Candidates make final push before midterm election day
How the NBC News Decision Desk calls races on midterm election night 2022
Here’s how NBC News calls races on election night, the steps it takes to verify results and the answers to some frequently asked questions, like:
- How does NBC News project the outcomes of races?
- What kinds of calls and characterizations does the Decision Desk make?
- How will NBC News call control of the Senate?
- What is the House Estimate, and how will NBC News project control of the chamber?
Arizona election officials brace for Election Day
Officials in Arizona said Monday that Election Day security is a top priority in a state that has drawn national attention over allegations of voter intimidation and threats to election workers.
“Security is a top priority for the state and counties,” Sophia Solis, a spokesperson for the secretary of state’s office, said in an emailed statement. “We have been working with law enforcement to ensure voters have a safe voting experience, regardless of whether they go to the polls tomorrow or cast their ballot early.”
Election workers across the state have reported facing intimidation and threats in the run-up to the midterms, Reuters reported.
Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly said he is “concerned” that GOP candidates like Blake Masters, who is seeking to unseat him, and gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake will “continue to peddle in … conspiracies and lies” should they lose to Democrats.
“It does worry me that my opponent and others continue to peddle in these conspiracies and lies,” he said. “Everybody should accept the outcome of the election.”
Masters has said he accepts President Joe Biden’s legitimacy, but he has also accused the country’s “most powerful institutions” of having rigged the 2020 election against former President Donald Trump. Lake, who was endorsed by Trump, has not explicitly said she will accept the outcome of Tuesday’s election.
Biden highlights democracy and abortion rights in final campaign pitch
President Joe Biden cast the midterm elections Monday as a struggle for democracy and an effort to protect social programs and codify abortion rights.
Speaking at Bowie State University in Maryland as he campaigned for the state’s Democratic nominee for governor, Wes Moore, Biden listed Democrats’ accomplishments on issues like infrastructure, veteran services and prescription drug costs.
He also vowed to prevent congressional Republicans from further restricting abortion.
“If Republicans gain control of Congress and pass a nationwide ban on abortion, I will veto it,” Biden said, adding that if enough Democrats are elected in both chambers, “we’re going to codify Roe v. Wade in January and make it the law of the land.”
Biden, like many Democrats, said the midterm elections were a battle for democracy, declaring that “more than 300 election deniers” were seeking office, including Moore’s GOP rival, Dan Cox.
Biden said that to Cox, “patriotism means putting on a baseball cap, inviting people to attack the Capitol. You can’t be pro-American and pro-insurrection, it’s real simple.”
“These election deniers are not only trying to deny you your right to vote, they’re trying to deny you your right to have your vote counted,” Biden said. “We know in our bones our democracy is at risk, and we know that this is your moment to protect it.”
Judge blocks Arizona county’s plan to hand-count ballots
PHOENIX — A judge on Monday blocked a rural Arizona county’s plan to conduct a full hand-count of ballots in the election — a measure requested by Republican officials who expressed unfounded concerns that vote-counting machines are untrustworthy.
Pima County Superior Court Judge Casey F. McGinley ruled after a full-day hearing Friday, during which opponents presented their case and called witnesses. An appeal is likely.
McGinley said the county board of supervisors overstepped its legal authority by ordering the county recorder to count all the ballots cast in the election that concludes Tuesday rather than the small sample required by state law.
The opponents who sued to stop the proposed hand-count — a group called the Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans — argued that state law allows only a small hand-count of early ballots to ensure the counting machines are accurate. Members argued that a last-minute change would create chaos and that it could delay certification of the election results. Cochise County Elections Director Lisa Marra also opposed the plan for the expanded count, testifying that it could delay results and imperil ballot security.
Trump endorses Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s re-election bid
VANDALIA, Ohio — Former President Donald Trump, rallying with Republicans in Ohio on Monday night, issued what amounted to his first endorsement of Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s re-election.
Trump and Kemp have been crosswise since the 2020 presidential election. Trump pressured Kemp, a fellow Republican who was elected with his support in 2018, not to certify Joe Biden’s narrow win in the state. Kemp refused, and Trump endorsed a primary challenge by former Sen. David Perdue. Kemp easily won the primary.
The endorsement came unexpectedly and without fanfare, as Trump ran down a list of GOP candidates he urged voters to support in Tuesday’s midterm elections. After he praised Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker as “one of the greatest athletes,” Trump added his support for “Brian Kemp for governor in Georgia.”
Kemp faces Democrat Stacey Abrams in a rematch of their 2018 race.
Trump teases Nov. 15 for 2024 announcement
Former President Donald Trump strongly hinted Monday that he will launch a bid next week to reclaim the White House in 2024.
“I’m going to be making a very big announcement on Tuesday, Nov. 15,” Trump said at a campaign rally in Ohio, adding that he would make the announcement next week at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Trump said this month that he would “very, very, very probably” seek the presidency for a third time, but the date of his launch had been a moving target until Monday.
Trump suggested that Tuesday’s midterm elections were delaying his announcement.
“We want nothing to detract from the importance of tomorrow,” he said.
Oz’s late-campaign push for bipartisanship draws howls of hypocrisy from Democrats
PITTSBURGH — Republican Mehmet Oz is taking his campaign message of bipartisanship to a new level, saying he wants to know how exactly to reach across the aisle if he wins Pennsylvania’s open Senate seat.
“What are you able to predict for us about bipartisanship in Washington? How does it even work?” he asked Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., at a roundtable event Sunday.
“I suspect that all of your colleagues on the Democratic side are in agreement that we want enough law and order that people feel secure and we want a border that’s secure,” he told Collins.
The event alongside two of the most moderate Republicans on Capitol Hill — Collins says Oz “will listen to both sides” — was a microcosm of how Oz has been running his campaign in the final weeks of the pivotal midterm race that could determine control of the Senate. At campaign events and in nonstop TV advertising, Oz is portraying himself as a moderate who would push back against on extremism and bring “balance” to Congress.
Democratic super PAC chief ‘cautiously optimistic’ about holding Senate, citing GOP candidates
ATLANTA — On election eve, the president of the main Democratic Senate super PAC said he’s “cautiously optimistic” that his party will keep control of the Senate for the next two years, citing Republican candidates and infighting.
“Nevada, Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania — they’re all close. They’re all close,” JB Poersch of the Senate Majority PAC said in a phone interview. “We have an opportunity to hold the majority.”
While Poersch stopped short of predicting that Democrats would hold on, he said the party was helped by subpar GOP candidates and clashes that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has with former President Donald Trump and GOP Senate campaign chair Rick Scott of Florida.
“This time, McConnell didn’t recruit — Trump did,” he said. “The result of Trump recruiting is that they left four Republican governors sitting at home. Chris Sununu in New Hampshire, Doug Ducey in Arizona — even Larry Hogan in Maryland and Phil Scott in Vermont — would have forced a more competitive environment.
“Trump gave you [Herschel] Walker and he gave you [Ted] Budd … and [Blake] Masters and [JD] Vance and [Mehmet] Oz,” he said, adding: “The hissy fits between McConnell and Scott never really stopped, and they seemed to be at loggerheads for most of the cycle.”
Cortez Masto makes a final push with Latina voters in close Nevada Senate race
LAS VEGAS — On a recent September evening, amid clattering…
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