Donald Trump wins Arizona as US House moves closer to Republican control – US politics live | US politics

The Associated Press (AP) reports that three other US House races in Arizona were too early to call on Saturday, most notably the first and sixth congressional districts.

Republican David Schweikert is seeking an eighth term in the affluent first congressional district that includes north Phoenix, Scottsdale, Fountain Hills and Paradise Valley. His challenger is Democratic former state representative Amish Shah.

The sixth congressional district race pits Republican Juan Ciscomani against Democrat Kirsten Engel, whom he narrowly beat two years ago. The district runs from Tucson east to the New Mexico state line and includes a stretch of the Arizona-Mexico border.

The US Senate race in Arizona between Democratic Ruben Gallego, an Iraq War veteran, and Republican Kari Lake, a well-known former television news anchor and staunch Donald Trump ally, also remained too early to call on Saturday according to AP.

Republican US representative Eli Crane won reelection in a Republican-leaning congressional district covering vast swaths of rural Arizona, reports the Associated Press (AP).

Crane faced Democrat Jonathan Nez, the former Navajo Nation president, in the second district race. Nez was vying to become the first Native American to represent Arizona in Congress.

In a statement late Saturday, Crane commended Nez for entering the race and thanked voters. Crane wrote:

I will continue using every tool in my arsenal to fight against the corruption and selfish interests of the DC elites to put rural Arizonans FIRST.

I’m laser-focused on working with President Trump to lower inflation, secure the border and return to peace through strength.”

The district covers much of north-eastern Arizona and dips south to the northern Tucson suburbs.

Nez said in a statement late on Saturday that he called Crane to congratulate him on a hard-fought victory. “Although we didn’t get the outcome we hoped for, the work we began together is not over,” Nez wrote.

Crane, a former Navy Seal who served in the military for 13 years, is a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus and a staunch ally of president-elect Donald Trump, who won Arizona. Crane was among eight US House Republicans nationally who voted to oust Kevin McCarthy as House speaker in 2023.

Donald Trump won the presidential election in Arizona, the Associated Press (AP) declared on Saturday, completing a clean sweep of all seven battleground states and locking in a decisive electoral college victory over the Democratic vice-president, Kamala Harris.

Trump, who had secured the 270 electoral college votes needed to win the White House by early Wednesday, now has what is expected to be a final total of 312 votes to Harris’ 226.

The win returned the state to the Republican column after Joe Biden’s 2020 victory and marked Trump’s second victory in Arizona since 2016. Trump had campaigned on border security and the economy, tying Harris to inflation and record illegal border crossings during Biden’s administration.

Trump has also won the swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Nevada. In 2020, Biden defeated Trump by winning six of the seven swing states – he narrowly lost North Carolina – and won 306 electoral college votes to Trump’s 232.

Trump also won 306 in his 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton.

The Ap said Trump has won 74.6m votes nationwide, or 50.5%, to Harris’ 70.9m, or 48%.

Meanwhile, Republican US representative Eli Crane won reelection to a US House seat representing Arizona’s second congressional district. The freshman lawmaker defeated former Navajo Nation president, Jonathan Nez, who was vying to become the state’s first Native American representative.

In a statement late on Saturday, Crane commended Nez for entering the race and thanked voters.

More on that in a moment, but first, here are the latest developments in US politics:

• Protests against Trump erupted in the US on Saturday as people on both coasts took to the streets in frustration about his re-election. Thousands of people in major cities including New York City and Seattle demonstrated against the former president and now president-elect amid his threats against reproductive rights and pledges to carry out mass deportations at the start of his upcoming presidency.

• Biden and Trump will meet on Wednesday in the Oval Office, the White House announced on Saturday. “At President Biden’s invitation, President Biden and president-elect Trump will meet in the Oval Office on Wednesday,” the press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said in a statement.

• Republicans on Saturday appeared close to clinching control of the US House of Representatives, a critical element for Trump to advance his agenda when the president-elect returns to the White House in January. The AP reported that three US House races in Arizona were too early to call on Saturday, most notably the first and sixth congressional districts.

• The president-elect has charged Howard Lutnick, a longtime friend, and one of the few high-profile figures in corporate America to vocally endorse his campaign, with recruiting officials who will deliver, rather than dilute, his agenda. The CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, and co-chair of Trump’s transition team, has made no secret of his plan to stack the new White House with loyalists – and keep out anyone who threatens to derail his pledges.

• A senior adviser to Trump said that the incoming US administration’s priority for Ukraine will be achieving peace rather than helping it regain territory captured by Russia in the almost three years of the war. In an interview with the BBC, broadcast on Saturday, Bryan Lanza, who has been a political adviser to Trump since his 2016 presidential campaign, said: “When Zelenskyy says we will only stop this fighting, there will only be peace, once Crimea is returned, we’ve got news for President Zelenskyy: Crimea is gone.”

• An employee at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) has been fired from her job and is being investigated because she told a disaster relief team she was directing in Florida after Hurricane Milton to avoid homes displaying election campaign signs supporting Trump, conduct that the agency head on Saturday called “reprehensible”.