Closely watched Senate races still uncalled as Dems stack wins in House
By Tierney Sneed, Lex Harvey, Taylor Romine, John Fritze, Catherine Nicholls, Aaron Blake, Jeremy Herb, Hanna Park, Sylvie Zhuang, Curt Merrill ·
• Blaming the war: President Donald Trump said it was “largely true” the Iran war contributed to the GOP shellacking, echoing Vice President JD Vance. Many Republican lawmakers and allies are moving swiftly to pin blame on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and the House could vote as soon as next week to impeach the Pentagon’s chief.
• New oversight: Senate Democrats have issued document preservation letters ahead of expected investigations into the Trump administration. And the Department of Homeland Security is bracing for an onslaught of congressional oversight efforts, according to current and former officials.
• What we’re tracking: CNN projects that Democrats will win at least 245 House seats. In the Senate, two contests have not yet been called: CNN Sightline rates the Mississippi race as neutral and Alaska as favoring the Democrat.
Democrats have already clinched the House, according to CNN projections, but with dozens of races still uncalled, the final size of their majority is an open question — and a handful of contests are worth watching closely as the counting grinds on.
CNN’s Shikha Subramaniam contributed to this report.
China kept a watchful eye as President Donald Trump received a drubbing in the midterms.
Publicly, Beijing remains cautious and tight-lipped as any conclusion would be too soon to draw.
The only official response has been from China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning, who was quick to call the midterms “an internal matter for the United States.” She reiterated that China is ready to work with the US to build a constructive and stable bilateral relationship, a consensus reached by Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Trump during their May summit.
Beijing understands that even though the Democrats have taken back the both chambers of Congress, a lame duck Trump is still powerful when it comes to trade and foreign policy.
A fragile trade truce between the world’s two biggest economies will expire in January – and some analysts say that a Trump administration no longer concerned about Chinese countermeasures’ impact on elections may become more willing to play hard ball during future negotiations.
With the Republicans’ resounding defeat widely viewed as a rebuke to Trump, some GOP members of Congress may also be less fearful of crossing him and taking a tougher stance on China if Trump continues to laud Xi and take a perceived soft approach to Beijing.
Beijing is also preparing to host the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in less than two weeks in its high-tech hub Shenzhen, where Xi is ready to showcase a stronger China and welcome a slew of leaders.
There, Xi is expected to meet Trump for the third time this year – and the two men may hold a historic meeting with Russian President Vladmir Putin on the sidelines.
Last month, Trump said he was open to this idea. He told reporters: “We would have it to talk about nuclear weapons and denuclearization,” adding, “I’m sure we’d talk about other things like trade too.”
The contest between Republican incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan and Democratic former Rep. Mary Peltola remains unresolved, and a winner may not be known for weeks – a delay election officials stress is routine for Alaska.
Peltola led Sullivan by just over 600 votes by the end of Wednesday, with an estimated 75% of the vote counted. The race remained uncalled, though CNN Sightline favored Peltola, whose victory would give Democrats another pickup amid their sweeping midterm gains.
Geography helps explain the wait. The state is vast, and some ballots from far-flung communities must be flown in to be counted. Because of that remoteness, Alaska allows absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day to arrive within 10 days after the election if mailed from within the US, or 15 days if mailed from overseas.
Ranked-choice voting could add another step. If no candidate receives more than 50% of first-choice votes, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated. Those ballots transfer to each voter’s next-ranked candidate still in the race. The process continues until a candidate has a majority of the votes. Alaska waits until the 15-day ballot-receipt deadline has passed before conducting that tabulation.
Alaska’s Senate race has already been overshadowed by controversy over how a second Dan Sullivan ended up on the ballot, which has sparked lawsuits, criminal investigations and threats to block certification of the election if the incumbent is defeated.
Only a trickle of votes had come in for Daniel J. Sullivan, a retired teacher, by the end of Wednesday.
Votes are still being tallied in Mississippi, where the Senate contest between Democrat Scott Colom and Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith has turned into the nail-biter of the midterms.
Colom was leading by just over 1,000 votes as of midnight, with about 96% of the ballots in. While the race is still too close to call, it’s another sign of the midterms’ seismic shift toward Democrats, even in deep-red territory.
The race is expected to come down to the roughly 15,000 provisional ballots — known as affidavit ballots. Voter advocates and legal observers expect it could take until next week, at the earliest, before we know how many of those ballots will go into the final count.
One reason a person in Mississippi would have to vote provisionally is a lack of photo ID. Those voters will see their ballots counted if they provide the required ID in five business days – or by November 10.
Another reason a voter may have to submit an affidavit ballots is they are not in the pollbook, something that could happen if the voter was tagged as inactive.
Voter advocates believe this could be a large portion of affidavit ballots because of new protocols the state to clean its voter rolls, which resulted in some voters being incorrectly tagged as inactive.
A final potential category of disputed ballots could be affidavit ballots cast by people who submitted registration forms, but were not registered because of incomplete forms.
State law requires that clerks try to reach out to the registrant missing that information to complete their registrations, but officials’ willingness to do so varies county by county, Merchant said.
As both parties digest election results, Democrats are already moving to reshape Washington’s agenda by outlining investigations and promising action on affordability, while Republicans confront divisions over the Iran war and responsibility for their losses.
Results continue to trickle in, with several Democrats flipping House seats across the country and a flip for the GOP last night.
But there are no final results yet in Mississippi’s Senate race, which could come down to roughly 15,000 provisional ballots pending verification, according to Democrat Scott Colom’s campaign.
In Alaska, a result in the controversial contest between Republican incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan and Democratic former Rep. Mary Peltola may not be known for weeks – a delay election officials stress is routine for Alaska.
Here’s what else is going on in the elections space:
CNN’s Aditi Sangal, Tori B. Powell, Elise Hammond, Katherine Koretski, Arpita Dasika and Aaron Blake contributed to this report.
CNN’s Jake Tapper explores whether the MAGA/Trump era is coming to a close after the Democrats won control of the Senate and the House of Representatives.
After the Democrats won control of the Senate and the House of Representatives in the midterm elections, CNN's Jake Tapper explores whether the MAGA/Trump era is coming to a close.
Originally published by CNN