Nevada in Spotlight as Senate Control Hangs in Balance

Senator Mark Kelly in Tucson, Ariz., on Tuesday.Credit...Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York Times

Democrats inched closer to holding on to the levers of power in the Senate as Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, the party’s incumbent, defeated Blake Masters, a venture capitalist endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump, according to The Associated Press.

The contest was prolonged by the counting of hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots, with the process once again fomenting false claims of election fraud on the far right, which was largely rebuked in the midterm elections.

Mr. Kelly’s victory in his battleground state, one that has been a hotbed for the election denial movement, means that Democrats need to win just one of the two remaining Senate races that are undecided to keep control of the chamber.

In Nevada, Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat and the first Latina elected to the Senate, was narrowing the gap with her Republican challenger, Adam Laxalt, a former state attorney general.

In Georgia, Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democrat, and his Trump-backed challenger, Herschel Walker, the college football legend, are heading to a runoff on Dec. 6 after neither candidate received a majority of votes on Tuesday.

A 50-50 tie in the Senate would be enough for Democrats to maintain power in the chamber, where Vice President Kamala Harris holds the tiebreaking vote.

Here’s what else to know today:

• The Republican candidate for Arizona governor, Kari Lake, fell further behind her Democratic opponent, Katie Hobbs, in vote totals released by Maricopa County on Friday night. But with more than 200,000 votes outstanding in Maricopa, her 31,000-vote deficit remained potentially surmountable.



• In Arizona’s secretary of state race, Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, defeated Mark Finchem, according to The Associated Press. Mr. Finchem had begun casting unfounded doubts on this year’s elections as it appeared that he might lose.



• In a bright spot for Republicans, the governor’s race in Nevada was called on Friday night, with the Clark County sheriff, Joseph Lombardo, ousting Gov. Steve Sisolak.



• It could take weeks to settle the electoral fate of one of the most polarizing members of the House: Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado, a far-right provocateur known for heckling President Biden during his State of the Union speech, carrying a gun on Capitol Hill and defying mask rules.