by Tim Reid and Joseph Ax
PHOENIX, Ariz. (Reuters) – Three days after the U.S. midterm elections, suspense remains over the outcome of votes in Arizona and Nevada, potentially decisive for control of the Senate, two states where the vote counting process newsletters could take several more days.
Both the Democrats and the Republicans can win a majority in the upper house of Congress if they manage to win the two seats of senators running in these two states. In the event of a draw, the decisive seat would be awarded to Georgia, in a second round on December 6.
Democrats weren’t swept away Tuesday by the Republican “red wave” that some were promising and they still hope to retain control of the Senate.
In the House of Representatives, the Republicans are getting closer to their goal of regaining a majority. According to projections from Edison Research published Thursday evening, they had obtained with certainty at least 211 of the 218 seats necessary to secure a majority, while the Democrats were at 197, not counting two duels opposing two Democratic candidates. It remains to know the results in 27 constituencies, some of which promise to be tight.
House Republican Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has already announced his intention to run for Speaker if the Republicans win, an outcome he described as inevitable .
President Joe Biden, who spoke with McCarthy on Thursday, however, said he was not giving up hope of a Democratic victory in the House.
“WE DO WHAT WE CAN”
For the Senate, where both congressional camps have so far held 50 seats each, with the majority of the presidential camp secured only by the vote of Vice President Kamala Harris, election officials from Arizona and Nevada warn that it will take them several more days, possibly until next week, to complete counting the mail-in ballots.
Their work is slowed down by the need to verify that the signature on the ballot corresponds to that on the voting records.
A polling official in one of Arizona’s most populous counties said Thursday counting workers still had 400,000 ballots to process.
“We go to work Friday, Saturday, Sunday. The staff works 14 to 18 hours a day. We do what we can,” said Bill Gates, chairman of the Maricopa County Election Supervisory Board.
These midterm elections were marked by the defeats of candidates sponsored by Donald Trump in emblematic duels, prompting Republicans to publicly distance themselves from the former president.
The ballot, on the other hand, confirmed the hypothesis that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who crushed his Democratic opponent on Tuesday, challenge Donald Trump for the Republican primary for the 2024 presidential election.
Donald Trump has not officially announced his candidacy but has strongly hinted that he is preparing to do so, referring to a “big announcement” Tuesday at his Florida residence in Mar-a-Lago.
In a statement Thursday, the former president slammed DeSantis, taking credit for the governor’s political rise.
(Reporting Tim Reid in Phoenix and Joseph Ax and Makini Brice in Washington; French version Jean-Stéphane Brosse, editing by Marc Angrand)