    In Pennsylvania, election officials pushed back on baseless claims that delays in counting the vote equate to election fraud. But the conspiracy theory spread anyway, thanks in part to former President Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz and other prominent Republicans who have amplified the idea.

    There was lots of other misinformation too: false claims about ballots cast by non-citizens or pre-filled registration forms; hoaxes about voting machines and tales of suspicious Wi-Fi networks at election offices. In some cases, the false claims provoked responses including calls for violence against local officials.

    The states and facts involved were all different, but most of the misinformation aimed at voters this year had the same drumbeat: American elections can no longer be trusted.

    “People were looking for things to go wrong to prove their preconceived notions that the election was rigged,” said Bret Schafer, a senior fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a Washington, D.C.-based nonpartisan organization that tracks misinformation. ”And there are always things that go wrong.”

    If 2020 is any guide, many of the claims the emerged Tuesday will persist for days, weeks and even years, despite efforts by election officials, journalists and others to debunk them.

    There was a sharp uptick in social media posts Monday and Tuesday claiming Democrats would use delays in vote tallying to rig elections throughout the country, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, a firm that tracks disinformation.

    Some of the posts originated on websites popular with Trump supporters and adherents of the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory.

    The increased popularity of mail ballots is one reason why results can take a while. In key battleground states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona, election officials cannot begin counting mail ballots until Election Day, guaranteeing delays.

    “We have never certified an election on election night,” said Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections for Common Cause, a non-profit group that has been tracking election misinformation. “This is nothing new. It’s just people trying to undermine faith in elections.”

    Misinformation about voting and elections has been blamed for a widening political divide, decreased trust in democracy and an increased threat of political violence like the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

    The same false claims fueled the campaigns of candidates who reject the outcome of the 2020 election, including Republican gubernatorial candidates Kari Lake in Arizona and Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania. Several GOP nominees for secretary of state positions overseeing elections have also said they supported Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election and remain in power.

    Though not on the ballot, Trump helped spread many of the leading false claims on Tuesday. Using his TruthSocial platform, he amplified the conspiracy theories from Pennsylvania and Arizona. “Another big voter tabulation problem in Arizona,” he wrote. “Sound familiar???”

    The false claims seen in 2022 are likely to stick around and become part of the misinformation facing voters in the presidential election, said Morgan Wack, a University of Washington disinformation researcher and part of the Election Integrity Partnership, a collaborative research group focused on election misinformation.

    “We will almost certainly see this again in 2024,” Wack said.

    Most major social media platforms announced plans to combat election misinformation and provide voting resources to users. It was a different story on fringe platforms like Gab, where misinformation and even threats of violence were easy to spot Tuesday.

    Twitter was of particular concern to disinformation researchers given its new owner, Elon Musk, a self-described free speech absolutist who has spread misinformation himself.

    One analysis of bots and fake accounts on Twitter found a significant increase in discussion of election fraud in the week before the election. The number of automated or fake accounts posting about “stolen elections” doubled in the sample reviewed by researchers at Cyabra, an Israeli tech firm.

    Officials with the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said Tuesday they were monitoring for foreign attempts to sow doubt about the election but saw no evidence the efforts were paying off.

    Russia, China and Iran have all mounted disinformation operations targeting U.S. politics and will likely increase their efforts ahead of 2024, according to Craig Terron, director of global issues at Insikt Group, a division of the Massachusetts-based cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.

    Terron said the Kremlin likely sees such meddling as justified, given U.S. support for Ukraine following Russia’s invasion.

    “Immediately after the US midterm elections, and into 2023 and beyond, the Russian government will very likely attempt to plan and execute malign influence efforts,” Terron wrote in an email to the AP. “In particular, we expect to see campaigns aimed at undermining the next two years of President Biden’s term.”

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    AP writer Haleluya Hadero in New York contributed to this report.

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    Follow the AP’s coverage of misinformation at https://apnews.com/hub/misinformation. Follow the AP for full coverage of the 2022 midterm elections at https://apnews.com/hub/2022-midterm-elections and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ap_politics. And check out https://apnews.com/hub/explaining-the-elections to learn more about the issues and factors at play in the midterms.

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  • FACT FOCUS: Did late night Michigan voting lines show fraud?

    FACT FOCUS: Did late night Michigan voting lines show fraud?

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    Michigan saw record turnout for a midterm election this week, with control of the governor’s office and referendums on abortion and voting rights in the balance.

    But with a heightened focus on voting problems and irregularities nationwide, Ann Arbor became a target for false information following reports of long lines of voters waiting to cast ballots late into the night Tuesday in the college community.

    Elections officials, government watchdog groups and other experts, however, said the election process was carried out according to state law.

    Here are the facts.

    CLAIM: City officials in Ann Arbor were registering new voters and allowing them to vote long after the polls closed on Election Day.

    THE FACTS: The false claim gained traction after a Republican candidate for Michigan secretary of state issued a lengthy statement on social media singling out the vote in Ann Arbor — a liberal bastion that’s home to the University of Michigan — as proof of election malfeasance.

    “We will not tolerate the lawlessness of the Ann Arbor city clerk,” Kristina Karamo wrote in her Election Day tweet, which has since been liked or shared more than 1,200 times.

    The Trump-endorsed Republican, who ended up losing to incumbent Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, doubled down on her claims Thursday in a tweet that was also widely shared.

    “The Ann Arbor clerk is engaging in mass Election Crimes. Illegally registering people after 8pm,” another Twitter user wrote, echoing the false claim. “They are arrogantly breaking the law.”

    But Michigan state law allows any person in line when polls close at 8 p.m. to register to vote and to cast a ballot, election officials and experts told The Associated Press this week.

    “Although we say the polls are open until 8pm in MI, if you are in line before 8pm and stay in line you can vote,” Sharon Dolente, a senior advisor for Promote the Vote, wrote in an email. “The same is true if you need to register to vote first, in order to vote.”

    Promote the Vote, a coalition that includes the NAACP, the League of Women Voters and the American Civil Liberties Union, coordinated an Election Day hotline and had hundreds of observers at polling locations throughout the state on Tuesday.

    Dale Thomson, a political science professor at the University of Michigan in Dearborn, agreed, noting that Michigan voters in 2018 approved same-day registration, meaning voters can enroll up to and including on Election Day.

    The Michigan Department of State, which oversees elections statewide, confirmed with Ann Arbor officials that all voters registered after 8 p.m. had been in line before polls closed and that each person was provided a document to verify that, said Jake Rollow, an agency spokesperson.

    “Eligible American citizens have the constitutional right to register to vote and vote, and if they are in line at the 8 p.m. deadline on Election Day, they must be allowed to do so,” he wrote in an email.

    Joanna Satterlee, a spokesperson for the city of Ann Arbor, said the waiting voters were handed a “ticket” in the form of a blank application to vote.

    Only those in line holding the application were permitted to register and vote, she said. Staff were also present to ensure no one joined the lines after 8 p.m.

    Satterlee said the city didn’t have a count for how many votes were cast by those waiting in line past 8 p.m. on Tuesday, but that the last ballot was issued shortly after 1 a.m. Wednesday.

    She said the three voting locations impacted were City Hall and two sites on the University of Michigan campus, where hundreds of waiting voters were seen wrapped up in donated blankets and sipping on hot cocoa as temperatures dropped below 45 degrees.

    The U.S. Department of Justice, which posted election monitors in other Michigan cities, declined to comment, and Karamo’s campaign didn’t respond to messages this week.

    But the secretary of state’s office said it will work with city officials, university administrators and student leaders in Ann Arbor and other college communities to “identify and implement practices to prevent such situations” going forward.

    Michigan State University on Friday said it experienced similarly long voting lines, with the last ballot cast on its East Lansing campus at 12:09 a.m. Wednesday.

    “Unfortunately, long lines in some locations, most often university towns, have been a challenge in Michigan for years,” said Dolente. “This was true before same day registration was adopted. Promote the Vote looks forward to working with election officials to prevent it from happening in the future.”

    ___

    This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.

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  • 2022 Arizona governor’s race: Katie Hobbs holds slim lead over Kari Lake

    2022 Arizona governor’s race: Katie Hobbs holds slim lead over Kari Lake

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    Arizona’s race for governor is one of the most closely watched in the country, largely because of the impact it could have on the 2024 presidential election. 


    Arizona gubernatorial race tightens

    05:55

    Lake, 53, still favors decertifying the 2020 presidential election results in Arizona, despite the fact that no credible evidence has been presented in Arizona to substantiate claims of widespread voter fraud. Besides the state’s GOP Senate-led review, the Republican state attorney general, Mark Brnovich told CBS News’ “60 Minutes” that his office investigated the full gamut of claims about the 2020 election, including dead people voting, injected votes in Pima county, and many more claims. And none of the investigations revealed widespread voter fraud in Arizona.

    Hobbs, 52, campaigned on the importance of safe elections and warned that extremists and election deniers like Lake should not be in a position to undermine democratic processes. She highlighted Lake’s support of Trump and claims that the 2020 election was rigged as threats to democracy. 

    During the campaign, Hobbs refused to debate Lake, whom she has said is just trying to create a spectacle. But Lake is also charismatic and comfortable on stage. As the Washington Post’s Ruby Cramer observed, Lake “does not say ‘um.’” She noted that some like to call Lake “Trump in heels,” but that might not give her enough credit — really, “she is Donald Trump with media training and polish.”

    In October, GOP Rep. Liz Cheney traveled to Phoenix to warn conservatives in Arizona against voting for Lake. 

    “For almost 40 years now, I’ve been voting Republican,” Cheney said during an event hosted by the McCain Institute at Arizona State University.  “I don’t know if I have ever voted for a Democrat, but if I lived in Arizona now, I absolutely would for governor and for secretary of state.”

    Cheney continued, “If you care about democracy and you care about the survival of our republic, then you need to understand, we all have to understand, that we cannot give people power who have told us that they will not honor elections.”

    Lake also embraces Trump’s issues, beyond the denial of the 2020 election. She has focused on security and immigration issues, which is part of the reason some voters are saying she’s won their vote. She has said that she’ll declare an invasion at the southern border and deport those who cross the border illegally. 

    Lake has also focused on education and human rights issues. She has said that teachers should not be discussing LGBTQ rights with students and said she would prosecute doctors who perform gender confirmation surgeries. Lake has also criticized transgender athletes, saying men shouldn’t be allowed to compete against women in sports. She has avoided saying whether she supports any exceptions to an abortion ban, and has spoken supportively of both Arizona’s total abortion ban dating back to 1864 and a more recent 15-week ban. 

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  • 2022 Arizona Senate race: Mark Kelly projected to defeat Blake Masters and win reelection

    2022 Arizona Senate race: Mark Kelly projected to defeat Blake Masters and win reelection

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    If Masters wins, he’d flip a key seat as the GOP tries to gain control of the U.S. Senate, and at age 36, he would be the youngest senator in Arizona’s history.

    Base Republican voters said immigration and border security motivated them to support Masters, according to CBS News polling while Democrats in the state said abortion rights were an important factor in getting them to the polls for Kelly.


    Arizona Senate debate showdown

    03:46

    During the primary, Masters leaned into a far-right racist conspiracy known as the “great replacement theory,” which claims that Democrats are supporting illegal immigration because they want to use people of color to subvert the power of white voters. 

    Kelly’s campaign relied on abortion rights to energize base Democratic voters, but the economy and inflation were top concerns for many general-election voters in Arizona.

    High gas prices and rising inflation handed Masters a line of attack against Kelly. And he also attempted to tie Kelly to President Biden’s low favorability in the state.

    Kelly appealed to moderate voters, pointing out that he had stood up to Mr. Biden on immigration, arguing that unlike most Democrats who favored ending the use of Title 42 — a Trump era policy that allowed the government to deport migrants at the border because of the COVID-19 pandemic — he had opposed ending it without first coming up with a comprehensive border response.

    Republican operatives in Arizona told CBS News that Masters might not be able to attract enough moderate voters to win in November. After the primary, Masters began making a play for these voters, editing his campaign website to soften his language on issues like abortion, gun control, immigration, and the 2020 election. He also dropped language from his site suggesting Trump had won the 2020 election.  

    In the lone Senate debate before the election, Masters expressed more moderate views about the 2020 election, saying for the first time that Mr. Biden was legitimately elected president and acknowledged there was no evidence that the 2020 elections were rigged, in a pivot to the middle. 

    Instead, he blamed “big tech and big media” for “censor[ing] the Hunter Biden crime story,” and putting their “thumb on the scale to get Joe Biden in there.” 

    Afterward, Trump called Masters and told him his answer on the 2020 election was “soft” and could cost him Senate race. He compared Masters unfavorably to GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake. 

    “Kari is winning with very little money, and if they say, ‘How is your family,” she says, “The election was rigged and stolen.’ You’ll lose if you go soft, you’re going to lose that base,” Trump was seen telling Masters on Tucker Carlson Originals, which has been following Masters’ campaign. 

    A week after the debate, Masters was back on Fox News, saying he still believes if there had been a free and fair election, Trump would be in office today. “If everyone followed the law, President Trump would be in the Oval Office,” Masters said on FOX News.

    While Masters navigated his loyalty to Trump, Kelly tried to distance himself from Mr. Biden. He said when he was first elected, he realized Democrats “don’t understand” the immigration issue at the border and Republicans just want to politicize the topic.  

    Kelly maintained a significant fundraising and television ad spending advantage throughout the campaign.

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  • Abortion played key role in 2022 midterm elections; two races could determine Senate control — live updates

    Abortion played key role in 2022 midterm elections; two races could determine Senate control — live updates

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    Washington — Abortion access proved to be a powerful force in the 2022 midterm elections, lifting Democrats in battleground states and helping to weaken the anticipated Republican wave into a ripple. In the five states where the issue was directly on the ballot, every contest leaned in favor of protecting abortion rights — even in heavily Republican states like Kentucky and Montana.

    These outcomes help answer one of the central questions of the midterm campaign: whether fervor over the fall of Roe v. Wade in the summer could last through November. 

    It’s now been three days since the elections, and number of races have not yet been called, as ballots continue to be counted. Senate control is a toss-up, and the House of Representatives is leaning Republican, according to CBS News estimates.

    Senate contests in Arizona and Nevada are still undecided, and Georgia’s Senate race between incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock and his GOP challenger, Herschel Walker, is going into a runoff on Dec. 6. 

    Republicans need to pick up two out of the three seats in Georgia, Arizona and Nevada to win control of the Senate, according to CBS News projections. 

    Alaska’s Senate race also remains a toss-up, but the top two candidates are both Republicans, meaning the outcome won’t impact the partisan makeup of the Senate. Since neither candidate received 50% of the vote, the race will go to its ranked-choice process, with results expected in two weeks.   

    Republican Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, who is currently trailing Democrat Katie Hobbs, accused state election officials of “slow-rolling” the vote count.  Bill Gates, the chairman of the board of supervisors in Maricopa County, the state’s largest, pushed back against that accusation on Thursday, saying that counting was always going to take “several days.” Gates added, “Quite frankly it is offensive for Kari Lake to say these people behind me are slow-rolling this when they are working 14 to 18 hours.”

    Colorado Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert is in a toss-up race to hold onto her seat against Democratic challenger Adam Frisch in what had been considered a safe GOP seat, but her lead has been increasing. On Thursday morning, with 99% of the vote in, she was ahead by over 1,100 votes.

    Full results and projections for every House, Senate and governor’s race can be found in the CBS News Election Center.

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  • 2022 Nevada Senate race: Catherine Cortez Masto vs. Adam Laxalt

    2022 Nevada Senate race: Catherine Cortez Masto vs. Adam Laxalt

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    In Nevada, two days after Election Day, Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto’s race to defend her seat against the challenge from Republican Adam Laxalt is still a toss-up, and the outcome may not be known for days. Late  Thursday evening, with about 87% of the results in, Laxalt’s lead over Cortez Masto fell to just under a point, and the margin separating the two is now around 8,000 votes. 

    Ballots are still being counted in the state’s most populous county, Clark County, where 91% of the vote is in. In 2016, Cortez Masto won the county by over 80,000 votes. 

    Clark County Registrar of Voters Joe Gloria told reporters in Las Vegas Wednesday that he expects that the ballots in that county may be counted by next Thursday, at the latest, and the canvass of the vote would take place next Friday. 

    Cortez Masto, 58, is considered to be the most vulnerable Democratic senator fighting for reelection, and if Laxalt, a former state attorney general, defeats her, it will be a crucial pickup for Republicans looking to flip the seat and gain control of the upper chamber. Three Senate races remain to be decided. In addition to Nevada, Arizona’s Senate race is yet to be called, and Georgia’s Senate race is going to a runoff in early December. 

    Cortez Masto became the nation’s first Latina senator when she won the race in 2016 to succeed the late Sen. Harry Reid when he retired at the end of his term. She and Laxalt were neck-and-neck heading into Election Day, according to a recent CBS News poll.

    – Alyssa Spady and Elizabeth Campbell contributed to this report.

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