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  • Why AP called the Texas Senate race for Ted Cruz

    Why AP called the Texas Senate race for Ted Cruz

    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Associated Press declared that Republican Sen. Ted Cruz successfully defended his seat against Democratic Rep. Colin Allred based on the incumbent’s competitive showing in the state’s large population centers, bolstered by his overwhelming leads in more conservative rural areas across the state.

    Cruz’s victory, which the AP declared at 11:39 p.m. ET, blocked a possible path in which Democrats might have retained control of the Senate by offsetting possible losses by vulnerable Democratic incumbents in other parts of the country.

    The AP only declares a winner once it can determine that a trailing candidate can’t close the gap and overtake the vote leader.

    CANDIDATES: Cruz (R) vs. Allred (D) vs. Ted Brown (Libertarian)

    WINNER: Cruz (R)

    POLL CLOSING TIME: 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. ET, depending on the part of the state

    ABOUT THE RACE:

    Facing their most difficult Senate map in years, Democrats looked to the Cruz-Allred matchup as one of their only chances to possibly defeat a Republican incumbent and offset an expected loss in West Virginia and highly vulnerable seats in Montana, Ohio and elsewhere. Cruz first won this seat by a 16-point margin in 2012, when he ran to replace 20-year Republican incumbent Kay Bailey Hutchison. He faced a much tougher contest in 2018, when then-Rep. Beto O’Rourke gained national attention for coming within 3 percentage points of defeating Cruz.

    Allred, a former NFL linebacker and civil rights attorney, represents the Dallas-area 32nd Congressional District. He defeated 11-term Republican U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions in 2018. Sessions returned to Congress in 2021.

    Allred has slightly outspent Cruz for the cycle, with each spending about $77 million on the race as of mid-October. Cruz entered the final stretch of the campaign with a $9.6 million to $2.5 million cash advantage.

    Texas was once a heavily Democratic state, but Republicans have dominated statewide politics since the 1990s. A Democrat hasn’t held a U.S. Senate seat in more than 30 years. In more recent elections, Democratic candidates tend to perform best in the population centers of Dallas, Harris (Houston), Travis (Austin), Bexar (San Antonio) and El Paso counties, as well as along the southernmost border with Mexico. Republicans won by large margins across most of the state, as well as the more competitive counties surrounding Dallas and Houston.

    WHY AP CALLED THE RACE:

    At the time the AP called the race, Cruz led Allred in the statewide vote by more than 10 points with about 76% of the vote counted from almost every county. The incumbent posted big leads in traditionally Republican areas in the east and in the plains regions that make up much of the state. But he also stayed competitive with Allred in both the Democratic population centers of the Dallas/Ft. Worth and Houston areas.

    Cruz was outperforming Trump’s 2020 share of the vote in those areas and narrowed the Democrats’ traditional advantage there. He was trailing Allred by about 4 percentage points in the area, while Trump trailed Democrat Joe Biden in those areas by between 8 and 9 percentage points in 2020.

    Allred also underperformed in almost all of the state’s most populous counties compared to O’Rourke in his 2018 run against Cruz. He was slightly trailing O’Rourke’s performance in Harris (home of Houston), Dallas, Travis (home of Austin) and Bexar (home of San Antonio) counties but was far behind in O’Rourke’s home county of El Paso by 15 percentage points.

    In order to overtake Cruz’s statewide lead, Allred would have needed to win the remaining untabulated ballots by more than 30 percentage points over Cruz, but he was not performing at near that level in the areas where the most outstanding votes remained.

    The 2024 election is here. This is what to know:

    News outlets globally count on the AP for accurate U.S. election results. Since 1848, the AP has been calling races up and down the ballot. Support us. Donate to the AP.

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    Learn more about how and why the AP declares winners in U.S. elections at Explaining Election 2024, a series from The Associated Press aimed at helping make sense of the American democracy. The AP receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

  • Why AP called the Ohio Senate race for Bernie Moreno

    Why AP called the Ohio Senate race for Bernie Moreno

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Three-term Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown didn’t do as well in Ohio’s population-dense metro regions as he had in the past, and that performance — in areas he needed to overcome the state’s increasingly conservative bent — helped propel former car salesman Bernie Moreno to victory.

    Moreno won after securing a 4 percentage-point lead in the Senate race, ousting Brown, who was the last in his party elected statewide in what was once a premier electoral battleground.

    Moreno was narrowly leading in the Cincinnati-Dayton area when the race was called, while Brown needed a better performance in the Cleveland and Columbus regions, even though he led in those areas.

    Brown would have needed to notch 71.9% of the remaining ballots left to be counted when The Associated Press called the race for Moreno at 11:28 p.m. — a threshold he wasn’t clearing in any of the counties in the state.

    CANDIDATES: Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, Bernie Moreno

    WINNER: Moreno

    POLL CLOSING TIME: 7:30 p.m. ET

    ABOUT THE RACE:

    The phrase “as Ohio goes, so goes the nation” was once a widely accepted bit of conventional wisdom that underscored the true swing nature of a perennial presidential battleground state. No longer.

    Over the past decade, the Midwestern state, once a reliable barometer of how the country at large would vote, has become a Republican stronghold. Brown was the lone exception. With a gravelly voice and a populist outlook, Brown somehow hung on and is the sole Democrat to still hold statewide elected office.

    Now, however, he lost the political fight of his life against the wealthy, Trump-backed Moreno. The race was the most expensive Senate race this election cycle, with a tab that surpassed $400 million — with much of it coming from Republican-aligned groups that supported Moreno.

    Brown appeared to understand the gravity. In July, he called on then-presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden to drop out of the race a month after his shaky debate performance against Trump. He endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris to replace Biden on the ticket but skipped the Democratic National Convention in August. Moreno accused Brown of distancing himself from Harris, which the senator’s campaign dismissed.

    But Moreno was not without his own liabilities. He was criticized by fellow Republicans, including former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, for making tone-deaf comments about abortion — suggesting that it was “crazy” for women past the age of 50 to care about the issue because “I don’t think that’s an issue for you.’”

    WHY AP CALLED THE RACE: The AP declared Moreno the winner with a nearly 5-point lead over Brown with over 90% of the estimated vote in. He was narrowly leading in the population-dense Cincinnati-Dayton area, which Brown won in 2018. Meanwhile, Brown’s margins in Democratic strongholds in Cleveland and Columbus weren’t as large as they were in 2018. Moreno also led in areas that were most closely divided in the 2020 presidential race.

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    Learn more about how and why the AP declares winners in U.S. elections at Explaining Election 2024, a series from The Associated Press aimed at helping make sense of the American democracy. The AP receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

  • Why AP called North Carolina for Trump

    Why AP called North Carolina for Trump

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican voters in North Carolina cast ballots in greater numbers than four years ago, while Democratic turnout sagged. Together, those two factors carried Donald Trump to victory over Vice President Kamala Harris, marking the third time he has carried the swing state.

    While Trump has consistently won North Carolina, his victory over Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 was much narrower — just over 1%. This year Trump held a 2.8 percentage point lead when The Associated Press called the race for him at 11:18 p.m. ET once it became clear that there weren’t enough outstanding votes left in Democratic-leaning areas for Harris to overtake his lead.

    To understand why Harris did not do as well as Biden in the state, consider Nash and New Hanover counties.

    Hillary Clinton lost Nash County, which is east of Raleigh, but Biden flipped it four years later. This year, Trump carried it by 2 percentage points when the race was called. Meanwhile, Harris was winning in New Hanover County, which is home to Wilmington, but she did not do as well as Biden did in 2020.

    CANDIDATES: President: Harris (D) v. Trump (R) v. Chase Oliver (Libertarian) v. Jill Stein (Green) v. Randall Terry (Constitution) v. Cornel West (Justice For All).

    WINNER: Trump

    POLL CLOSING TIME: 7:30 p.m. ET.

    ABOUT THE RACE:

    North Carolina gave Trump his tightest swing state victory during the 2020 election, a contest in which he edged Biden by roughly a percentage point but still received less than 50% of the vote. Fast-forward four years, and the dynamics have become even more complicated.

    Democratic presidential candidates have carried North Carolina only twice since 1968 — the most recent in 2008, when Barack Obama carried the state. But the state is one of the fastest-growing, with migration from elsewhere in the United States serving as the primary driver of population growth. Many are college-educated professionals — a demographic group that has increasingly favored the Democratic Party.

    Layer on top of that the aftereffects of Hurricane Helene, which ravaged western parts of the state that are more conservative and still grappling with the devastation, and it offered Democrats perhaps the best chance they had in years to carry the state.

    WHY AP CALLED THE RACE: Trump did better in North Carolina than four years ago — when he also won the race. Harris, meanwhile, failed to draw as much support as Biden. When the race was called, she would have needed to garner almost 60% of the remaining vote and there just weren’t enough votes left in Democratic strongholds for her to reach that threshold.

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    Learn more about how and why the AP declares winners in U.S. elections at Explaining Election 2024, a series from The Associated Press aimed at helping make sense of the American democracy. The AP receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.