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Morning Digest: Stay on top of every uncalled race with The Downballot

We’re keeping tabs on every overtime contest in our newsletter and our tracker

David Nir and Jeff Singer Nov 5

Nevada Gov.-elect Aaron Ford. (Credit: Aaron Ford Facebook)

Leading Off

Late Calls

The outcomes of many races were not known when The Downballot signed off in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Just below, we recap the contests that have since been called, and in our Uncalled Races section, we catalog those that we’re still waiting on.

And to stay on top of every overtime race, bookmark our tracker of key elections, which we update whenever a new call comes in.

NV-Gov: Democratic Attorney General Aaron Ford unseated Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo, a Republican who flipped this office four years ago. Ford, who will be the state’s first Black governor, will enter office with Democrats in firm control of both chambers of the legislature.

CA-11: State Sen. Scott Wiener defeated San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan in an all-Democratic general election for California’s 11th District. Wiener will succeed retiring Rep. Nancy Pelosi, who supported Chan.

CA-13: Democratic Rep. Adam Gray defeated Republican Kevin Lincoln, the former mayor of Stockton, in the 13th District in the mid-Central Valley.

CA-22: Democrat Randy Villegas decisively beat Rep. David Valadao, a Republican with a long history of running far ahead of the top of the ticket, in the 22nd District in the southern Central Valley.

CA-34: Community activist Angela Gonzales-Torres unseated Rep. Jimmy Gomez, a fellow Democrat, in the safely blue 34th District based in downtown Los Angeles. Gonzales-Torres, who ran to the incumbent’s left, won a race that was overshadowed by an ongoing investigation by the House Ethics Committee, which is probing alleged sexual misconduct by Gomez.

CA-48: Democrat Marni von Wilpert flipped the open 48th District by beating Republican Jim Desmond. Von Wilpert, a member of the San Diego City Council, will replace Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, who ended his reelection campaign rather than fight for a seat that became significantly more Democratic following redistricting.

MI-04: Democratic state Sen. Sean McCann defeated Republican Rep. Bill Huizenga in Michigan’s 4th District, home to Kalamazoo and Battle Creek in the southwestern part of the state.

MI-07: Democrat William Lawrence unseated Republican Rep. Tom Barrett in the 7th District around Lansing, one of the nation’s most competitive House battlegrounds. Well-funded GOP groups successfully meddled in the August Democratic primary to boost Lawrence, a climate activist whom many Democrats feared would be too liberal to defeat Barrett. Lawrence, however, proved his doubters wrong this week.

MI-10: Democrat Christina Hines flipped the open 10th District by defeating Republican Mike Bouchard in a closely watched contest in the Detroit suburbs. Hines, a former prosecutor, will succeed Rep. John James, who frustrated Trump and other Republicans by waging an ultimately unsuccessful run for governor instead of defending his competitive House seat.

MT-01: Democrat Sam Forstag beat Republican Aaron Flint for Montana’s 1st District, a constituency in the western part of the state where GOP Rep. Ryan Zinke decided not to seek reelection. Forstag, who belonged to an elite smokejumping team that fights wildfires, will be the first Montana Democrat to serve in the House since Rep. Pat Williams, who left office in 1997 when the state had only a single district.

NC-06: Democrat Cyril Jefferson scored a stunning win against Republican Rep. Addison McDowell in North Carolina’s 6th District, a constituency in the central Piedmont region the GOP gerrymandered ahead of the 2024 election. Jefferson, the mayor of High Point, was one of many Democrats to prevail on a brutal night for the state’s long-dominant Republican Party.

NC-13: Democrat Paul Barringer scored an astonishing upset over GOP Rep. Brad Knott, who seemed secure until the very end of his reelection campaign, in North Carolina’s 13th District in the Raleigh area. Barringer, a healthcare consultant, was another surprise Democratic winner in the Tar Heel State.

NE-01: Republican Rep. Mike Flood narrowly held off Democrat Chris Backemeyer in Nebraska’s 1st, a longtime GOP bastion that national Democrats targeted during the final week of the campaign.

NV-02: Democrat Teresa Benitez-Thompson defeated Republican David Flippo for the open 2nd District, a northern Nevada constituency Democrats have never held during its more than four decades of existence. Benitez-Thompson’s historic breakthrough means that the Silver State will send an all-Democratic delegation to both chambers of Congress just two years after Trump won its six electoral votes.

NY-01: Republican Rep. Nick LaLota defeated Democrat Chris Gallant in an unexpectedly close race for New York’s 1st District on the eastern part of Long Island.

NY-03, NY-04: Democratic Reps. Tom Suozzi and Laura Gillen both convincingly won reelection to Long Island-based House seats where Republicans hoped their recent gains in this part of New York would power them to upset wins.

OK-05: Republican Rep. Stephanie Bice narrowly held off Democrat Jena Nelson in Oklahoma’s 5th District, a constituency the GOP aggressively gerrymandered after the 2020 census.

TN-09: Republican state Sen. Brent Taylor flipped Tennessee’s open 9th District, which he and his colleagues completely overhauled with their new gerrymander, by holding off Democratic state Rep. Justin Pearson in an unexpectedly tight race.

Texas: Republican Jace Yarbrough narrowly beat Democrat Dan Barrios in Texas’ open 32nd District, making it the only one of the five Democratic-held seats targeted by the GOP’s new gerrymander that Republicans managed to flip.

Five other Texas Republicans also learned Wednesday that they’d survived what were supposed to be easy general elections. Reps. Lance Gooden and Michael Cloud narrowly won reelection, while fellow Republicans Steve Toth, Trever Nehls, and Jon Bonck defended GOP-held open seats.

WA-03: Democratic Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez comfortably turned back Republican John Braun, who serves as the minority leader of the Washington State Senate, to hold the 3rd District in the southwestern part of the state.

IN Comptroller: Democrat Jessica Bailey unseated Republican Comptroller Elise Nieshalla to win an office Democrats haven’t held since the 1980s. Bailey and Secretary of State-elect Beau Bayh are the first Democrats to win a statewide election in Indiana since 2012.

The Downballot Podcast

The Downballot podcast live: Holy crap!

So much is still unfolding from Tuesday’s extraordinary election—and our heads are still spinning—that we decided we had to do this week’s episode of The Downballot podcast live.

Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard discuss some of their top takeaways, foremost among them the intense motivation on the part of Black voters to send a message following the Supreme Court’s destruction of the Voting Rights Act. The Davids also check in on some of the biggest uncalled contests and explain exactly how Republican gerrymandering utterly failed to save the GOP.

Uncalled Races

All estimates of the proportion of the vote that’s been tabulated come from the Associated Press unless otherwise noted.

AK-Sen, AK-Gov

Alaska Democrat Mary Peltola leads Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan 48.2 to 47.9 with about three-quarters of the vote tabulated Thursday morning. Republican Gerald Heikes and independent Dan J. Sullivan are each taking about 2% of the vote.

Democrat Jonathan Kreiss‑Tomkins currently has 49% of the vote in the race to succeed Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a termed-out Republican. Political operative Bernadette Wilson, the leading Republican in the race, is at 29%. The other two Republicans, former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson and former state Attorney General Treg Taylor, are at 14% and 7%, respectively.

The outstanding vote appears to favor Democrats, but it may be a while before we know who’s won either contest. Election officials have until Nov. 13 to receive most ballots postmarked on or before Election Day, while the deadline for overseas ballots is Nov. 18. The state plans to finish counting votes on Nov. 18 and conduct ranked-choice tabulations for any races where no candidate has a majority among first-choice preferences.

MS-Sen

Democrat Scott Colom holds a 49.0 to 48.9 lead over Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde‑Smith—a difference of some 1,100 votes—with an estimated 96% reporting.

Election officials have until Nov. 10 to receive and tabulate any mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day. That’s also the deadline for voters to provide identification in support of provisional ballots (also known as affidavit ballots). Voters can also cure signature mismatches on absentee ballots by Nov. 13. A recount would take place only if a court orders one.

KS-Gov

Democrat Cindy Holscher leads Republican Ty Masterson 50.3 to 49.7 in the race to replace termed-out Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, with an estimated 99% in.

Masterson put out a statement Wednesday saying, “The first count does not seem to be going our way, but the margin is narrow enough that Kansas law calls for another look, and we’ll let that process finish.”

The state’s election director tells the Kansas Reflector that a mandatory audit will be completed by Monday, when counties start certifying their results. Masterson would then have until Nov. 17 to ask for a recount.

House: Many House races are still uncalled as of Thursday morning, though the only question that remains is how large a majority Democrats secure. You can keep tabs on all outstanding races by bookmarking our tracker, which we update whenever a new race is called.

SC-01: Democrat Nancy Lacore said Wednesday that Republican Jenny Costa Honeycutt had sent her an email conceding their contest for South Carolina’s open 1st District, but Costa Honeycutt’s campaign would neither confirm nor deny the concession to the South Carolina Daily Gazette. Major media outlets have not yet called the race.

Redistricting Roundup

GA Redistricting

Outgoing Gov. Brian Kemp said Wednesday he would not call a special session of the legislature to redraw Georgia’s congressional map during Republicans’ remaining two months of full control of state government. Kemp also told reporters that he would not try to weaken the powers of his office before Democratic Gov.-elect Keisha Lance Bottoms takes office in January.

The state’s current GOP-drawn congressional map was designed to give Republicans control of nine of this swing state’s 14 congressional districts, and it did just that on Tuesday despite a Democratic sweep in statewide races. A pair of Republicans, though, still came unexpectedly close to losing in constituencies Donald Trump easily carried two years ago.

Jim Kingston defended the open 1st District along the Georgia coast just 51.4 to 48.6 against an underfunded Democrat, Amanda Hollowell, while veteran Rep. Rick Allen held the 12th District around Augusta by a slightly wider 52-48 spread against Democrat Ceretta Smith. These close calls could inspire better-connected Democrats to run in 2028 for seats Republicans previously were unworried about.

NJ Redistricting

Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill said Wednesday she doesn’t plan to push through a new congressional map that would protect her party’s two newest representatives going into the 2028 elections. The governor told the New Jersey Globe, “I don’t see a path forward for redistricting right now.”

Her comments came just hours after Democrats unseated a pair of Republican incumbents. Navy veteran Rebecca Bennett toppled Rep. Tom Kean Jr. in a 57-41 landslide in the swingy 7th District, while Cape May Mayor Zack Mullock scored a stunning 51-48 victory over Rep. Jeff Van Drew in the conservative 2nd District.

Their wins give Democrats control of 11 of the state’s 12 House seats, with longtime Rep. Chris Smith’s 4th District the lone outlier.

Senate

FL-Sen

Democrat Angie Nixon unsubtly hinted on Tuesday night that she would seek a rematch in 2028 against Republican Sen. Ashley Moody, who beat her just 51-48 in a special election Moody had always appeared likely to win.

“We may have lost this battle but the war is not over,” Nixon told her supporters in her concession speech. “Sen. Moody, you better get it right because we’re coming for you.”

Moody will now serve out the final two years of Marco Rubio’s term.

PA-Sen

Rep. Brendan Boyle announced Wednesday that he would not challenge Sen. John Fetterman, a fellow Democrat who has few friends left in his party, when the incumbent is up for reelection in 2028.

Boyle is set to become chair of the powerful Budget Committee when Democrats assume control of the House in January, a post he said would give him more influence than serving as a first-term senator.

Fetterman, for his part, has not committed to seeking a second term in what will be one of the country’s most closely watched Senate races. Fetterman, who is deeply unpopular among Pennsylvania Democrats, has denied rampant speculation that he might switch parties, though that hasn’t made the chatter go away.

Reporters and political observers have mentioned many Democrats as potential Senate candidates, though one would-be contender sounds especially eager to run. Rep. Chris Deluzio told Politico last month, “If I’m going to do it, I’m doing it to win, and I’m going to win.”

Attorneys General

As they did at every other level of the ballot, Democrats had a solid night when it came to races for attorney general on Tuesday. Democrats successfully defended every seat they already held and flipped at least four more, with a fifth looking likely.

Two of those pickups came as part of statewide sweeps in the South.

In Georgia, Democrat Tanya Miller defeated Republican Brian Strickland in the race to succeed Republican Chris Carr, who unsuccessfully ran for governor. And in Texas, Democrat Nathan Johnson prevailed over Republican Mayes Middleton in their battle to replace Ken Paxton, who lost his bid for Senate by double digits.

Democrats also had a strong night in the Midwest.

Democrat John Kulewicz beat Republican Keith Faber to become Ohio’s next top lawyer; he’ll replace interim Attorney General Andy Wilson after the previous Republican incumbent, Dave Yost, resigned earlier this year. In Iowa, meanwhile, Democrat Nate Willems unseated Republican Attorney General Brenna Bird, who four years ago ousted 10-term Democrat Tom Miller.

The lone uncalled race looks good for Democrats as well, as Democrat Chris Mann holds a narrow lead over Republican incumbent Kris Kobach in Kansas. Mann declared victory, but Kobach, a notorious election denier, has not yet conceded or otherwise commented publicly.

Among seriously contested races, the only place where Democrats fell short was in Florida, where Republican Attorney General James Uthmeier, who was appointed to the post last year, defeated Democrat Jose Javier Rodriguez by a narrow 51-49 margin.

At the same time, Democrats defended five key swing states where they already held the post of attorney general: Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, and Wisconsin.

Should the Kansas results hold up, 28 states will have Democratic attorneys general following Tuesday’s elections while 22 will have Republicans. However, those numbers could yet change. In Alaska, Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins is favored to win the race for governor, giving him the power to replace Republican Cori Mills.

Secretaries of State

Democrats won at least three races for secretary of state on Tuesday in states where the job had been held by Republicans, while also making important gains in other states where different officials, such as the governor or legislature, are tasked with naming a chief elections officer.

All three Democratic victories for secretary of state came in open-seat races. In Indiana, Democrat Beau Bayh, the son of former Sen. and Gov. Evan Bayh, defeated Republican Max Engling, who’d previously wrested the GOP nomination from incumbent Diego Morales, a prominent election denier.

In Georgia, meanwhile, Democrat Penny Brown Reynolds beat Republican Tim Fleming as part of the Democrats’ sweep of statewide offices. (The GOP incumbent, Brad Raffensperger, had unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for governor.) And in Ohio, Democrat Allison Russo overcame Republican Robert Sprague in the race to succeed term-limited GOP incumbent Frank LaRose.

One race remained uncalled. In Kansas, Republican Pat Proctor has a small lead over Democrat Jennifer Day; the two are vying to replace Republican Scott Schwab, who ran for governor but lost in the GOP primary.

Down in Texas, Democratic Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa will be able to designate a new secretary of state in place of Republican Robert Howden, an appointee of outgoing Gov. Greg Abbott.

And in Alaska, if Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins wins the race for governor, as he appears favored to do, his running mate, independent Zac Johnson, would become responsible for administering elections as lieutenant governor.

Finally, because New Hampshire Democrats flipped both chambers of the state legislature, they’ll be able to appoint a replacement for Republican Secretary of State David Scanlan. Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte plays no role in the process, so the choice would depend on whether Democrats can maintain party unity.

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