Democrats Win in Arizona Picking Up Jeff Flake’s Old Seat

On election night, last week, the races in Florida and Arizona were still undecided, though the GOP was leading on all fronts. Arizona has now been decided, and it will be a pick up for Democrats as Sen. Jeff Flake’s seat has gone blue.

As CBS News now reports, Republican Martha McSally has conceded the race to Democrat Kyrsten Sinema:

Republican Rep. Martha McSally has conceded Arizona’s Senate race to Democrat Kyrsten Sinema. McSally made the announcement in a video posted to Twitter. She said: “I just called Kyrsten Sinema and congratulated her on becoming Arizona’s first female senator after a hard-fought battle.”

The race between Sinema and McSally was one of the most closely watched in the nation. Sinema was declared the winner Monday as her lead grew insurmountable during Arizona’s lengthy vote-count, The Associated Press reports.

“I am so honored that Arizonans chose our vision of a better Arizona. And now it’s time to get to work,” Sinema said in a victory speech Monday night.

Sinema is a former liberal activist who became a centrist member of Congress. Her win follows years of Democratic shutouts at the statewide level in Arizona and shows that the longtime Republican bastion is becoming a swing state.

McSally hammered Sinema over her former liberal stances and claimed she was pretending to be a centrist.

Here’s how the full results broke down after the early and absentee ballots were finished being counted:

This was always tight for McSally, but she appeared to be poised in days before the election to hold the seat for Republicans. In fact, the RealClearPolitics average of polls in Arizona gave McSally a 1-point lead heading into Election Day. The end result was a 1.7-point win for Sinema meaning that Democrats were probably being undersampled in Arizona. It can probably be said that if the wave happened, it happened in Arizona where Sinema was helped enough by Democratic enthusiasm in this very tight race to claim victory.

The only races that have yet to be decided are in Florida and Mississippi.

In Florida, if the numbers hold during the recount, Republicans should offset Arizona by picking up a seat from Democrat Bill Nelson. Mississippi is heading into a runoff since no candidate received 50% of the vote. Republicans are expected to win there eventually.