The Guardian’s Erin Durkin is continuing our live coverage of the election results from New York. Follow along here.
Here’s a summary of the big events of election day and the undecided races we are still closely watching.
Stacey Abrams’ campaign has sent out an update about the possibility of a runoff in the Georgia governor’s race, where she is trailing behind Republican Brian Kemp, but tens of thousands of votes have yet to be counted. Some key facts from the Democratic candidate:
Earlier in the night, Kemp said the “math is on our side to win”.
The election cycle saw the emergence of a new trend in political campaigning: denouncing the candidacies of one’s own family members. In Missouri, Steve West, a Republican candidate for the state general assembly, faced opposition from his son and daughter, who spoke out against his racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic views. In Utah, 12 relatives of Republican gubernatorial candidate Adam Laxalt wrote an op-ed calling the politico out for his “phoniness”. (Twenty-two relatives responded with their own op-ed supporting Laxalt, proving at the very least that the politico has a significant number of relatives.) And in Arizona, six of Republican congressman Paul Gosar’s nine siblings starred in a series of attack ads against their rightwing brother.
West and Laxalt both lost, Gosar won, and 45 people can look forward to a very interesting Thanksgiving.
Paul Gosar Is Not Working For You (60 secs): https://t.co/Lb1od6J0Jk via @YouTube
The Democrats have also made significant gains in state legislatures, which often receive little attention during the midterms, but are hugely important for local policy.
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC) has provided this update:
Here is our 2 am roundup:
7 Chambers Flipped blue:
CO Senate
MN House
NH House
NH Senate
ME Senate
NY Senate
WA Senate (Nov 2017)
New supermajorities:
OR Senate
OR House
Broken supermajorities:
NC Senate
NC House
MI Senate
PA Senate
In addition to flipping chambers in Colorado, Minnesota, Maine, New Hampshire and New York, the Democrats have flipped a total of 333 seats, according to the DLCC. Maine, Colorado and Illinois also now have Democratic “trifectas”, with Democratic governors winning seats.
Democrats have *flipped* 7 state legislative chambers and 333 seats, adding 6 more trifectas (gov+both chambers), per DLCC.
Few ever pay attention to these races, but they’re important for redistributing and waves can be leveraged for major gains.
The DLCC reported that there were also a number of historic wins in the state races, including the first black state senator in New Hampshire, the first openly transgender state legislator in New Hampshire, the first openly LGBTQ state senator in Michigan, and the first Iranian-American state senator in New York.
Voters have passed critical state ballot measures across the country:
Read more from the Guardian’s Julia Carrie Wong:
Animal welfare advocates notched a big victory in California, as voters approved a ballot measure requiring farmers to increase the size of cages holding hens, pigs and calves and ensure that all eggs sold in the state are cage-free by 2022.
The vote has national implications because the regulations extend to any farm or agribusiness wanting to do business in California.
BREAKING NEWS: #California votes to end farm animal confinement!
