Here’s Why Arizona And Nevada’s Key Senate Races Are Still Undecided

Topline

The results of pivotal races in Arizona and Nevada that could determine which party controls the Senate remain up in the air, and it could take several more days until there's clarity on who won, but the types of ballots and where they were cast might provide some clues as to which candidates hold the advantage in the closely watched contests.

Retired NASA astronaut and future Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) waits to speak during a news conference ... [+] on August 12, 2016 in Miami. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

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Key Facts

In Arizona, 70% of the estimated vote has been counted: Incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly leads Republican Blake Masters 51.4%-46.4% (a 95,318-vote difference) in the race for Senate, and Democrat Katie Hobbs leads Trump-endorsed Republican firebrand Kari Lake 50.3%-49.7% (or 13,067 votes) in the gubernatorial race.

In Nevada, 78% of the estimated vote has been counted: Republican challenger Adam Laxalt leads Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto 49.6%-47.5% (or 17,803 votes) in the Senate race, while Republican Joe Lombardo also holds a lead over incumbent Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak 50.3%-46.1% (or 35,371 votes) in the gubernatorial contest.

Many of the votes that still need to be counted in Arizona are in Maricopa County, the state's highly competitive population center that includes Phoenix and its sprawling suburbs, which President Joe Biden narrowly carried in 2020.

The vote count has been slowed there after printing issues caused tabulators at many voting sites to fail to read ballots Tuesday, leading some voters to drop off ballots in secure boxes to be read Wednesday, while early ballots dropped off on Election Day also need to be counted—the early ballots dropped off on Election Day account for about 275,000 of the roughly 400,000 outstanding ballots, County Supervisor Bill Gates (R) said Wednesday.

Early votes in Arizona tend to strongly favor Democrats, while Republicans typically perform better in Election Day votes.

Nevada's outstanding vote is largely in highly populated Clark County, which is home to Las Vegas and slightly favors Democrats, and many of the votes that remain to be counted are from ballots that were mailed in or left in drop boxes, which usually skew Democratic.

What To Watch For

Maricopa County is expected to update vote totals at 6 p.m. Mountain time Wednesday, though it could take several more days to process all the ballots. It's unclear when Clark County will release more results, but Registrar of Voters Joe Gloria said at a news conference it could take until next Thursday (November 17) to count all the votes.

Key Background

The Arizona and Nevada Senate races are two of the three key contests that the Associated Press still hasn’t projected a winner in—the other being Georgia's race between Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) and Herschel Walker (R), which will be determined by a runoff next month. Both parties need to win at least two of the contests to take control of the Senate. The midterms have largely been seen as a disappointment for Republicans given predictions for a massive "red wave" that would decisively hand the GOP control of both the House and the Senate. So far Republicans have failed to flip a single Senate seat held by a Democrat, and while they're on track to win the House, it will likely be by a far smaller margin than they had hoped. Republicans have also failed to win any of the most competitive gubernatorial races so far, falling short in even traditionally ruby red states like Kansas.

Tangent

President Donald Trump and some of his supporters have made unfounded claims that fraud is contributing to the poor Republican performance. Lake, who made Trump's false 2020 fraud claims a front-and-center issue during her campaign, has also suggested—without evidence—there may have been an effort to suppress the Republican vote in Arizona.

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