Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D) expanded her lead over Rep. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) in Arizona’s too-close-to-call Senate race, after more ballots from the state’s largest county were released Sunday night.
Sinema has grown her slim lead to 32,640 votes, which is a margin of 1.51 percentage points.
The latest release includes about 36,000 ballots from Maricopa County, the largest county in the state that includes Phoenix, according to Garrett Archer, an analyst for the Arizona secretary of state. There are still about 162,000 votes left to count in Maricopa.
Overall, there are still 211,000 total outstanding ballots in Arizona. While the majority of those will still come from Maricopa, there’s a significant number of uncounted ballots in Pima County, a Democratic-leaning county that includes Tucson, and Pinal County, where McSally easily won on Election Day.
Political observers told The Hill that they expected Sinema to extend her lead over the weekend, with early votes being tabulated that were likely skewed toward Democrats. They believe McSally is likely to benefit when more votes are released early this week.
The new tallies coming this week, which will include ballots dropped off on Election Day, are likely to favor Republicans, according to observers.
Both campaigns are voicing confidence that they’ll be well-positioned with the votes that have left to be counted. McSally initially had a narrow lead after Tuesday’s election, but Sinema took the lead on Thursday night and had since grown her lead in subsequent ballot releases.
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SOURCE: The Hill, Lisa Hagen
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