Democrats keep Senate as control of House remains undecided

Our live coverage of the 2022 midterm elections has moved. You can follow the latest news and results here.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina tweeted Sunday that the GOP should delay leadership elections in the Senate until after the runoff in Georgia next month.

CNN has reported Senate GOP leaders plan to hold leadership elections on Wednesday, with leaders arguing that the elections follow a similar timetable as 2020 when two Georgia Senate races headed to runoffs.

GOP Sen. Rick Scott, the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, called for a delay of the elections earlier Sunday, saying, it “doesn’t make any sense” to have them this week.

Scott also said “a lot of people” have asked him to run for minority leader. 

While Mitch McConnell is widely expected to easily win the top spot again, making him the longest Senate party leader in history, he is facing some dissension in the ranks. That includes a campaign against his candidacy by former President Donald Trump.

Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer is seen in Happy Valley, Oregon, in September.

Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer will defeat Democrat Jamie McLeod-Skinner in Oregon’s 5th Congressional District, CNN projects, becoming the first Latino person elected to Congress from the state.  

Chavez-DeRemer ran as a businesswoman and former budget-balancing mayor of Happy Valley, appealing to voters’ discontent with rising prices, crime and the Biden administration. She attacked McLeod-Skinner, a liberal attorney, as a California expat – she previously served on the Santa Clara City Council – with far-left views on environmental and police policy.  

McLeod-Skinner, in turn, attacked her opponent as a “multi-millionaire” and an “extremist.” She said the Republican wouldn’t tackle inflation and accused her of not acknowledging that President Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 election and of backing restrictions on abortion rights after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. 

In the Democratic primary, McLeod-Skinner defeated Rep. Kurt Schrader, a member of the fiscally conservative Blue Dog Coalition who saw his district, which now stretches south from the Portland suburbs to Bend, drastically change in the redistricting process. 

In the general election, McLeod-Skinner tried to refute GOP charges that she would support defunding the police, airing an ad featuring a former Bend chief of police vouching for her. But Republican attacks on the Democrat, particularly on inflation, homelessness and crime, ultimately proved effective.

Election workers process ballots at Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center on November 13, in Phoenix.

The high-profile Arizona governor’s race remains too early to call Sunday evening after Maricopa County released more unofficial results.

Democrat Katie Hobbs led Republican Kari Lake by 1 percentage point – 50.5% to 49.5% – as of Sunday evening. CNN has not made a projection in the race.

Maricopa County election officials estimate that the count in the state’s largest county is now 94% complete and that there are about 85,000 to 95,000 ballots remaining. The Elections Department expects to release more unofficial results Monday evening.

Republican Doug Mastriano speaks in Erie, Pennsylvania, in September.

Republican Doug Mastriano, a leading voice advancing former President Donald Trump’s lies about 2020 election fraud, has conceded his race for Pennsylvania governor to his Democratic opponent.

“Difficult to accept as the results are, there is no right course but to concede, which I do, and I look to the challenges ahead,” Mastriano wrote in a statement sent Sunday afternoon. “Josh Shapiro will be our next Governor, and I ask everyone to give him the opportunity to lead and pray that he leads well.”

Shaprio, Pennsylvania’s attorney general, will succeed term-limited Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, CNN has projected.   

Earlier Sunday, Shapiro was asked by CNN’s Dana Bash if Mastriano had ever called him to concede the race.

“Who cares if he calls, right?” Shapiro said on “State of the Union.”   

“He doesn’t get to pick the winner, the people pick the winner, and in a resounding way they made clear that they wanted me to lead this commonwealth forward.”

Mastriano has been one of the most well-known and extreme GOP election deniers. As a state senator, he has pushed false claims about mass voter fraud in 2020 and worked to try to reverse the results of the last presidential contest.

The battle for control of the House is now the biggest unanswered question of this year’s midterm elections after Democrats kept their narrow Senate majority.

Which party reaches the 218 seats necessary for a House majority will hinge on races in states with a large share of mail-in ballots — including California, where identifying winners in some races could take weeks, Oregon and Arizona.

Another high-profile contest remains too close to call: The Arizona governor’s race. Republican Kari Lake, the Donald Trump-supported election denier, is facing Democratic secretary of state Katie Hobbs, a defender of the state’s election process.

Democratic upset keeps narrow House majority hopes alive

Republicans appear to be slowly inching toward a slim majority, but Democrats’ hopes have not yet fully faded.

Republicans have won 211 of the 218 seats they’d need to take the majority, according to CNN projections, while Democrats have won 204, with 20 undecided as of Saturday evening.

Democrats scored a major victory in Washington’s Republican-leaning 3rd District, where on Saturday CNN projected that Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez would defeat Republican Joe Kent, who had aligned himself closely with former President Donald Trump.

Many of the other undecided races are in California, where counting mail-in ballots can take weeks and significant shifts can occur late in that process. Other states with large quantities of mail-in ballots, including Arizona and Oregon, also have undecided races.

Arizona governor’s race still undecided

The Arizona governor’s race between Lake, one of the most prominent election deniers on the ballot this year, and Hobbs, remains tight, with Hobbs clinging to a 34,000 vote lead as of late Saturday with an estimated 290,000 votes to be counted.

If she wins, Lake would be a rare Trump-supported election denier to win a competitive statewide race this year.

In an interview with CNN Saturday afternoon, Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates said that about 190,000 votes remain to be counted in Maricopa County.

He said he was confident that about 95% to 99% of those votes will be recorded by Tuesday. He said the county will continue to report about 85,000 votes per night until they are done.

Other races to keep an eye on:

In Alaska, the state’s at-large House seat and one of its Senate seats will hinge on ranked-choice results.

Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola, who won a special election this summer, is in a strong position to eclipse the 50% mark. But Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski faces a stiffer challenge from Republican Kelly Tshibaka, who is backed by Trump as part of his bid for retribution against Murkowski and others who for his impeachment after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

And in Los Angeles, Rep. Karen Bass on Saturday widened her lead over developer Rick Caruso in the mayoral race.

If elected, Bass would become the first woman and the first Black woman to lead America’s second-largest city.

Sen. Raphael Warnock speaks during rapper Lil Baby's charity event at Morehouse College on November 13, in Atlanta.

Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock appealed to Georgians Sunday afternoon to vote in the upcoming runoff election, making an appearance during rapper Lil Baby’s Fall Festival and Charity Drive in Atlanta. 

Following his brief remarks on stage, Warnock spoke to media during a gaggle.

A reporter asked if his campaign message will change following the projected results in Nevada, which mean that his race will not determine whether Democrats control the Senate.

“Well, congratulations to my colleagues, but our message is the same,” Warnock said. “This election is about who’s ready, and who’s fit to serve the people of Georgia in the United States Senate. It’s a race about competence and about character. And on both of those scores, there is a world of difference between me and Herschel Walker.”

Remember: Neither Warnock nor his Republican challenger Walker surpassed the 50% threshold needed to win the race outright Tuesday evening, CNN projected, forcing a runoff election in December.

The Georgia runoff election is still really important to Democrats:

Although Democrats are already projected to win control of the Senate, CNN chief political Gloria Borger said the upcoming Dec. 6 Georgia runoff is still really important to the party.

GOP Sen. Rick Scott, who is the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, called for a delay in the Senate leadership election scheduled for Wednesday, saying it “doesn’t make any sense” to have them this week.

He added: “They want to rush through an election because they don’t want to do any assessment of what we’ve done wrong. Insanity is doing the exact same thing and thinking you’re gonna get different results. We won’t.”

Scott also said “a lot of people” have asked him to run for minority leader. 

“A lot of people have called me to see if I’ll run,” Scott said. “Here’s my focus, is: We still got to win Georgia. I’m not going to take anything off the table.”

Some background: Several Republican senators in addition to Scott are calling for a delay in next week’s Senate GOP leadership elections, arguing the party needs to regroup after lackluster midterm results and with a Georgia runoff still underway.

While Mitch McConnell is widely expected to easily win the top spot again, making him the longest Senate party leader in history, he is facing some dissension in the ranks. That includes a campaign against his candidacy by former President Donald Trump.

Several candidates made historic runs this midterm cycle and CNN projects that many will win their respective races.

In New York and Arkansas, Democrat Kathy Hochul and Republican Sarah Huckabee Sanders will be the first elected female governors in their respective states.

In Alabama, Republican Katie Britt will be the first woman elected to serve as a senator.

In Maryland, Democrat Wes Moore will be the first elected Black governor in the state.

In Oklahoma, Republican Markwayne Mullin will be the first Native American senator from the state in 100 years.

In Ohio, Rep. Marcy Katpur will become the longest-serving woman in congressional history, once she’s sworn in next year.

View more history-making candidates here:

Correction: An earlier version of this post included the wrong political office for Katie Britt. She is the projected winner of Alabama’s Senate race.

Former president Donald Trump arrives to speak at Mar-a-lago on November 8, in Palm Beach, Florida.

Trump adviser Jason Miller said in a podcast appearance that the former president will announce his 2024 presidential campaign at an event Tuesday.

Speaking on Steve Bannon’s podcast Friday, Miller added that the announcement would be “very professional, very buttoned up,” and that Trump’s team ran through the logistics on Friday of last week.

Some advisers continue to try and persuade the former president to hold off on any sort of announcement, but most acknowledge their pleas aren’t likely to have an impact on Trump’s decision. 

Amid backlash over lackluster midterm results and poor performances by many Trump-endorsed candidates, Trump has recently reminded those around him that Republicans and some conservative media turned their backs on him in 2016 and he still won.

However, many are concerned he doesn’t have the same magnetism that swept him into the White House six years ago, particularly as he continues to focus on promoting conspiracies around elections, a strategy that largely fizzled last Tuesday. 

It remains unclear who will be in attendance at Tuesday’s event. Some of Trump’s biggest supporters like Reps. Elise Stefanik, Matt Gaetz and Jim Banks will be wrapped up in their own House leadership elections in Washington that day.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, speaks during a news conference in Washington, DC, on Sunday, November 13.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, dodged a question Sunday on whether the caucus would support House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for a leadership position in the new Congress, as well as a question about her own political future.

Asked about her political future, Jayapal side-stepped the question.

“I am so basking in the power of the progressive caucus,” she said with a laugh.

She was later asked whether she planned to stay chair of the caucus.

“I’m basking in what the progressive movement has done and what we can do,” she said.

On priorities for the caucus during the lame duck session, Jayapal said the group will hold an executive board meeting Monday to decide primary goals, but she cited the debt limit, child tax credit and the DREAM Act among top issues.

The latest midterm results show that voters in crucial battleground states rejected secretary of state candidates who have denied the 2020 election results and had pledged to overhaul voting procedures in their states ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

Here are the results from several of those races:

One secretary of state candidate in the America First coalition did succeed. CNN projected that Republican Diego Morales won the race for secretary of state in Indiana. During the GOP primary, he disputed the legitimacy of the 2020 election.

The full breakdown from CNN’s Daniel Dale on how election deniers fared can be found here.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi holds a weekly news conference in Washington, DC, on September 30.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday she is waiting to decide about her next steps in the new Congress, adding that while she’s not “asking anybody — people are campaigning” for her.

“What we want to do is go forward in a very unified way, as we go forward to prepare for the Congress at hand,” the California Democrat told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.”

“Nonetheless, a great deal is at stake because we’ll be in a presidential election… But none of it will be very much considered until we see what the outcome of all of this is. And there are all kinds of ways to exert influence,” she said.

When asked if she believes House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy has what it takes to be House speaker if Republicans win the chamber, Pelosi said she wants to see the results of the election first.

“Let’s just get through the election, OK? They haven’t won yet. They’ve been measuring the draperies, they’ve been putting forth an agenda. They haven’t won it yet. After the election is concluded, depending on who was in the majority, there’ll be judgments made within their own party, in our own parties, as to how we go forward,” Pelosi said. 

Pressed again on whether McCarthy “has it,” Pelosi said no.

“Why would I make a judgment about something that may or may not ever happen? No, I don’t think he has it,” she said. “But that’s up to his own people to make a decision as to how they want to be led or otherwise.”

Where the election stands: The battle for control of the House is now the biggest unanswered question of this year’s midterm elections after Democrats kept their narrow Senate majority. Republicans have won 211 of the 218 seats they’d need to take the majority, according to CNN projections, while Democrats have won 204, with 20 undecided as of Sunday morning. 

Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren raised warnings about the looming debt ceiling with a potentially split Congress in an interview Sunday with NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“Many new Republicans coming in are coming in with exactly one goal — get Donald Trump elected in 2024,” Warren continued. “They see if they can create chaos in the economy, then they think that may move Donald Trump one more inch toward election. So we’ve got to take that away from them, take care during the lame duck, take care of raising the debt limit or getting rid of it altogether.”

Warren previously addressed this issue in a Saturday op-ed with the New York Times, writing that “Democrats should fight back by making this lame-duck session of Congress the most productive in decades. We can start by lifting the debt ceiling now to block Republicans from taking our economy hostage next year.”

President Joe Biden said earlier this month that he does not support efforts to abolish the limit.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called on his Republican counterparts, on Sunday, to work with Democrats to “get things done for the American people” in the new Congress, listing the debt ceiling among key tasks to address in the coming weeks.

Remember: The debt ceiling is exactly what it sounds like — the maximum that the federal government is allowed to borrow.

Congress set one more than a century ago to curtail government borrowing. But instead of sticking to it, Congress has raised the limit every time it’s been hit, leading to sometimes-tense negotiations that can threaten the US economy.

Where things stand: CNN projects Democrats will hold on to a slim majority in the Senate, while Republicans appear to be inching toward a majority in the House.

Too many races remain outstanding to say for certain which party will control the lower chamber. Read more here.

Indiana Rep. Jim Banks, a Trump ally running for the position of House GOP whip should Republicans take control of the chamber, said Sunday that he supports Kevin McCarthy to be speaker of the House.

Banks also doubled down on Republicans’ commitment to conduct investigations into the Biden administration, despite what he called “a very disappointing outcome on election night.”

“That being said,” he added, “rank-and-file members want to be heard, and Leader McCarthy is working through that process with the rules changes. We’ll have our rules conference meeting where we vote on the rules in the middle of this upcoming week and that’ll be an opportunity to make some of those changes.”

The battle for control of the House is now the biggest unanswered question of this year’s midterm elections after Democrats kept their narrow Senate majority. Republicans have won 211 of the 218 seats they’d need to take the majority, according to CNN projections, while Democrats have won 204, with 20 undecided as of Sunday morning.

“Oversight is a primary function of the Congress, and for the last two years there has been no oversight of the Biden agenda and Biden administration, so that has to be a focal point of every single committee in the Congress, especially the House under Republican control with Republican chairmen and chairwomen,” he said.

Banks defended Trump when asked about his influence in the party, but he declined to say whether he would endorse Trump for president.

“I believe that Donald Trump was a very effective president for our country. I believe he could be a very effective president for our country again,” he said. “I’ll save my endorsement for another place and time for the 2024 race. I’m focused wholly on what happened on Tuesday and how our party moves forward on Capitol Hill.”

Gubernatorial candidate Josh Shapiro, former President Barack Obama, President Joe Biden and Senate candidate John Fetterman attend a rally on November 5, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Midterms are supposed to be the time for the opposition party to shine.

That should especially be the case when there is once-in-a-generation inflation and when the vast majority of Americans think the country is on the wrong track.

Instead, President Joe Biden and the Democrats are in position to have one of the four best midterms for the party controlling the White House in the last century.

So what just happened?

The GOP’s “candidate problem”

Analysts, myself included, noted that Republicans seemed to have a candidate likability problem. Pre-election polling showed Republicans in all the key races had negative net favorability ratings. Democrats were broadly better liked than their opponents.

Many of those Republicans were endorsed by former President Donald Trump and had falsely claimed — at least at one point — that they believed he won the 2020 election.

The exit polls bear out Republicans’ “candidate problem.” In every Senate race (save Georgia) that Inside Elections rated as a toss-up or only tilting toward a party before the election, more voters said the Republican candidate’s views were too extreme than said the same for the Democrat.

We see this in gubernatorial elections, as well. Republicans nominated 2020 election deniers for governor in a number of blue or swing states. None of them has been projected a winner, and only Republican Kari Lake of Arizona has any chance of winning.

Two presidents on the trail

On the national level, there are two presidents in the spotlight: the current one (Biden) and the former (Trump). Both men sported negative net favorable ratings, per the exit polls.

The fact that you have a current president and a former president who are both unpopular isn’t unusual.

What is unusual is that of the 18% who viewed neither Biden nor Trump favorably in the exit polls, 40% of them voted for Democrats. The backlash against one president this year may have been canceled out by the backlash against the other.

“Abortion first” voters

Arguably, what truly made this midterm unique was abortion. Despite high inflation, only 31% of voters in the exit poll said it was the most important issue to their vote. A nearly identical percentage (27%) said abortion, and these voters overwhelmingly chose Democratic candidates for Congress.

This matches the dynamic we saw in the special House elections following the overturning of Roe v. Wade in June. Democrats started doing considerably better than before the Supreme Court ruling.

Read more here.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan speaks during a press conference on November 10, in Annapolis, Maryland.

“Three strikes, you’re out,” said the outgoing Maryland GOP Gov. Larry Hogan Sunday morning, laying the blame on former president Donald Trump for the party’s lackluster showing in the 2022 midterms and the previous two major elections.

Hogan said it’s time to reassess what’s important to his party.

“It’s basically the third election in a row that Donald Trump has cost us the race,” Hogan said during an appearance on “State of the Union” with CNN’s Dana Bash.

“This should have been a huge red wave. It should have been one of the biggest red waves we’ve ever had,” Hogan continued.

But despite President Joe Biden’s low approval ratings, Hogan said his party, “still didn’t perform.”  

Hogan stressed the importance of Republicans going back to the drawing board to figure out how to capture more voters and “have a more hopeful, positive vision.” The governor said many midterm elections were lost due to independents and swing voters being turned off by republican messaging.  

Hogan said there’s no doubt that Trump’s looming “special announcement” this week — speculated as a potential launch for a 2024 presidential bid — could impact the Senate runoff race in Georgia.

But he added that he is still hopeful about the future of the Republican party, when discussing Gov. Ron DeSantis’ big win in Florida.

“We certainly had a great night the other night in Florida, it was a big win for Ron DeSantis,” Hogan said. “He is certainly one of the important voices for the party.”

Hogan dodged a question about running for president in 2024, saying, “I still have to do my day job until Jan. 18.”

Then the first Black governor-elect of Maryland, Democrat Wes Moore, takes over. 

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer speaks to supporters on November 9, in Detroit, Michigan.

Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer defeated her Republican challenger Tudor Dixon by more than 10 percentage points and by at least 26 points among women voters, a feat she says is partially due to her commitment to fighting for abortion rights.

“I think it was a factor,” Whitmer told CNN’s Dana Bash Sunday, when asked how large of a role the issue of abortion played.

“This was a massive turn of events,” she continued. “And I think part of it was, Democrats were fighting to solve problems, make people’s lives better, but also protect our ability to make our own decisions about our bodies.”

Whitmer had staked her reelection campaign on her successful efforts to block the enforcement of the state’s 1931 law banning abortion in almost all instances. Dixon had waged a campaign focused on cultural battles.

Michigan voters this week also approved a Whitmer-backed amendment to the state’s constitution that will scrap that 1931 law and guarantee abortion rights.

CNN’s Samantha Beech and Zenebou Sylla contributed to this report.

Josh Shapiro gives a victory speech on November 8, in Oaks, Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania’s Democratic Governor-elect Josh Shapiro does not care if his Republican challenger, Doug Mastriano, ever calls him to concede the race, he told CNN Sunday.

“Who cares if he calls, right?” Shapiro said on “State of the Union,” days after his win in the Keystone state’s gubernatorial race. The Democrat earned 56.2% of the vote, as CNN reported.  

Shapiro said his campaign’s success came from connecting with voters in often forgotten areas across rural, suburban and urban parts of the commonwealth. 

“We showed up and treated people with respect,” Shapiro said. “We showed them how we’re going to make their lives better.” 

Shapiro thanked President Joe Biden for encouraging Pennsylvanians to get out to the polls. 

Shapiro also dodged questioning from Bash about throwing his hat in the ring as a future presidential contender. 

“Dana,” Shapiro said. “I have an ambition to get a little bit of sleep.”  

Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker.

Although Democrats are already projected to win control of the Senate, CNN chief political Gloria Borger said the upcoming Dec. 6 Georgia runoff is still really important to the party.

“And no Democrat will tell you that they are going to fight any less hard for that seat,” she said.

In remarks to reporters Saturday night, President Biden celebrated Democrats’ win in the Senate and said the party is now focusing on the Georgia runoff. He noted that the future of his agenda is “always better” with 51 Democratic senators.

“Because we are in a situation where you don’t have to have an even makeup of the committees — so that’s why it is important, mostly,” Biden said. “But, it’s simply better, the bigger the number the better.”

More on the runoff: Neither Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock nor Republican challenger Herschel Walker surpassed the 50% threshold needed to win the race outright Tuesday evening, CNN projected, forcing a runoff election.

With Democrats’ projected win in the Nevada Senate race, they now have 50 Senate seats to Republicans’ 49 seats. 

Even if Republicans win the Georgia runoff, though, Vice President Kamala Harris would continue to cast the tie-breaking vote in an evenly divided Senate to guarantee the Democratic majority.

CNN’s Eric Bradner contributed reporting to this post.