Arizona
Ruben Gallego, Kari Lake largely quiet as Arizona’s US Senate race tightens
An unusual and prolonged silence hung over Arizona’s U.S. Senate race, where Democrat Ruben Gallego holds to a shrunken lead over Republican Kari Lake on Nov. 6, with hundreds of thousands more votes to count.
Gallego, a five-term member of Congress and the favorite to win the contest entering the election hasn’t posted on social media since a tweet election night thanking poll workers for their service.
Lake, a former Fox 10 newscaster who cut into his polling lead in the final weeks of the race, urged her followers the morning after Election Day to ensure their provisional ballots are counted.
“This race is going to go down to the wire!” Lake tweeted. “We need ALL HANDS ON DECK to cure ballots and ensure the vote of every Arizonan counts.”
That could matter in her race if the results continue moving in Lake’s direction, as happened throughout the night as the counting continued.
In 2022, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes won her race with the votes that she picked up from provisional ballots. That race, which she won by 280 votes, was the closest statewide race in Arizona history.
Lake has also repeatedly noted President-elect Donald Trump’s victory and pointed to complaints about the pace of vote counting in Maricopa County in a handful of tweets.
Gallego’s lead, which once stood at about 120,000 votes based on unofficial results on election night stood at fewer than 60,000 votes the next morning. An estimated 40% of the state’s votes remained to be tallied.
“We are closely watching as results come in, and we’re feeling very optimistic,” Gallego said in a tweet. He thanked his supporters for their efforts.
There is at least one major tranche of votes from Election Day in Maricopa County and a much smaller batch like that in Pima County that is expected to skew heavily for Republicans.
There are also sizable numbers of Democratic-leaning early ballots that were dropped off on Monday or Tuesday in those counties that could match or exceed the number of likely red votes left.
Elsewhere, there are pockets of smaller, GOP-leaning counties with votes to count, but one of the counties with the heaviest share of ballots still to come is smallish, but Democratic-friendly Apache County.
Whoever wins succeeds retiring Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, I-Ariz., who quit the race in March.
The uncertainty in Arizona comes as Republicans have already clinched narrow control of the Senate in January with victories in West Virginia and Ohio.
Democrats hold a 51-49 advantage in the Senate for now with independents such as Sinema who caucus with that party.
So far, Republicans have won at least 51 seats, plus Trump’s victory means vice-president-elect JD Vance will become the tie-breaking vote once he is sworn into his new position.
If Lake loses, it won’t be a mystery why.
Though she often cast herself as “Trump in heels” and had his endorsement from the night she first entered the race, Lake had the biggest vote gap between a U.S. Senate candidate in Arizona and Trump’s total in his three presidential campaigns.
Based on unofficial results through the morning of Nov. 6, Lake had about 91% of the votes Trump had received. The number of votes cast in both races is 99% the same, but Gallego has pulled in nearly 60,000 more votes than Vice President Kamala Harris has.
In 2016, U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., pulled in 9% more votes than Trump. In 2020, U.S. Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., received 99% of Trump’s vote total.
Four other Senate races remain undecided and will settle the GOP’s final margin in the chamber.
In Pennsylvania, Republican challenger Dave McCormick led U.S. Sen. Bob Casey Jr., D-Pa., by about 49,000 votes with about 95% of the votes counted, according to results tracked by the New York Times.
U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., led former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., in that state by less than 8,000 votes with about 95% of votes counted.
U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., led Republican challenger Eric Hovde by about 29,000 votes with 95% of the votes counted.
And Republican challenger Sam Brown led U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., by less than 1,000 votes with 84% of the votes counted.
Arizona
Arizona voters pass Prop 314, allowing local police to enforce immigration laws
Arizona
Polls will close in Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin at 9 p.m.
All eyes are on the key battleground states of Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin as polls in these states are set to close at 9 p.m. EST. Polls will also close in Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming at this time.
First results from Arizona are expected around 10 p.m.
Follow all of our live election results.
Arizona
Arizona Diamondbacks 2024 Player Review: Ryan Thompson
This article is part of a series chronicling the individual seasons of players who appeared for the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2024.
Reviews for players who still have rookie eligibility for 2025 will appear in our prospect season reviews. Players are presented in the reverse order of their aWAR, an average of Baseball Reference and FanGraphs WAR.
2024 Contract status: Arbitration, $1,350,000
When the Diamondbacks signed right-handed reliever Ryan Thompson to a minor league deal midway through the 2023 season, no one, except perhaps general manager Mike Hazen, had any idea of how impactful the move would be.
Thompson brought consistent stability to Arizona’s bullpen, immediately stepping into a high-leverage role, with his devastating arsenal and confounding sidearm angle baffling opposing hitters and pitching to a stellar 0.69 ERA with the D-backs in the regular season.
When 2024 began, Thompson slotted back into his high-leverage role. And for the first several months, the righty was just as dominant as he had been the prior season. He allowed just three earned runs over his first 22 appearances, pitching to a 1.14 ERA through May.
He was quite effective in June as well, up until June 28, where he gave up three hits, a walk and a home run, leading to a three-run day against the Oakland A’s. He settled back in quickly enough, giving up just two runs in July, and giving up just a .143 average for the month.
Unfortunately, like many of the D-backs’ other arms, his effectiveness took a hit as the latter months began. And, as with much of Arizona’s pitching staff, once Paul Sewald began to stumble out of his closer’s role, the rest of the high-leverage arms lost their groove.
It was oddly definitive for Thompson when this began to break down, correlated directly with Sewald’s removal from the ninth inning.
On July 31, Sewald had loaded the bases with a thin lead on the Washington Nationals. To avoid disaster, manager Torey Lovullo pulled his closer, and turned to Thompson to finish the job. It was a nail-biting finish, but the sidewinder sealed the win, and the sweep.
Two days later, Sewald was officially demoted, and Thompson’s struggles began to take hold. He allowed a run in his first three outings to begin August (including a blown save), and while the right-hander’s ERA was still an objectively excellent number at 2.30, it had more than doubled in just over a month.
He gave up just one unearned run over his next three outings, but on August 16, he suffered a blow to his confidence.
Facing the Tampa Bay Rays, in what was a sloppy series, filled with errors, the normally lockdown reliever gave up a walk and four hits. While a couple of them were cheap hits that could or should have been outs, Thompson only managed to record two outs, giving up three runs and giving up the lead.
He then delivered six more scoreless appearances, though they did look more labored. His pitch counts saw some spikes, and his command looked less sharp than it normally had been, with location mistakes on his slider and sinker frequently flying way outside the zone.
After a two-run outing against the Los Angeles Dodgers to close down the month, Thompson’s August ERA was an unsightly 6.17. Unfortunately for both he and the D-backs, September would open with his worst outing of the season, as he gave up four runs on four hits and a walk in San Francisco.
His once-sparkling ERA ballooned to a still-respectable but closer to average 3.26 as the season closed, with September marking his second straight 6.00+ ERA month.
Now, the illustration of these late struggles aren’t to say his season should be looked at negatively. Thompson was, by all metrics, a very effective arm for the D-backs, and, in many cases, he was asked to carry a major part of the bullpen workload.
The sidewinder eclipsed his previous season-high innings by 23.2, pitching 66.1 innings over 67 appearances in 2024. His FIP was 3.30, suggesting he pitched about as well as his results showed, though, as a pitcher who thrived on weak contact, he was susceptible to plenty of cheap hits, and occasionally bitten by poor defense.
Both his slider and sinker, two of his primary soft-contact pitches, began to lose some of their movement. Fatigue appeared to be taking its toll on the righty, and some poor luck made it a bit of a difficult stretch.
That said, the D-backs’ bullpen would certainly have been in worse shape without Thompson’s efforts. He may have struggled as the year progressed, but remains one of the most important members of Arizona’s relief corp, dating back to his contributions to 2023’s World Series run.
2025 Contract status: Arbitration, estimated $3,070,000 per Spotrac
The big right-hander is still arbitration eligible, and is estimated to earn $3,070,000 next season. There’s very little doubt he’ll return to the D-backs in 2025, and will likely retain his spot in higher-leverage situations, even if an addition is made.
Despite being 32 years old, Thompson won’t be a free agent until 2027. Barring injury or severe deterioration, Arizona will be happy to see the big sidewinder back on the mound at Chase Field next season.
With an off-season to recover, and hopefully a more permanent ninth-inning solution, it’s quite possible Thompson pitches closer to his 2023 and early-2024 self than his poorer recent months.
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