Democrats' Chances of a Senate Majority Just Got Brighter

Democrats' chances of retaining control of the Senate seemed brighter on Friday morning as key races in Arizona and Nevada appeared poised to deliver victories for President Joe Biden's party.

Fifty-one seats are needed to form a Senate majority and Democrats have so far won 48 races compared to 49 for Republicans—but those two crucial races appear to be trending in Democrats' favor.

In Arizona, Democratic Senator Mark Kelly led Republican Blake Masters by 51.7 percent to the GOP candidate's 46.1 percent with 82 percent of votes counted, while Libertarian candidate Marc Victor had won 2.1 percent of the vote.

Though the final result in the Arizona race hasn't yet come in and it hasn't been called by the Associated Press (AP), Senator Kelly seems on track for victory.

Dave Wasserman, U.S. House editor of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, wrote on Twitter overnight: "I've seen enough: Sen. Mark Kelly (D) wins reelection in #AZSEN, defeating Blake Masters (R)."

Victory in Arizona would not hand Democrats control of the Senate, but the majority could be decided in Nevada, where Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto is in a close race against Republican Adam Laxalt.

Laxalt led with 48.97 percent of the vote to Cortez Masto's 48 percent with 90 percent of ballots of counted, but analysis from poll tracker FiveThirtyEight suggests the race will break in the Democrat's favor.

FiveThirtyEight's live blog reported on Thursday night there were still around 100,000 ballots left to count and that they were mostly mail-in ballots that may favor Democrats.

"So we think Cortez Masto will probably take the lead once they're counted," FiveThirtyEight's Nathaniel Rakich wrote.

Rakich later reported that around 12,300 votes counted in Clark County, Nevada, were good for Democrats and that Laxalt's lead had shrunk to just 12,671 votes as of 9.38p.m. on Thursday.

If the Democratic candidates win both races, the party will have 50 seats and control of the Senate will be determined before the Georgia runoff election on December 6.

The runoff is taking place because no candidate won 50 percent of the vote in the Georgia Senate race. Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock led Republican Herschel Walker with 49.42 percent to the Republican's 48.52 percent with around 95 percent of votes counted.

The Georgia runoff is expected to be extremely close and it's possible Democrats will win in Arizona and Nevada, but lose in Georgia. That would deliver an evenly split Senate, which has been the case for the past two years.

Under those circumstances, Vice President Kamala Harris would be tasked with providing her tie-breaking vote when the chamber is split 50-50 and Democrats would retain control of the Senate.

The final results in Arizona and Nevada should become clear in the coming hours or days.

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