Midterm election results updates: Dems keep control of Senate with Nevada win
Catherine Cortez Masto’s victory in Nevada clinched the chamber for Democrats.
The 2022 midterm elections shaped up to be some of the most consequential in the nation's recent history, with control of Congress at stake.
All 435 seats in the House and 35 of 100 seats in the Senate were on the ballot, as well as several influential gubernatorial elections in battleground states like Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Democrats were defending their narrow majorities in both chambers and retained control of the Senate, though control of the House isn't yet clear. But a Republican flip of the lower chamber would be enough to curtail most of President Joe Biden's legislative agenda and would likely result in investigations against his administration and even his family.
Key updates:
Stefanik endorses Trump for 2024 bid
Elise Stefanik, the New York congresswoman who is No. 3 in the House GOP leadership, is endorsing former President Donald Trump in his yet-to-be-announced bid for the presidency.
“Republican voters determine who is the leader of the Republican Party and it’s very clear President Trump is the leader of the Republican party,” she said in a statement. “I am proud to endorse Donald J. Trump for President in 2024. I fully support him running again.”
Trump told Fox News this week that he supports Stefanik for GOP conference chair, saying, "I think she’s fantastic.”
-ABC News’ Brittany Shepherd
Rep. Tony Cárdenas announces bid for top spot at DCCC
Rep. Tony Cárdenas, a Democrat from California, officially announced his run for chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for the 2024 cycle on Friday. He is the first to jump in the race.
"If you elect me as the next chair of the DCCC, I promise to fight alongside you to win in 2024 so we can continue delivering for working families in the United States and adding to our great progress," he wrote in a letter to House Democrats.
Cárdenas highlighted his experience leading BOLD PAC, the campaign arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. If elected as chair, he pledged to improve resources for members, build an "effective" leadership team and invest in communities of color.
Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, the current DCCC chair, lost his reelection race to Republican Mike Lawler in what was one of the biggest victories so far for Republicans this cycle.
"In New York, we defeated the Democrat campaign chairman Sean Patrick Maloney, which will be the first time in over 40 years a DCCC chair lost his reelection," House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy touted at an election night party in Washington, D.C.
-ABC News' Lauren Peller
J.D. Vance predicts Trump will ‘continue to have a major’ role in GOP
In a post-election interview, J.D. Vance -- the projected winner of Ohio’s U.S. Senate race -- told Cleveland ABC affiliate WEWS he thinks Donald Trump will continue to have a “major role” in the Republican Party.
"Trump is a very popular figure. I think he's going to continue to have a major, major role in the party moving forward. Look, the effort, I think to finger point at a stage is just really, really counterproductive for what we actually don't know what happened," Vance said.
Trump's been under fire after the anticipated “red wave” didn’t quite materialize this cycle. Several of his hand-picked candidates in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and other key states lost their races.
But Vance suggested there's a lot more than Trump's endorsements of failed candidates at play in explaining why Republicans didn’t perform as well as they hoped.
"There are a lot of House seats where we still don't know what happened and a lot of Senate seats that are still very much up in the air. And I think that there were a few very clear problems that we should be focused on, like the fundraising disadvantage. That'd be a lot more productive than I think blaming Donald Trump or frankly, anybody else," he said.
-ABC News' Paulina Tam
Democrats maintain lead in Arizona, but many ballots remain uncounted
Democratic candidates in Arizona slightly continued to expand their leads over Republicans late Thursday. But with small batches of votes also trickling in from rural counties, the statewide races are still projected to be close and hundreds of thousands of ballots remain uncounted.
A late night drop of just over 78,000 votes from Maricopa County -- comprised of early ballots dropped off in the days before Election Day -- were favorable to Democrats. However, Republicans predict the roughly 260,000 outstanding Election Day "late earlies" and the 17,000 "Box #3" ballots will favor them.
Here’s where Arizona's races currently stand.
Senate: Democratic incumbent Mark Kelly continues to lead Republican challenger Blake Masters, now by about 115,000 votes, with 80% of the expected vote in. The race is 52%-46%.
Governor: Democratic candidate Katie Hobbs netted an additional 7,494 votes and is leading Republican candidate Kari Lake at 51-49%, with 79% of the expected vote in. Both have reached over a million votes, but Hobbs leads Lake by nearly 27,000.
Secretary of State: Democratic candidate Adrian Fontes continues to grow his lead over Republican candidate Mark Finchem, 53%-47%, leading by about 109,000 votes, with 78% of expected vote in.
Attorney general: Democratic candidate Kris Mayes and Republican candidate Abe Hamadeh are still statically tied at 50%, but in terms of vote count, Mayes is leading by about 16,000 votes.
There are just under an estimated 500,000 outstanding ballots in Arizona, including more than 100,000 ballots in Pima County and 330,000 in Maricopa County.
Maricopa County officials will have another ballot drop Friday evening, along with a press conference at some point in the day. They expect to continue counting votes through the weekend because a record number of "late early" ballots dropped off on Election Day are going through the signature verification process.
-ABC News' Libby Cathey and Hannah Demissie
Where the outstanding House races stand
As of early Friday morning, Republicans have won 211 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives while Democrats have won 204.
So far, Republicans have flipped a total of 16 House seats while Democrats have flipped five.
Twenty House races remain outstanding and Republicans only need to win seven of them to gain control of Congress' lower chamber.
Both parties are currently leading in 10 of the outstanding House races.
-ABC News' Hannah Demissie