Finally, enough votes have been counted that the AP has called the final state for Donald Trump. In the end, it wasn't even close. Trump won 52.6% to 46.4%. The polls consistently showed that Trump was far ahead in Arizona and he was. We had thought that pretend governor Kari Lake and the abortion initiative would pull him down, but we were wrong and the polls were right.
Trump ends with 312 electoral votes. That is six more than Biden's 306 in 2020. Is it a landslide? Hardly. Barack Obama got 365 and 332 in his two wins, respectively. And even those are nowhere near Ronald Reagan's totals of 489 and 525 in 1980 and 1984, respectively. That is what a landslide looks like. (V)
As of this morning, the Arizona Senate race still hasn't been called. Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) is ahead of Lake 49.7% to 48.2% with 86% of the vote tallied. He is leading by 45,000 votes. (V)
The most recent count in the House is 205 seats for the Democrats and 213 for the Republicans, with 17 races still too close to call. The Republicans need to win only 5 of them to get a majority. They are likely to get more than 5. So far, the Republicans have flipped six seats and the Democrats have flipped five, for GOP +1.
A big question is will the Republicans' majority be larger than the size of the Freedom Caucus. If not, the FC could still give the next speaker, likely the same as the current speaker, Mike Johnson (R-LA), heartburn. (V)