Midterm election: US Democrats win Arizona Senate seat

Democratic candidate Mark Kelly was reelected to the US Senate in the state of Arizona after the final batch of midterm election ballots was counted late Friday evening. 

Kelly defeated Republican Blake Masters, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump.

The Democrats are now one seat away from holding onto control of the Senate.

In Arizona, votes are announced in blocks, and final tallies typically take several days to complete. Kelly's victory was confirmed after officials in the southwestern state's most-populous county, Maricopa, home to Phoenix, released another batch of 80,000 votes.

Who is Mark Kelly?

Kelly, a former astronaut, has sometimes broken with Democratic President Joe Biden on issues such as border security.

Masters also campaigned on border security, and attempted to link Kelly with soaring inflation under Biden's administration.

During the race, The Republican challenger had initially maintained that Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election, echoing claims by the former president that the voting process was rigged. During a debate last month, Masters said he hadn't seen evidence of electoral manipulation, but later repeated the claim that Trump had won.

Masters also advocated privatizing Social Security and strict limitations on abortion.

Arizona has been traditionally dominated by the Republican Party. Kelly's 2020 Senate victory gave Democrats both of Arizona's Senate seats for the first time in 70 years.

Nevada, Georgia now key for Senate control

All eyes are now on Nevada and Georgia to determine whether the Democrats or Republicans control the Senate. 

Results are still coming in for Nevada, where Democratic incumbent Senator Catherine Cortez Masto is in a tight race with Republican Adam Laxalt. 

Another option for the Democrats or Republicans to pick up a Senate seat is the Georgia runoff election, which is scheduled for December 6.

Raphael Warnock, Georgia's Democratic incumbent senator, is facing a challenge from Republican and Trump-backed Herschel Walker, a former American football star. 

Warnock first won his seat in 2021 in a special election runoff. It was one of two of Georgia's seats, a formerly reliably Republican state, that gave Democrats the narrow majority they are defending this year. 

This year, Warnock had a slim lead over Walker, but failed to get the 50% threshold required to avoid a runoff.

sdi, fb/wd (AP, Reuters, AFP, dpa)