2024 Election highlights: Republicans win Senate majority

AP estimated late Wednesday evening that there are more than 200,000 ballots left to count in Nevada – including more than 130,000 in Clark County. Given the narrow margins in the races for president and U.S. Senate, both are too early to call.

The AP will further review results released by Nevada election officials on Thursday.

Nevada’s top election official said at least 45 voters in one rural county used ballots that didn’t list their congressional race among those being decided.

Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar said in a statement that Congressional District 4 between incumbent Democratic U.S. Rep. Steven Horsford and Republican challenger former North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee was left off ballots in one precinct in Esmeralda County.

The statement attributed the omission to a “proofing error.”

State election records show 452 votes were cast in Esmeralda County, a former mining boom area halfway between Las Vegas and Reno with 622 active registered voters.

Districtwide, unofficial election results showed more than 295,000 votes have been tallied; Horsford has a more than 20,000-vote advantage over Lee.

Officials in Arizona’s Maricopa County said late Wednesday they’ve got more than 700,000 ballots left to count, which means races for president and U.S. Senate in the state will remain too early to call for another day.

In all, AP estimates there are at least a million ballots to be added to the results in Arizona. County election officials are expected to firm up those numbers on Thursday.

Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she has a history of working with presidents to get things done for the state – even presidents she personally did not vote for – and said she doesn’t expect that to be any different with Trump.

Murkowski told reporters in Anchorage Wednesday that in her more than 20 years in the Senate, she has served alongside “exactly one” president she voted for but has found ways to advance issues important to the state and nation.

Murkowski said before the election she wouldn’t be voting for Trump or Harris.

She said Wednesday the country has a lot of healing to do.

“We are still a very, very deeply divided country,” she said.

A pair of closely-watched House races in Virginian have been decided, but with neither party gaining ground in a still tight race for House control.

Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans won reelection in the military-heavy southeast part of Virginia, while Democrat Eugene Vindman won a seat previously held by his party in the north of the state.

Vindman is filling the seat after Rep. Abigail Spanberger left Congress to run for governor.
Vindman and his twin brother, Alexander Vindman, played major roles in former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment.

Democrat Eugene Vindman won election to a U.S. House seat representing Virginia on Wednesday, defeating Republican Derrick Anderson in the state’s most competitive district and holding the seat for Democrats. Vindman was a career Army officer who, along with his brother, blew the whistle during Donald Trump’s first impeachment. A political newcomer, Vindman vied for the open congressional seat after Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger filed to run for Virginia governor. Vindman defeated Anderson in the battleground district, which runs from the outer-ring D.C. suburbs to the rural foothills of central Virginia. The Associated Press declared Vindman the winner at 6:24 p.m. EST.

Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans won reelection to a U.S. House seat representing Virginia on Wednesday, defeating Democratic challenger Missy Cotter Smasal. Both women had served in the U.S. Navy: Kiggans is a former Navy helicopter pilot, and Cotter Smasal was a surface warfare officer. Virginia’s 2nd District is home to Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach and is adjacent to the country’s largest naval base in Norfolk. Democrat Joe Biden narrowly carried the district in 2020. Kiggans defeated Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria in 2022 after redistricting made the seat slightly more favorable to the GOP. The Associated Press declared Kiggans the winner at 5:28 p.m. EST.

Nevada resumed counting votes on Wednesday afternoon, adding almost 20,000 votes including 9,000 from Clark County. Republican Sam Brown leads Democratic incumbent Jacky Rosen by almost 4,000 votes. The race is too early to call. Clark, home to Las Vegas, has the greatest number of ballots left to be counted. Election officials in Clark plan for another update late Wednesday and to update daily at 11 p.m. ET through Saturday.

More than 70 LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations released a “solidarity statement” Wednesday.

“Election outcomes at national, state, and local levels will impact our health, our safety, and our rights as LGBTQIA2S+ people and families,” the statement read. “Despite anti-LGBTQIA2S+ efforts to divide our communities, and particularly severe attacks against transgender people and LGBTQIA2S+ youth, we have succeeded in moving a few steps closer toward equity and justice for our community.”

The letter highlighted the reelection of lesbian U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, of Wisconsin, and the election of the first transgender member of Congress, Rep.-elect Sarah McBride, of Delaware.

The statement did not mention President-elect Donald Trump by name. But he and other Republican candidates frequently employed anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric in the campaign, particularly against transgender and nonbinary people.

Jaymes Black, CEO of the Trevor Project, also said volume on its crisis line for LGBTQ+ youths increased about 125% on Election Day.

Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders did not mince words in a scathing statement Wednesday.

“It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them,” Sanders, Vermont’s senior senator, said.

“First, it was the white working class, and now it is Latino and Black workers as well,” Sanders said.

Sanders won reelection to a fourth term on Tuesday. He singled out wealth inequality, a slipping standard of living in the U.S., a lack of full health care guarantees and support for Israel’s recent military campaigns as problems Democrats need to focus on.

Sanders’s 2016 presidential run was a key factor in pushing the dialogue in the Democratic party to the left.

Sanders has built his political career outside -- and often criticizing -- the Democratic Party, but he caucuses with Democrats in the Senate.

Arizona’s biggest county, Maricopa, says it will update its vote count Wednesday evening some time around 8 p.m. ET. Democrat Ruben Gallego leads Republican Kari Lake by almost 3 points with about 60% of the expected vote counted. The newest votes will be mailed ballots that arrived or were dropped off on Election Day or shortly before. It’s not clear which candidate those will favor.

The candidates: Democrat Elissa Slotkin and Republican Mike Rogers
Poll closing time: 8 p.m and 9 p.m. ET Tuesday (dual time zones)
Race called: 3:12 p.m. ET Wednesday

• Slotkin carried the state after there were not enough ballots left to be counted for Rogers to overtake her roughly 18,000-vote lead.
• As Wednesday wore on, Slotkin improved her standing by winning many updates as election officials continued to tabulate the vote and release new numbers.

▶ Go behind the scenes of the race call

The day after Election Day, the race for Senate in Pennsylvania is still too early to call. Republican Dave McCormick has an edge of about 31,000 votes over Democratic incumbent U.S. Sen. Bob Casey – a lead that’s been getting smaller as election officials work to complete the vote count. Casey’s path to victory is very narrow, but the margin is also small enough to qualify the race for an automatic recount.

Democrat Elissa Slotkin’s win in the Michigan Senate race leaves just a handful of Senate races outstanding, and the makeup of the Senate is starting to come into focus.

Republicans are hoping to build on their majority -- currently at 52 seats -- by getting wins in Pennsylvania and Nevada. But Democrats will be able to add to their caucus -- currently at 44 members -- if Ruben Gallego pulls out a win in Arizona and independent Angus King wins Maine.

Donald Trump’s relationship with the Republican Senate will be crucial in implementing his agenda and confirming his Cabinet picks.

When Trump was elected eight years ago, he often clashed with the traditional GOP lawmakers who hold sway over the Capitol’s upper chamber. But this time, Senate leadership has been working with Trump and his team to quickly set up his administration and implement his agenda.

Slotkin led by about 18,700 votes when AP called the race after determining there weren’t enough votes left to count that would allow Rogers to catch up.

Rogers had led before late-reporting votes from Wayne, home to Detroit, and other big Democratic-leaning counties lifted Slotkin ahead.

She joined Wisconsin’s Tammy Baldwin in holding two Blue Wall Senate seats for Democrats.

Republicans seem to have the upper-hand in the razor-thin race for House control.

There have been very few seat turnovers so far, and when one party gains a flipped seat, that advantage has almost instantly disappeared by a flipped seat in the opposite direction in another race.

It may still be days before enough races are called to determine who controls the House, but the dynamic means that Republicans have a slight advantage in keeping their thin majority.

House Speaker Mike Johnson is upbeat about the GOP’s chances of sweeping into power, but House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries has also said in a statement that “the House remains very much in play.”

Democratic U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin won election to Michigan’s open U.S. Senate seat on Wednesday. Slotkin’s victory preserves a key seat for Democrats following the retirement of longtime Sen. Debbie Stabenow. Slotkin is a former CIA analyst who was first elected in 2018 to Congress, where she serves on the House Armed Services Committee. Slotkin defeated former congressman Mike Rogers, who was attempting to become the first Republican in 30 years to win a U.S. Senate race in Michigan. The Associated Press declared Slotkin the winner at 3:12 p.m. EST.

Democratic Rep. Emilia Sykes won reelection to a U.S. House seat representing Ohio on Wednesday. Sykes, a first-term congresswoman, was previously leader of the Ohio House Democratic caucus. Democrat Joe Biden narrowly carried the Akron-based district in 2020. The Associated Press declared Sykes the winner at 2:53 p.m. EST.

Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola was trailing her main challenger, Republican Nick Begich, in a four-person race in early returns.

Her campaign said it expected “less than favorable” initial results, with ballots from many Alaska Native villages not yet counted. Peltola, who is Yup’ik, is Alaska Native.

Elections officials will conduct ranked vote tabulations on Nov. 20.

Under the state’s ranked voting system a candidate can win with over 50% of the vote in the first round. If no one hits that, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and voters who chose that candidate as their top pick have their votes count for their next choice. Rounds continue until two candidates remain, and whoever has the most votes wins.

Baldwin, the Senate’s first openly gay member, led by almost 29,000 votes when AP called the race. Her narrow lead held up on Wednesday as last-to-count votes flowed in from Democratic-dominated Milwaukee, and ultimately there weren’t enough votes left to count across the state that would allow for Hovde to take the lead. The win is a Democratic hold in the to-be-GOP-controlled Senate.

Democrat Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s reelection win in Wisconsin won’t change who controls the Senate, but it does give Democrats just a little breathing room.

With a handful of Senate races still undecided, Republicans on Wednesday have been anticipating just how much they could grow their majority. The Senate’s filibuster rules prevent one party from passing most major pieces of legislation without at least 60 votes, so if Republicans gain more seats, it gives their conference more strength in cobbling together a filibuster-proof vote.

There are also a few Trump critics within the Republican conference who may be willing to vote against his nominees for Cabinet positions. Outgoing Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday morning declined to go into whether he would support confirmation for potential Trump Cabinet picks like Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Democrat Nellie Pou won election to a U.S. House seat representing New Jersey on Wednesday. Pou won the seat vacated by longtime Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr., who died earlier this year. She defeated Republican Billy Prempeh and two others. Pou is a longtime state legislator, serving in the Assembly from 1997 to 2011, then the state Senate from 2011 until now. The Associated Press declared Pou the winner at 1:47 p.m. EST.

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries says the “House remains very much in play” as Democrats hold out hope for avoiding a sweep in Tuesday’s election.

He says the path to the majority now runs through close pick-up opportunities in Arizona, Oregon, Iowa and California.

“The party that will hold the majority in the House of Representatives in January 2025 has yet to be determined. We must count every vote,” Jeffries said.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin won reelection to a third term representing Wisconsin on Wednesday. She defeated Republican millionaire businessman Eric Hovde, who was making his second run for Senate, having previously lost in the 2012 Republican primary. Baldwin argued that Hovde was disconnected from Wisconsin, given that he owns a multimillion-dollar estate in California. She also hammered Hovde over his prior opposition to abortion rights. Baldwin was first elected to the Senate in 2012. The Associated Press declared Baldwin the winner at 1:42 p.m. EST.

Republicans had a big night in South Texas, flipping predominately Hispanic counties along the U.S.-Mexico border that have been a backdrop of President-elect Donald Trump’s promises for tougher border measures.

Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz won reelection and Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar, who was indicted earlier this year, survived his most competitive race in a decades-long career. Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez also won reelection by a narrow margin.

The GOP has targeted South Texas to make headway among Latino voters since Democratic support began to erode in previous elections. The border districts made an even bigger rightward swing toward Trump this election compared to 2020. Hidalgo and Cameron, the two most populous border counties, flipped entirely to Trump.

The trends represent weakening Democratic support in a region formerly considered a stronghold for the party. De La Cruz ran on border security and immigration enforcement to appeal to the district’s predominately Latino and working-class population.

Democratic Rep. Matt Cartwright says he has congratulated his opponent, Republican Rob Bresnahan, and conceded in the race for a competitive, Pennsylvania battleground district, though The Associated Press has yet to call the race.

He thanked supporters in a statement sent out by his campaign, adding “congratulations to Rob on his win. I wish him the best as he steers northeastern Pennsylvania through the challenges ahead.”

Cartwright was seeking a seventh term in Congress. The district supported Trump in 2020’s presidential election, making it a prime pickup opportunity for Republicans. The district includes Scranton, the city where President Joe Biden was born and that played prominently in his campaigns.

Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez won reelection to a U.S. House seat representing Texas on Wednesday. For the second election cycle in a row, he defeated Republican Mayra Flores, who had won a special election in 2022 to become Texas’ first Republican Latina in Congress. Later that year, the two incumbents faced off in the South Texas district after Gonzalez switched to run in the redrawn 34th Congressional District, which became more favorable to Democrats following the 2020 census. The Associated Press declared Gonzalez the winner at 1:11 p.m. EST.

Democrat Sara Jacobs won election to a U.S. House seat representing California on Wednesday. Jacobs defeated Republican Bill Wells in the heavily Democratic 51st District in San Diego County. She serves on the House Armed Services Committee and the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Jacobs came to Congress in 2021. She calls climate change one of the biggest threats facing humanity. She is the granddaughter of Qualcomm founder Irwin M. Jacobs. The Associated Press declared Jacobs the winner at 12:55 p.m. EST.

But McConnell, who’s stepping aside from his role as the long serving GOP Senate leader, declined during a news conference at the Capitol to discuss his harsh criticisms of Trump as outlined in a new biography.

He also refused to answer questions about having Tesla CEO Elon Musk or Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime critic of vaccines and pesticides used in U.S. agriculture, play a role in a new administration.

Republican Julie Fedorchak will be the first woman to represent North Dakota in the U.S. House. Her election leaves Mississippi as the only state never represented by a woman in the House, according to the Center for American Women and Politics.

Fedorchak is a longtime public utilities regulator. She’ll succeed three-term Republican Rep. Kelly Armstrong, who was elected governor of North Dakota. The state has one House seat.

Republican Rep. John James won reelection to a U.S. House seat representing Michigan on Wednesday. James fended off a challenge from Carl Malinga, a Democrat he has faced before in the suburbs north of Detroit. James is an Army veteran who became president of his family’s supply chain management firm before running for Congress. Voters in Michigan’s 10th Congressional District chose James over Marlinga by just 1,600 votes in 2022. The thin margin caught the attention and pocketbooks of national Democratic spenders who promised a competitive second round. The Associated Press declared James the winner at 12:21 p.m. EST.

When AP declared Republican Tim Sheehy the winner, every county in Montana had reported at least some results — and the margins were large enough that Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Tester didn’t have a plausible path to make up the gap in the votes left to be counted. In every part of Montana, Tester simply didn’t perform as well with voters in 2024 as he did during his 2018 reelection campaign.

Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden won reelection to a U.S. House seat representing Wisconsin on Wednesday. Van Orden was on the Capitol grounds during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and is one of Donald Trump’s most vocal supporters. He defeated Democratic challenger Rebecca Cooke, a former Democratic fundraiser. Van Orden flipped the seat in 2022 after it had been held by Democrats since 1996. The Associated Press declared Van Orden the winner at 12:10 p.m. EST.

Outgoing Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell credited his party’s Senate election success to “candidate quality,” saying it was “absolutely essential.”

In past election cycles, Republican Senate candidates have emerged from the populist, right-wing of the party but many struggled to win statewide votes. This year, Senate Republican leaders made a concerted effort to recruit mainstream candidates who offered broad appeal.

There has been intense friction within the GOP between the camps largely headed by Donald Trump and McConnell. A recent biography revealed that the longtime Senate leader has privately excoriated Trump, especially for his efforts to overturn 2020 election results.

While McConnell credited Trump’s campaign operation for the victory, he also chalked up the election results to frustrations with the current Democratic administration.

“If you’re looking for a simple answer, I think it was a referendum on the current administration, in part. People were just not happy with this administration and the Democratic nominee was a part of it,” McConnell said.

For all of the heady talk of democracy and the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next, a presidential transition also involves things that are less conceptual — and more mundane.

That includes construction of all the temporary structures for the presidential inauguration, set to occur two months and two weeks from today. In front of the White House, workers had fenced a section of Pennsylvania Avenue and Lafayette Park as they constructed the Presidential Inaugural Parade Reviewing Stands. A longtime inauguration tradition, the temporary pavilion is where Trump and his family will take in the parade as it winds in front of the White House on Jan. 20.

On the National Mall, work had also begun on the inauguration platform, from where Trump will be sworn in to office and address the nation. Nearly four years ago, on Jan. 6, Trump supporters rushed the Capitol and used pieces of the half-built structure to attack police officers. Workers on the site had to flee.

This year, members of Congress from both sides of the aisle gathered in September to drive the first nails for the structures, symbolizing the unity they aspired to forge amidst a divisive presidential campaign.

It is, of course, a temporary structure. And it will come down as soon as Trump starts his term.

The nation’s top election security official says there’s “no evidence of any malicious activity” that affected the security or the integrity of election systems in the 2024 presidential election.

Jen Easterly is the director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Easterly, in a statement Wednesday, praised the work of state and local election officials and the hundreds of thousands who served as poll workers on Election Day.

“As we have said repeatedly, our election infrastructure has never been more secure and the election community never better prepared to deliver safe, secure, free, and fair elections for the American people,” Easterly said. “This is what we saw yesterday in the peaceful and secure exercise of democracy.”

Outgoing Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell called Wednesday a “happy day for the GOP” as he congratulated Donald Trump for his victory and credited it to “a sharper operation this time around.”

McConnell said he hopes Republicans’ majority in the Senate may still grow as races in battleground states are decided.

Senate Republicans will decide next week who the next majority leader will be.

He told a group of supporters gathered in Bozeman, Montana, early Wednesday that he’s been serving the country since he was 18 and was honored to continue that service in the Senate.

“We’ve got to make sure that the folks who go to work every day, work with their hands to pay for their own education and to put food on the table for their families, we’ve got to make sure the economy works for them again. That’s going to be our top priority,” Sheehy said.

Democratic Rep. Nikki Budzinski won reelection to a U.S. House seat representing Illinois on Wednesday.

The freshman congresswoman was once a former senior advisor to Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and worked as a labor union activist. She defeated Republican Joshua Loyd. The narrow Democrat-leaning district cuts through central Illinois from the St. Louis area to Champaign. The Associated Press declared Budzinski the winner at 11:23 a.m. EST.

Trump claims presidents have exclusive power to control federal spending even after Congress has appropriated money.

Trump argues that lawmakers’ budget actions “set a ceiling” on spending but not a floor — meaning the president’s constitutional duty to “faithfully execute the laws” includes discretion on whether to spend the money. This interpretation could set up a court battle with Congress.

Among other ideas, Trump would roll back the Biden administration’s policy of extending Title IX civil rights protections to transgender students and he would ask Congress to require that only two genders can be recognized at birth.

The Republican president-elect now has a 75-day transition period to build out his team before Inauguration Day arrives Jan. 20. One top item on the to-do list: filling around 4,000 government positions with political appointees, people who are specifically tapped for their jobs by Trump’s team.

That includes everyone from the secretary of state and other heads of Cabinet departments to those selected to serve part time on boards and commissions. Around 1,200 of those presidential appointments require Senate confirmation, which should be easier with the Senate now shifting to Republican control.

Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley won reelection to a U.S. House seat representing California on Wednesday, defeating Democrat Jessica Morse. Kiley, a first-term congressman, had captured the seat in 2022 by arguing that California was in turmoil under Democratic rule in Washington and Sacramento. The 3rd Congressional District stretches across much of the state’s eastern border and includes Sacramento’s northeastern suburbs. Former President Trump narrowly carried the district in the 2020 presidential election. The Associated Press declared Kiley the winner at 10:48 a.m. EST.

Tester also thanked his supporters and said he’d go back to working on his farm.

“Look, I’m very, very blessed,” he said. “I’ve had a great 18 years in the United States Senate. I’ve met some incredible people along the way and had the opportunity to do some great things to help move this state forward, move the country forward.”

Wisconsin’s hotly contested race for U.S. Senate between Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Republican Eric Hovde, who was backed by President-elect Donald Trump, remained close Wednesday morning.

Baldwin had a lead of 0.9% based on unofficial results, which is just within the 1% margin that would allow for Hovde to request a recount if he pays for it.

Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate race between three-term Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and Republican challenger David McCormick could help Republicans pad their newfound majority in the chamber in a battleground state contest that remained uncalled by The Associated Press on Wednesday.

McCormick led vote counting Wednesday morning by about 50,000 votes, or less than 1%, but a significant number of votes remained uncounted. In a statement Wednesday, Casey’s campaign said, “There are more votes that need to be counted in areas like Philadelphia and it’s important that every legal ballot will be counted. When that happens we are confident the senator will be reelected.”

It’s the first time Casey has shared the same ballot as Donald Trump, who won Pennsylvania for a second time in 2024 after winning it in 2016.

Casey, the son of a former two-term governor, is a stalwart of the state’s Democratic Party, having won six statewide elections going back to 1996.

McCormick is making his second run for the Senate after losing narrowly in 2022’s Republican primary. He left his job as CEO of the world’s largest hedge fund to run.