David Byler, data analyst and columnist at the Washington Post, joined Closing Bell to break down the key races yet to be determined, including Senate seats in Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia.

Closing Bell

No Red Wave, But Control of Both Chambers of Congress Too Close to Call

Welcome back to close Manchester news everyone. Election Day has come and gone. But it's still unclear which party will have control of the House and the senate democrats getting some big wins, including in pennsylvania's Senate races. John Fetterman did beat trump backed candidate dr arts and the Senate tossups right now are in Georgia and Nevada. Those ray, this is still too close to call with Georgia heading toward a runoff, joined now by David Byler, data analyst and columnist at the Washington post. David, thanks so much for coming on the show. So republicans framing the midterms as a referendum on president biden focusing on inflation, immigration and crime. What are some of the big trends that you saw materialize on Election Day? Right, so a few things sort of stick out one is what you just named inflation immigration crime. Those things were top of mind for republican voters and that brought a lot of republicans out to the polls. Another key trend was abortion. The Dobbs versus Jackson decision that overturned roe versus wade really supercharged democrat enthusiasm. So you have these sort of competing forces pushing against each other where republicans are upset about the economy, democrats are upset about dob And you have both sides turning out in a really significant way that combined with donald trump backing and getting some sub par candidates through republican primaries sort of ended this midterm in what looks like a very close race. You could even characterize it as a wash, Yeah, I think the turnout, you're right was pretty impressive to say the least and you would have that info obviously as a data analyst, but I do want to focus on pennsylvania because I think that Senate race in particular, of course, between Federman beating Dr Oz was such a key one in focus. What was your takeaway from that battleground state? Yeah, I mean, pennsylvania is a purple state, but it has this very, very light blue tint philadelphia is a major city with a lot of suburbs that has a lot of democratic voters. Uh Pittsburgh also has numerous Democratic voters and elections in pennsylvania. Are this contest to see whether democrats can get enough votes out of the maid metro's or whether republicans can get enough votes out of sort of the rural areas and smaller cities in between. So really, what it seems like in pennsylvania is that Oz didn't quite hit the targets he needed. He couldn't recreate the sort of enthusiasm for trump that there was in the rural areas. And Federman was able to to get enough of those biden voters and you know, it's only a couple of points of margin. But it makes all the difference when it comes to the fight for control over the Senate. Well then let's head down south to Georgia. Also on the east coast here, a runoff election obviously on the horizon between Warnock and walker. What's your takeaway from that race? Yeah, that is extremely tight. I feel like I have deja vu from two years ago when uh the election also went to a runoff and it had, you know, massive consequences for control over Congress. Um, herschel walker is a flawed candidate. He is one of trump's endorses that had just sort of a whole raft of personal scandals that kept on coming up over and over and over again throughout the campaign. It's telling that he significantly underperformed brian kemp, the state's conservative Republican governor. And Raphael Warnock is honestly one of the better candidates the democrats could come up with in a state like Georgia. So you have sort of democrats with their best candidate, republicans with their worst one. And in a light red state like Georgia that yeah, you know, it's so interesting, the Arizona governor race was one that we followed closely as well um, with Kerry Lake, former tv news anchor endorsed by former president trump, saying that she would only accept basically an election outcome in her favor. The last I saw she was trailing the democrat, Katie Hobbs by a little bit. Have you been following that race closely? I have, yeah, that's that's a close one. The last time I checked the Washington post hadn't had a call up in that race. So, you know, it's it's still up in the air, we don't really know what's going to happen. Um, but that's a little bit, almost the reverse of the Georgia situation. That's one where the republicans got a candidate with the charisma and the profile and sort of the local reputation that they wanted. Uh, and democrats had, you know, a statewide officeholder, but no one with the sort of star power that Mark kelly, the former astronaut has. So you end up in a situation where republicans have this kind of slight edge going into it, but really kind of have to wait for all the votes because that is a very tight race. Well, we're speaking of tight races were still on the edge of our seats because it's still too early to call. Right? Basically, the split of Congress and how this is ultimately gonna go, certainly, the House expected to turn red, but still too close to call there, David. So as we continue to see the votes getting counted, what are some of the other key races that you're watching that could move the needle? Right? So in the House region that I'm gonna be really interested and focused on is southern California. And sort of these west Coast races, California is a slow vote counting state. It's a state where there's a lot of procedures around mail in ballots around giving people sort of as much access as possible and as much time as so if it really comes down to the wire, those are going to be racist where you're gonna be watching every single boat get counted, Nevada is another one, both on the House side and the Senate side, that's going to be very important, really. Both parties got their ideal candidate in the Nevada Senate race. Black Salt, the Republican is sort of a fusion candidate of the old Republican Party and the trump wing Cortez masto sitting senator with a lot of fundraising capability. So that's a situation where, you know, Nevada is also not the fastest vote counting state. So I'm going to be watching to see how those sort of results turn out as time goes on. All right, David Byler, data analyst and columnist at the Washington Post. David thanks so much for joining. I know on a very busy day.