The Georgia Senate Race Absolutely Still Matters

The Democrats have officially kept control of the Senate, but voters still shouldn’t take their eyes off Georgia’s runoff race.

Democrats hold 50 seats after Catherine Cortez Masto and Mark Kelly won their races in Nevada and Arizona, respectively, over the weekend. Vice President Kamala Harris would act as the tiebreaker vote.

Incumbent Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock faces off against ultra-conservative Herschel Walker in a December 6 runoff race for one of Georgia’s Senate seats. Although some pressure has been lifted from Warnock, as his victory is no longer necessary for a majority, winning would still be a huge boon to his party.

David Nir, the political director for Daily Kos, pointed out that the Georgia race still matters “immensely.”

Not only would the extra seat eliminate the unspoken power-sharing agreement between Senate Republicans and Democrats, Nir noted that it would also take power away from senators such as Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, both of whom held up major spending and climate bills.

It would also give Democrats the majority on Senate committees. All committee memberships are currently split evenly between the two parties, resulting in many committee votes dying in ties.

A 51-seat majority would give Democrats full control of the committees giving them the power to approve moves such as judicial nominations without having to persuade Republicans to their side or wait for Harris to weigh in.

Communications strategist Doug Gordon also said that 51 seats would mean fewer seats will need to be defended or flipped during the next election cycle in 2024 to keep the majority.

Also, he added, “Walker has no business being a senator.”

The long-predicted “red wave” died down to a slow trickle on Election Day, though it has still been a tooth-and-nail fight to the majority. Cortez Masto only just eked out her win, and the House of Representatives is still up for grabs, almost a week later.

Warnock, Georgia’s first Black senator, was elected to Congress alongside fellow Democrat Jon Ossoff in January 2021 runoff elections, a major victory for Democrats in the historically red state.

But despite the state’s recent history of leaning Democratic, he and Walker were locked in a dead heat for almost the entire 2022 race. Walker, a former NFL player, enjoyed widespread Republican support despite lying about his academic record and being accused by two women of pressuring and paying for them to get abortions.

The pair will now enter a four-week campaigning blitz ahead of the second vote.

Former Vice President Mike Pence called then-President Donald Trump “reckless” with his response to the January 6 riot, saying Trump “endangered me and my family and everyone at the Capitol building.”

Pence’s comments came during an interview Sunday night with ABC’s David Muir, just two days before Trump is expected to announce his 2024 bid for president.

Trump had been incensed at Pence, who oversaw Congress’s certification of Electoral College results, for not going along with his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. While Pence and other officials were barricaded inside the Capitol on January 6, Trump tweeted, “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should’ve been done.”

On the tweet, Pence said: “It angered me, but I turned to my daughter, who was standing nearby, and I said, ‘It doesn’t take courage to break the law. It takes courage to uphold the law.’”

Pence’s comments are part of a longer series of attempts to both express his disapproval for Trump yet still maintain favor with the party.

Last week, Pence penned an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal recounting the chaotic aftermath of the 2020 election. In it, he described his repeated attempts to follow constitutional order in not overturning election results, and yet still in a charming conclusion he tells Trump, “I’m also never gonna stop praying for you.”

And Trump, Pence writes, smiles right back, saying “That’s right—don’t ever change.”

The heartwarming moment came after Trump leveled threats toward Pence and incited a riot of insurrectionists who sought to hang the former vice president.

Pence’s piece came from his forthcoming memoir, set to be released on Tuesday. In the memoir, Pence also attacks Trump on his handling of the 2017 neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville, the investigations into Russian election interference, and both instances when Trump faced impeachment.

Also on Tuesday, Trump is expected to announce his third consecutive bid for the presidency.

Trump will likely continue with his announcement, in spite—or perhaps especially because—of Pence’s press tour and a broader party establishment raring to get rid of the former president after a disappointing midterm showing.

Though Trump-endorsed candidates fared poorly in the midterms, he still commands popularity among a broad swath of the Republican electorate. With Pence’s comments coming on the brink of Trump’s announcement—while Ron DeSantis enjoys large favor with the party establishment—the race for 2024 has officially begun.

Control of the House of Representatives was still up for grabs Monday, although the Democrats’ path to victory has narrowed significantly.

The New York Times showed Democrats holding 204 seats, while the Republicans had 212. A party needs 218 seats for a majority. There are still 19 uncalled races.

The Senate stayed in Democratic control after Mark Kelly and Catherine Cortez Masto won their races in Arizona and Nevada, respectively, over the weekend. With 50 Democratic senators, Vice President Kamala Harris can be the tie-breaking vote. Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker will face off for the Georgia senator position in a December runoff.

Christopher Bouzy, the founder of anti-hate research organization Bot Sentinel, said he was “confident” the Democrats could get to 216 seats as more races in California, Arkansas, Maine, and Oregon are called.

He explained on Twitter he was optimistic that Democrats could also win in a few other tight races, including against Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert, and secure the needed 218 seats.

Bouzy also noted that Democrats have already pulled off a major upset, after analysts predicted for weeks there would be a “red wave” that saw Republicans take back both houses of Congress.

Instead, Democrats kept control of the Senate, and the House races are coming down to the wire.

If Democrats don’t win the needed remaining races, Republicans will have a slim majority of just a few seats.

The left was able to win by running on both “pocketbook” and social issues, galvanizing a record voter turnout—particularly among women and young people—that saw the red wave dry up to a trickle.

President Biden, who had warned repeatedly that “democracy is on the ballot” during the midterm elections, also hailed the wins.

“We lost fewer seats in the House of Representatives than any Democratic president’s first midterm election in at least 40 years. And we had the best midterms for Governors since 1986,” he tweeted after Election Day.

“The American people spoke.”

However, he expressed concerns it wouldn’t be enough. “I think we’re going to get very close in the House. I think it’s going to be very close, but I don’t think we’re going to make it,” he told reporters Monday on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Indonesia.

Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto was reelected Nevada senator on Tuesday in a tight race against MAGA Republican Adam Laxalt, according to a projection from NBC News.

Cortez Masto leads Laxalt 48.7 percent to 48.2 percent, with 96 percent reporting.

With Cortez Masto’s victory in Nevada, Democrats will have 50 seats and maintain control in the Senate, as Vice President Kamala Harris can cast the tie-breaking vote.

Nevada is a swing state that went for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election and Joe Biden in 2020. But analysts have been warning for weeks that Democrats have taken the state’s Latino vote for granted and risked losing the crucial demographic during the midterms.

Cortez Masto, who in 2016 became the first Latina elected to Senate, specifically targeted Latina voters during her campaign. She focused on issues such as abortion access, affordable housing, and childcare.

She also sought to reach out to Latino small-business owners, to ensure they did not feel forgotten by Washington lawmakers.

Laxalt, however, was confident that he could draw the Latino vote away from the Democrats.

A descendant of Washington institution Republicans—his grandfather was once called Ronald Reagan’s “first friend”—Laxalt has veered sharply right from his family tree.

A former Nevada attorney general, Laxalt co-chaired Donald Trump’s campaign in the state and is now positioned to take up the former president’s ideological mantle.

He has complained against “wokeness” and pushed multiple conspiracy theories, including the Big Lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. After announcing his Senate campaign in late 2021, Laxalt pushed for an audit of the 2020 results in Douglas County, a rural county in Nevada’s northwest.

In October, 14 of his relatives endorsed Cortez Masto, though Laxalt pointed out that most of them were already registered Democrats.

This article has been updated.

Mega-conspiracy theorist and MAGA Republican Mark Finchem lost the race for Arizona secretary of state, according to a projection from the Associated Press.

Democratic Adrian Fontes leads Finchem 52.8 percent to 47.2 percent, with 83 percent of votes counted. The former Maricopa County recorder and U.S. Marine will control the certification of election results in a crucial swing state.

Finchem ran an unusual campaign, with almost no paid advertising, public events, or media appearances, and with only one aide. Instead, he opted to ride the popularity of other more prominent right-wingers such as Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake. The Republican, whose signature look includes a cowboy hat, campaigned under the slogan “Just Follow the Law”—but he seemed pretty intent on breaking it.

A 2020 election denier, Finchem was photographed in the mob outside the Capitol on January 6. He has denied going into the building but says he would not have certified the results that year and has hinted he might reject Democratic victories in the future. He had expressed deep distrust of vote-counting machines and could force counties to count the votes by hand, which experts say is slower and less accurate. He can also change rules on where to set up voting booths and work with the state government to restrict early and mail-in voting.

Finchem also expressed support for the groups of people who showed up, sometimes armed, at early voting stations in Arizona. They said they were watching for voter fraud, but many accused them of voter intimidation, as they would take photos of people dropping off their ballots and sometimes follow voters.

As if that weren’t dangerous enough, Finchem has embraced some conspiracy theories that even his fellow MAGA Republicans won’t touch. He has said he is a member of the Oath Keepers and has accused former Vice President Mike Pence of plotting both a coup to topple Trump and to steal the presidency in 2024.