Live midterm election results: Key U.S. Senate races

On Nov 27, 2022

As Democrats and Republicans battle for control of Congress, every seat in the U.S. Senate matters. Following the 2020 election, each party has held 50 seats, but the Democrats have enjoyed a slight edge because the vice president – in this case, Kamala Harris – casts any tie-breaking vote.

In 2022, a total of 35 Senate seats are up for election – 12 of those held by Democrats, and 23 held by Republicans.

As of Saturday night, after a slow ballot count in Nevada, Catherine Cortez Masto’s victory sealed a continued majority control for the Democats. One seat, though, is still in play as Georgia’s Senate race is headed to a runoff election. But even if Georgia’s seat flips red, Vice President Kamala Harris will continue to hold the tiebreaking vote.

Live U.S. Senate race results

Here’s a look at how some key races are turning out. Tap or click on a state for a detailed race breakdown:

Alaska: Republican wins, but still unclear who

Exactly who’ll win Alaska’s U.S. Senate contest isn’t clear, but it will be a Republican. Trump-backed Kelly Tshibaka and Republican incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski are in a tight race with neither on track to win more than 50% of the vote. And in Alaska, that means the race will proceed to ranked-choice voting later this month.

In Alaska, the top four finishers in the primary advance to the general election, where ballots are counted in rounds. A candidate can win outright with more than 50% of the vote in the first round. But if no candidate hits that threshold, the race moves on to ranked-choice voting.

In that process, the candidate with the fewest votes in the initial count of votes is eliminated, and voters who chose that candidate as their top pick have their vote replaced with their second-choice pick. These elimination rounds continue until two candidates remain, and whoever has the most votes at the end wins.

Those ranked-choice tabulation rounds are expected to take place on Nov. 23.

The race also included Democrat Pat Chesbro and Republican Buzz Kelley, who ended his campaign in September and supported Tshibaka.

It’s clear from the vote count they will be eliminated in the ranked-choice process, leaving Tshibaka and Murkowski as the two finalists. And as both Tshibaka and Murkowski are Republicans, that means it’s also clear the GOP will hold that seat in the next Congress.

The Associated Press has not declared either Tshibaka and Murkowski the winner. But AP has also concluded that one or the other will end up as the winner.

Murkowski has held the seat since late 2002 and is the most senior member of Alaska’s congressional delegation. She voted to impeach Trump and opposed the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court. Murkowski said the race is about “who can best deliver for Alaska.”

Trump endorsed Tshibaka and traveled to Alaska to rally for her in July. Tsibaka is a former commissioner of the Alaska Department of Administration.

Arizona: Sen. Mark Kelly (D) wins

Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly won his bid for reelection Friday in the crucial swing state of Arizona, defeating Republican venture capitalist Blake Masters to put his party one victory away from clinching control of the chamber for the next two years of Joe Biden’s presidency.

With Vice President Kamala Harris’ tiebreaking vote, Democrats can retain control of the Senate by winning either the Nevada race, which remains too early to call, or next month’s runoff in Georgia.Republicans now must win both those races to take the majority.

The Arizona race is one of a handful of contests that Republicans targeted in their bid to take control of the 50-50 Senate. It was a test of the inroads that Kelly and other Democrats have made in a state once reliably dominated by the GOP. Kelly’s victory suggests Democratic success in Arizona was not an aberration during Donald Trump’s presidency.

Kelly, a former NASA astronaut who’s flown in space four times, is married to former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords, who inspired the nation with her recovery from a gunshot wound to the head during an assassination attempt in 2011 that killed six people and injured 13. Kelly and Giffords went on to co-found a gun safety advocacy group.

Kelly and Giffords were at an Elton John concert in Phoenix on Friday night when The Associated Press called the race, campaign spokesperson Sarah Guggenheimer said. Maricopa County reported a large batch of results that increased Kelly’s lead and made clear Masters could not make up the difference with the remaining ballots.

“It’s been one of the great honors of my life to serve as Arizona’s Senator,” Kelly said in a statement. “I’m humbled by the trust our state has placed in me to continue this work.”

Kelly’s victory in a 2020 special election spurred by the death of Republican Sen. John McCain gave Democrats both of Arizona’s Senate seats for the first time in 70 years. The shift was propelled by the state’s fast-changing demographics and the unpopularity of Trump.

Colorado: Michael Bennet (D) wins

Democrat Michael Bennet won reelection to the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, besting Republican businessman and first-time challenger Joe O’Dea.

Bennet won his third race on his pledge to protect abortion rights, an indication of how important the issue is to the blue-leaning state of Colorado. O’Dea was the rare Republican to support Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion rights ruling that conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court overturned this summer. But that didn’t help him.

Bennet’s campaign hammered O’Dea on his opposition to abortions late in pregnancy and on his support for the very GOP-appointed justices who overturned Roe.

Bennet and his backers dramatically outspent the novice candidate on the airwaves, while O’Dea only got rhetorical support from Senate Republicans in Washington, who never sent significant financial resources his way.

Florida: Marco Rubio (R) wins

Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio has won a third term, defeating U.S. Rep. Val Demings and holding a key seat as the GOP tried to regain control of a closely divided Senate.

Rubio, 51, faced perhaps his toughest battle since he was first elected in 2010 after serving as the Florida House speaker. Once a presidential hopeful in 2016, Rubio’s name is less often mentioned as a potential 2024 candidate.

Rubio ran a campaign pulled from the Republican playbook, tying Demings to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and President Joe Biden and hammering her on issues like spending, rising inflation and a crisis at the southern border.

The Republican was helped by shifting voter registration numbers in Florida. The last time Rubio ran for reelection, Democrats had about 327,000 more registered voters than Republicans. That has since flipped, with the GOP now having a nearly 300,000 advantage over Democrats.

Demings, 65, outraised Rubio and built a national profile by playing a prominent role in then-President Donald Trump’s first impeachment and being on then-candidate Biden’s list of potential running mates. But it wasn’t enough.

Much of her criticism of Rubio centered on a poor attendance record, his backing of a national abortion ban and questioning his honesty. She accused him of lying about her record and using GOP buzzwords like “socialist” and “radical” to condemn her.

Demings is finishing her third term in the U.S. House, but focused most of her campaign on her career in law enforcement, which included serving as Orlando’s first female police chief.

Rubio had relatively easy paths to his first two Senate victories, winning a three-way race in 2010 when sitting Republican Gov. Charlie Crist ran as an independent and peeled away votes from Democratic U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek. Rubio then defeated U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy in 2016 by nearly 8 percentage points.

Georgia: Warnock (D), Walker (R) headed to runoff

The U.S. Senate race in Georgia between Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker is headed to a Dec. 6 runoff.

As of noon Wednesday with 100% of precincts reporting, Warnock received 49.42% of the vote and Walker received 48.52% of the vote. Georgia requires a majority to win statewide office.

Walker, a celebrity athlete turned politician, offered his supporters an optimistic view at his campaign’s election night party in suburban Atlanta.

“I don’t come to lose,” Walker said during his brief remarks.

Warnock, a Baptist pastor, spoke to supporters later in the night before all precincts had reported election results. He ended his address by saying, “keep the faith and keep looking up.”

“I understand that at this late hour you may be a little tired,” the senator continued, “but whether it’s later tonight or tomorrow or four weeks from now, we will hear from the people of Georgia.”

A runoff campaign would be a four-week blitz that, depending on the outcomes in…