GOP has 'an awful lot of soul-searching' to do, CNN analyst says

Following CNN's projection that Democrats will keep control of the Senate, CNN chief political analyst Gloria Borger said Republicans now have "an awful lot of soul-searching" to do.

Borger said that this may be the moment that shows that former President Donald Trump "is not a kingmaker any longer."

"This is it. His candidates did not do well. His election denial was not a big issue in this campaign. And I think that Republicans are going to have to do an awful lot of soul-searching about whether they actually ran on issues that were geared to them and how they could have lost the Senate with an election that was about inflation, that was about crime, that was about immigration, yes it was also about abortion rights," she said on CNN.

"But I think that the fact that the Republicans couldn't pull this off is going to force them to go to the couch and have a little bit of therapy and say, 'Why did we do this? Were we following the wrong leaders? And how can we fix this?'" she said.

"One short-term answer might be to tell your voters that they should vote by mail because maybe it is easier and maybe more people do it," she added.

CNN political director David Chalian explained what the win means for President Biden and his administration.

"This is very good news for the Biden administration, because things like judges and Cabinet appointments and what have you, that will not be under the purview of Mitch McConnell to navigate through the Senate, that will be under the purview of Chuck Schumer who will maintain his role of majority leader," Chalian said.

"In terms of the balance of power shifting in Washington, with this Senate projection it doesn't, because the most vulnerable Democratic incumbent figured her path to victory," he added.

Democrats will keep their narrow Senate majority for the next two years, CNN projects, after victories in close contests in Nevada and Arizona. Democrats now have 50 Senate seats to Republicans’ 49 seats. 

In Nevada, CNN projects that Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, a former prosecutor and state attorney general, will defeat Republican Adam Laxalt, her successor in the attorney general’s office and the son and grandson of former senators.  

In Arizona, CNN projects that Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and the husband of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, will defeat Republican Blake Masters, a venture capitalist who was endorsed by Trump and supported by tech mogul and emerging GOP megadonor Peter Thiel. 

Georgia’s race between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker is headed to a December runoff after neither candidate cleared the 50% threshold on Tuesday.  

Even if Republicans win the Georgia runoff, though, Vice President Kamala Harris would continue to cast the tie-breaking vote in an evenly divided Senate to guarantee the Democratic majority. 

Only one Senate seat has changed hands so far in the 2022 midterm elections: Pennsylvania, where Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who campaigned as he recovered from a May stroke, defeated Republican Mehmet Oz, the celebrity doctor who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump.  

Republicans successfully defended seats in hard-fought races in Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin, while Democrats retained their seats in competitive contests in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and New Hampshire.  

More on the Democrats’ Senate win: Retaining Senate control is a huge boost to President Biden over the remaining two years of his first term in the White House.  

It means Democrats will have the ability to confirm Biden’s judicial nominees — avoiding scenarios such as the one former President Barack Obama faced in 2016, when then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to hold a vote on his Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland. It also means that Senate Democrats can reject bills passed by the House and can set their own agenda.  

Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto will win reelection in Nevada, CNN projects, clinching a critical victory that will allow Democrats to keep control of the US Senate.  

Cortez Masto had long been viewed as one of the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents as she fended off a challenge from former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt in a state whose economy had been hard hit by the Covid-19 pandemic and inflation.  

With Cortez Masto — the first Latina senator — securing a second term, Democrats will hold 50 seats and Republicans will hold 49. Democrats are also defending a seat in Georgia, where Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker are headed to a December 6 runoff. Even if Republicans pick up that seat, Vice President Kamala Harris will still hold the tie-breaking vote, as she does now in the evenly divided chamber. Democrats were able to hold the majority, in part, because they picked up a seat in Pennsylvania, where Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democrat, defeated Trump-backed Mehmet Oz in the contest to replace retiring Republican Sen. Pat Toomey.  

Control of the US House still hangs in the balance and may not be determined for some time with ballots left to be counted in closely contested races in California, as well as other states. 

Clark County, Nevada, will release results from its remaining 22,000 mail ballots tonight, according to county registrar Joe Gloria.

This batch of results will be released “sometime this afternoon or early evening,” he said earlier today.

Why these votes are key: Clark County is home to Las Vegas and is the largest county in Nevada. Results from the vote-rich county could be pivotal in deciding Nevada’s razor-thin race for US Senate between Republican Adam Laxalt and incumbent Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto, which is still uncalled. 

An additional 268 ballots arrived in the mail today, which is the last day ballots can arrive. Only ballots that were postmarked by Election Day will count. 

In addition, there are 7,139 mail ballots that could still be “cured,” Gloria said at a press conference Saturday. That means there was an issue with the ballot — such as a missing signature – that a voter can fix to have their vote counted. Not all of these 7,139 ballots will get “cured,” meaning they won’t all ultimately get counted. 

There are also still 5,555 provisional ballots that need to be adjudicated and potentially counted, Gloria said. Provisional ballots are used when there is an issue at an in-person polling place, like if it’s unclear whether someone is registered or if they show up at the wrong precinct. The county examines the provisional ballots and verifies that the voter was eligible – so some, but not all, of these 5,555 ballots will count. 

What’s taking so long to determine which party has control of the US House and Senate? Blame California, Nevada, Washington and the whole vote-by-mail West Coast, really.

Actually, don’t blame them. This is just how elections work in 2022.

Blame an evenly divided electorate: If elections weren’t so close, it wouldn’t take so long to figure out who won.

CNN has still not projected who will control either the House or the Senate in large part because of close races on the West Coast.

Read this more detailed report on the latest state of play from CNN’s Jeremy Herb.

Probably worth the wait: The benefit of knowing who won on Election Day is arguably outweighed by allowing more people access to the vote and the cost savings of not having to staff so many polling places.

Bill Gates, the chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, told CNN’s Sara Sidner on Thursday why it takes longer to count mail-in ballots and those placed in ballot drop boxes in the days immediately prior to and on Election Day. Maricopa is Arizona’s most populous county that includes Phoenix.

“This is how we run elections in Arizona,” Gates told Sidner. “If people don’t like that, they can go to the legislature and have them pass new laws.”

It’s a process that’s been in place in Maricopa County since the 1990s, he said. It’s also overseen by both Republican and Democratic Party officials.

Verifying signatures: With election officials visible, busily working behind him at the Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center, Gates said those mail-in ballots that were dropped off right before and on Tuesday don’t even start the important process of signature verification until the Wednesday after Election Day.

“We have experts here who go through, compare the signature on the outside of the ballot envelope with the signature that we have in our voter registration file,” Gates said. “That takes a while because we got to get that right.”

Most states have some sort of signature verification system for their absentee and mail-in ballots, according to a tally from the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Keep reading here.

An estimated 290,000 votes are yet to be counted in Arizona, and the governor's race is still on the line.

The vast majority of these votes are in Maricopa County, CNN political director David Chalian explains.

Republican candidate Kari Lake needs in the range of 55 to 57% of that outstanding vote, Chalian said.

Watch him break down the numbers:

Marie Gluesenkamp Perez will be the first Latino Democrat elected to Congress from Washington state, CNN projects, winning election to the state’s 3rd Congressional District.

Gluesenkamp Perez, an auto repair shop owner whose father immigrated to the US from Mexico, will defeat Republican Joe Kent to succeed GOP Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, who finished behind Gluesenkamp Perez and Kent in the August top-two primary.

Gluesenkamp Perez’s defeat of Kent is a significant victory for Democrats in a race that had been rated Lean Republican by Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales.  

Democrats had long targeted this seat, but GOP Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler had proven a strong incumbent. Her vote to impeachment Donald Trump after the US Capitol riot, however, made her a target of the former president. When she failed to advance to the general election in Washington’s top-two system, she became one of four Republicans who voted to impeached Trump who failed to make it to the general election — and the 3rd District became an open seat.

Kent, a former Green Beret and gold star spouse endorsed by Trump, had tried to shift his campaign rhetoric toward the center – including by removing calls to adjudicate the 2020 election from his website sometime between June and July. But as CNN KFile has reported, his campaign had been bogged down by associations with white nationalists and extremists, whom Kent has repeatedly had to distance himself from.

Pima County, Arizona, will post 19,944 newly counted votes on Saturday night by 8 p.m. ET, county officials said.

These officials added that the votes being released tonight are primarily mail ballots that were received or dropped off prior to Election Day. 

Pima County is a Democratic stronghold and is home to Tucson.

There are just under 50,000 votes left to be processed in the county and this remaining vote is primarily mail ballots that were dropped off on Election Day, according to the officials.

The county will not be posting any vote totals on Sunday and will not be holding a news conference, although they will continue to process ballots and tabulate results. After Saturday night's post, the next vote dump and news conference will be on Monday.  

The county has also completed verifying early ballots and will begin work on processing the remaining 2,400 provisional ballots.

The political world's attention is on the western US Saturday as officials work through another day to tally the votes in key races.

The razor-thin elections for Nevada’s Senate seat and Arizona’s governorship have yet to be called. Large counties in both states are working to whittle down the tens of thousands of ballots that still need to be counted.

Races we're watching

In Nevada: Republican Adam Laxalt is holding onto a slim lead of about 860 votes over Democratic incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto.

If Cortez Masto wins, Democrats are projected to take control of the Senate. If she loses, the fate of the upper house will be decided in December's Georgia runoff.

In Arizona: Democrat Katie Hobbs leads Republican Kari Lake by about 31,000 votes in the governor’s race.

It's been a fiery campaign marked by Lake's unfounded claims about the 2020 election and Hobbs' role as the Arizona secretary of state.

Where we expect results this evening

In both states taking center stage tonight, large counties will release a significant number of results.

Clark County, Nevada: Clark County, which is Nevada's most populous and encompasses Las Vegas, will release results from its remaining 22,000 mail ballots tonight, according to county registrar Joe Gloria.

This batch of results will be released “sometime this afternoon or early evening,” he said, and he estimated that this could happen around 7 p.m. ET at the earliest.  

Washoe County, Nevada: Washoe County plans to release its next batch of results on Saturday night around 11 p.m. ET, according to election officials.

There are approximately 12,000 ballots remaining to be counted there, officials said, though it’s unknown how many will be in Saturday night’s batch of results.

Washoe County, which encompasses Reno, is Nevada's second-largest by population and is considered a swing county.

Maricopa County, Arizona: More results are expected around 10 p.m. ET Saturday from Maricopa County, which is the most populous in Arizona.

Elections supervisor Bill Gates told CNN he expects a vote drop similar to last night, when the county reported about 80,000 more votes.

Gates said Friday that there are about 275,000 ballots left to count in the county, which includes Phoenix.