It’s Official!

The ghost of Harry Reid is happy in his suite at the Bellagio, as AP has called Nevada for CCM:

Democrats were projected to retain control of the Senate on Saturday, clinching a narrow majority as they showed strength in battleground races in a daunting midterm year that handed President Biden a major victory as he looks to his next two years in office.

The final blow to Republican hopes of retaking the chamber came in Nevada, where on Saturday Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D) was projected to win reelection, edging past Adam Laxalt (R), a former state attorney general. Cortez Masto’s projected win ensures Democrats a 50th seat, with a runoff election still to come in Georgia on Dec. 6. Vice President Harris is empowered to cast tiebreaking votes in the Senate.

Getting 51 in Georgia is very, very far from being trivial, but it will be nice to have a little less tension about the outcome.

While we’re here, the very impressive Gluesenkamp Perez is your winner in WA-03:

Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, an auto shop owner who was a virtual unknown before August’s primary election, pulled off perhaps the most stunning political upset in the country this year, winning a congressional seat in Southwest Washington that few saw as competitive.

Gluesenkamp Perez, a Democrat, defeated Donald Trump-endorsed Republican Joe Kent on Saturday in Washington’s 3rd Congressional District, with roughly 50.5% of the vote.

The Saturday ballot count in Clark County put Gluesenkamp Perez’s lead over Kent, an Army Special Forces veteran, at more than 4,600 votes, with an estimated 15,000 or fewer votes remaining. She had led since election night, but Kent narrowed the gap in later counts.

The Seattle Times projects Gluesenkamp Perez as the winner, as an analysis shows Kent would need 73% of the remaining votes to catch up. NBC News, The Associated Press, CNN and The New York Times also called the race for the Democrat.

At this point I would like to observe that Sam Altio’s assertion in his Claremont Review of Books blog in Dobbs that women had no material reliance interest in abortion remaining legal is one of the stupidest in the known history of human discourse.