What you need to know as states count votes and key races are at stake
Key races to determine Senate control in Arizona and Nevada have yet to be decided, as both states vie to count hundreds of thousands of ballots yet to be processed.
It could still be hours, if not days, before enough votes are counted in those states to determine who has won the Senate. There are also many contested congressional races that will determine what the House looks like when the new Congress convenes.
The unofficial results, and lingering uncertainty about who will control Congress next year, have not prevented Republican apprehension over the election results, where an expected “red” wave never materialized.
Here’s what you should know as the countdown continues:
Here’s how things are in Arizona and Nevada, and why it takes so long to count ballots
The main reason for the delay is the way each state handles ballots other than those cast at polling places on Election Day, including early ballots and mail.
In Arizona, for example, some 600,000 ballots remain to be counted. Most of them, about 400,000 ballots, are in Maricopa County, the most populous county in the state that includes Phoenix.
Of those ballots, about 290,000 were delivered to polling places on Election Day, Bill Gates, chairman of the Maricopa County Board of Governors, told CNN Thursday. Such ballots must be processed before they can be tallied, resulting in a delay in tabulation.
Additionally, the county has approximately 17,000 ballots that attempted to be counted on Election Day but were not read by the tabulator due to a printer error, and those ballots also need to be counted.
In Nevada, state law permits mail-in ballots to be received through Saturday, as long as they are postmarked by Election Day. This means that counties are still getting the ballot count.
Clark County, the largest in the state that includes Las Vegas, received more than 12,000 postmarked cards from the Post Office Wednesday, Clark County Recorder Joe Gloria said.
Additionally, Nevada counties have tens of thousands of mailed ballots that were deposited on Election Day in mailboxes located at polling stations. Clark County said Election Day mailboxes held nearly 57,000 mail-in ballots.
Trump versus DeSantis
The lackluster performance of several candidates backed by former President Donald Trump has cast fresh doubt on his planned 2024 campaign.
At the same time, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ resounding reelection win is fueling calls to seize the day and challenge Trump for the 2024 nomination.
The Trump-DeSantis meeting has been simmering for months, but it could come to a head when the primaries officially begin.
After the “red wave” subsides, McCarthy faces a tougher road
Republicans are still closing in on a majority in the House, even after Democrats had a better-than-expected night on Tuesday.
House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy is moving fast to secure the votes needed to reclaim the speaker’s gavel in the next Congress. CNN has yet to screen a Republican camera shot.
But the size, if any, of a Republican majority could determine how difficult it will be for McCarty to become president, as a slim majority could see the pro-Trump House Freedom Caucus hamper McCarthy’s leadership ambitions. .
A source familiar with the House Freedom Caucus’s deliberations told CNN Wednesday morning that there are about two dozen current and new members willing to vote against McCarthy if he doesn’t offer them concessions.
Ellie Kaufmann, Bob Ortega, Gary Tuchman, Paul Vercammen, Kristen Holmes, Gabby Orr, Manu Raju and Melanie Zanona of CNN contributed to this report.
