Georgia Senate race heads to runoff as vote count continues in Arizona

Judy Woodruff:

As we have been reporting, we are not likely to know the results of some of last night's contests for some time. And in one state, the U.S. Senate seat will not be decided for another four weeks.

Amna Nawaz is back with more on those races.

Amna Nawaz:

That's right, Judy.

In Arizona, races for governor and Senate are neck and neck with about two-thirds of the vote tallied.

For a look at the latest from on the ground, we turn now to our very own Stephanie Sy, who has been tracking those results.

Stephanie, good to see you. Thanks for being back with us.

Those are some key races we do not yet have calls in. What are the latest tallies telling you?

Stephanie Sy:

Yes, the Associated Press has not made calls, in fact, on any of Arizona's top-ticket races, and I want to be really careful to not draw any conclusions here, because there are hundreds of thousands of ballots primarily in Maricopa County that have yet to be counted.

Those were voters that voted yesterday or who dropped off ballots yesterday. And, by Arizona law, all of those ballots — and they say there are more of those dropped-off ballots yesterday than they have ever had — all of those have to be signature-verified and processed before they can even be counted.

But we do have results from the key races and can at least show you where the races stand currently, starting with the Senate race that you referred to. Democratic incumbent Mark Kelly is currently leading his opponent, Blake Masters, in that race by nearly 5 percent. There's 83,000 votes separating those two.

The governor's race, which Lisa talked about earlier, that's between Democrat Katie Hobbs and Trump-endorsed Kari Lake, is an absolute toss-up right now. Hobbs has a razor-thin lead. In fact, it's at 0.2 percent right now. Anything less than point 0.5 percent, Amna, would trigger an automatic recount here in Arizona.

I also want to take a look at the current results for the race for secretary of state, which we have been following closely. It involves the Democrat Adrian Fontes, the former Maricopa County recorder in 2020. And he is facing off against state Representative Mark Finchem, who we have mentioned a lot on this program because he was at the January 6 rally.

He's a four-term state representative who has led the efforts, at least in Arizona, to throw out the results of the 2020 election. He actually introduced a bill in the state Congress to that effect, to throw out the votes of Maricopa County voters in 2020.

Finchem is currently trailing Fontes by more than 4 percent. So, again, Amna, there are still a lot of votes that were cast and have not been counted. It is too early, certainly for anyone to be celebrating. But I will say this. This is closer than a lot of consultants I spoke to would have expected.

There are more registered Republicans in Arizona. It is a Republican-leaning state. And as one GOP consultant I spoke to described, Republicans have turned what is the best election cycle in years and made it competitive. His take is that Arizona ultimately is not a Trump state. Trump certainly has a lot of enthusiastic supporters here, but Biden did win Arizona in 2020 by 10,500 votes.

And this consultant believes that some Republicans and independents in particular may be turned off by the proximity of some of the top GOP candidates to Trump.

Amna Nawaz:

Stephanie, I need to ask you as well.

Yesterday, on Election Day, you reported early on some equipment issues in some polling locations. Any fallout from any of that today?

Stephanie Sy:

Yes, quite a bit of optical fallout, I would say.

We have also learned that 17,000 ballots were affected by this issue. But the Maricopa County election officials say that no one had a vote rejected. They have apologized. It was a printing problem. And they say every vote will be counted.

There were delays, in fact, in both Democratic and Republican-dominated precincts. But one of those voting centers in particular in Anthem, Arizona, which is a very conservative district, got a lot of attention for what were reportedly hours-long delays, got a lot of attention social media among far right influencers.

And that does create a problem for Maricopa County. The issue has really moved to the forefront of the conversation here, especially with people who were already spreading disinformation about 2020. And that includes the GOP gubernatorial candidate, Kari Lake.

So I want to play some sound from her from last night. And that's followed by sound from the — her opponent, the secretary of state, Katie Hobbs.

Let's listen.

Kari Lake (R), Arizona Gubernatorial Candidate: We had a big day today. And don't let those cheaters and crooks think anything different. Don't let them doubt. Don't let them put doubt in you.

Katie Hobbs (D), Arizona Gubernatorial Candidate: We know my opponent and her allies have been sowing doubt and confusion throughout this campaign. And it's unacceptable that they were spreading misinformation today while people were exercising their freedom to vote.

Amna Nawaz:

So, we see there some…

Stephanie Sy:

So, Amna, you can see the contrast between the — between the two candidates there.

Amna Nawaz:

And some key races in the key state of Arizona have yet to be called.

Stephanie Sy reporting for us tonight.

Stephanie, good to see you. Thank you.

Stephanie Sy:

You too.

Amna Nawaz:

And let's turn now to Georgia, where the state's U.S. Senate race is headed for a run-off after neither candidate managed to Garner 50 percent of the vote.

Georgia Public Broadcasting's Stephen Fowler has been monitoring the Senate results in that state. He joins us now.

Stephen, good to have you back with us. Thank you for joining us.

We should note Republicans did really well in Georgia in a number of other races. How did this race end up going to a run-off?

Stephen Fowler, Georgia Public Broadcasting:

Well, you're right. Republicans did do really, really well in Georgia, better than expected in some cases.

You had Governor Brian Kemp decisively win reelection against his opponent, Democrat Stacey Abrams. But whereas Kemp got about 53 percent of the vote, nearly one in 10 of the voters that supported him opted not to vote for Herschel Walker, the Republican Senate candidate. And so you had Walker's weakness and a little bit of Democratic overperformance by Raphael Warnock have this neck-and-neck race, where nobody cleared the 50 percent needed to avoid a run-off, according to Georgia's run-off law.

Amna Nawaz:

So there was a Libertarian candidate, we should mention, as well garnered about 2 percent of the vote in that race.

Do we have a sense of where those voters will break? Or will they just stay home in a run-off?

Stephen Fowler:

Well, it's actually hard to tell because Georgia's new election law signed last year changes the run-off period from nine weeks to four weeks, which is why we have voting in December 6.

Now, some of those Libertarian voters are people that do support the Libertarian candidate and policies. But polling before this election showed that many of those were launched as a protest vote of Republicans who would not vote for Herschel Walker, but also couldn't see themselves voting for Raphael Warnock.

Now, it depends on some of the other races that we have outstanding. If Georgia is in fact the state that once again decides control of the Senate, you could see more people sitting this race out — or fewer people sitting this race out because it's such a crucial race.

Amna Nawaz:

Stephen, we have talked a lot this midterm cycle about election deniers. But we should note, in Georgia, there are some election defenders who did very well, Brad Raffensperger for secretary of state, Brian Kemp for governor.

These are both men who resisted pressure by then-President Trump to overturn the results of the 2020 election. What does their support among Georgia voters say to you about how this issue was viewed and about where Georgia voters are on it?

Stephen Fowler:

Well, Georgia is certainly tired of election denialism.

I mean, it was one of the states that's ground zero for Trump's false claims about the election. It was counted three different times, and the winner was still President Joe Biden. And so Georgia voters have a very, very low tolerance for that. During the primary this year, there were several Trump-backed primary challengers seeking to unseat Republicans that defended the election.

And those Trump-backed candidates lost by wide, wide margins. So you're seeing these election results also reflective of an electorate, both Democrat, independent and Republican, that acknowledged Brian Kemp and Brad Raffensperger stood up to those claims.

And that's why you see the two of them as the top vote-getters in this election.

Amna Nawaz:

Stephen, briefly, in the few seconds we have left, you saw a lot of early turnouts, some big numbers in Georgia, a lot of enthusiasm in these midterm elections.

Do you see that carrying through to this run-off in the first week of December?

Stephen Fowler:

Well, with the amount of money that's been spent in this race and with the amount of attention that all eyes will be on here in Georgia, you can guarantee that people will definitely be voting in this race.

Amna Nawaz:

And you can guarantee the rest of the country will be watching very closely.

Stephen Fowler from Georgia Public Broadcasting joining us tonight, thank you.

Stephen Fowler:

Thank you.

Judy Woodruff:

Thank you, Amna, and to our guest.