Nearly a week after the 2018 midterm elections, the blue wave continues to build for Democrats.
According to NBC News, Democratic candidate Kyrsten Sinema has won the Arizona Senate race as Republican Martha McSally has conceded the race.
The news comes as Sinema’s lead over McSally continued to grow on Monday with the counting of more ballots in the state.
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NBC News calls the Arizona Senate race for Democrat Kyrsten Sinema after Martha McSally concedes. #ctl #p2 #bluewave pic.twitter.com/wmEfmnTwtX
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) November 13, 2018
The MSNBC host reported:
NBC news now calling Kyrsten Sinema the apparent winner in the Arizona senate race beating her opponent Martha McSally. McSally has just in the last few minutes conceded to Sinema. Democrats have flipped two seats in Nevada and Arizona. One outstanding seat left in Florida. That is a net gain for Republicans of only one or maybe two Senate seats in an election, let’s remember, the GOP had a truly massive advantage. Democrats going into election day had to defend 26 seats in this election, including five in states that voted for trump by 19 points or more. Republicans by contrast only had to defend nine seats. And yet, despite that huge edge, the Republican party only managed to make minor gains.
Republicans are losing their grip on Arizona
As MSNBC’s Chris Hayes noted on Monday, it’s quite stunning that Democrats were able to gain two Senate seats in a year when they were playing almost exclusively in GOP territory.
What the result out of Arizona also shows is that Republicans are losing their grip on Arizona – a state that has been reliably red for decades.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton only lost the state to Trump by a few percentage points. In this year’s elections, Democrats continued to gain in statewide races, with Sinema’s victory putting the icing on the cake.
If Democrats can take Arizona out of the Trump column in 2020, it will put the president’s re-election bid in peril.
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Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
