Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen won re-election in Nevada, even as President-elect Donald Trump expanded his Electoral College victory by flipping the state red.
Rosen, who was first elected to the Senate in 2018, narrowly defeated Republican challenger Sam Brown by 1.4 percentage points. The Associated Press called the race for Rosen at 12:15 a.m. ET on Saturday.
Rosen campaigned heavily on abortion rights and positioned herself as a non-ideological politician, a formula that also worked for the state’s senior senator, Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto, in her own re-election bid two years ago.
Despite electing two Democratic senators in the last two years, Nevada backed Trump in the presidential election, giving its six Electoral College votes to a Republican nominee for the first time since 2004 and pushing the once and future president over 300 Electoral College votes.
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“Thank you, Nevada! I’m honored and grateful to continue serving as your United States Senator,” Rosen said Friday on the social platform X, formerly Twitter.
Rosen is one of several Democrats who won close Senate races in battleground states that Vice President Kamala Harris lost. Rep. Elissa Slotkin won the hotly-contested race in Michigan, while Sen. Tammy Baldwin won re-election in Wisconsin. The final race in Arizona is yet to be called but Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego is narrowly ahead of Republican Kari Lake, AP projections show. Like its neighbors to the west and northeast, the Grand Canyon State looks to be splitting the ticket: Trump is ahead of Harris by around 181,000 votes, according to AP, though the race has not been called.
Despite those wins, Republicans took control of the Senate, after flipping seats in Wes Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Montana. The GOP is projected to have a 53-47 majority.
Brown, a retired Army captain who moved to Nevada from Texas in 2018 and has never held elected office, unsuccessfully tried to ride Trump’s strong showing in the working-class state.
Just before Rosen won, Brown said on X that it was unacceptable that votes were still being counted in Nevada days after the election.
“We deserve to know election results within hours, not a week later,” he said.
Brown had Trump’s support in the Republican primary and won easily, but he was significantly outspent during the campaign, leaving Rosen to dominate the airwaves for months.
During the campaign, Rosen spotlighted her work on expanding broadband internet access and helping to connect Las Vegas with Southern California via light rail.
She also hammered Brown for his opposition to abortion rights, saying he would support a national abortion ban despite Brown’s statements that he respects Nevada voters’ choice decades ago to legalize abortions.
This article includes reporting from The Associated Press.
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