Sen. Mark Kelly, an Arizona Democrat, defeated Republican tech investor Blake Masters in one of the hardest-fought Senate races of the election season.
The race was called Friday by the Associated Press, though official results will take longer.
Once consistently GOP territory, Arizona has stutter-stepped into battleground status in recent elections, siding with Joe Biden over President Trump by just over 10,000 votes two years ago.
Kelly, a former NASA astronaut who is also married to retired Democratic congresswoman-turned-gun-control advocate Gabrielle Giffords, has jumped into a variety of issues during this first term in Congress.
Kelly co-authored a congressional stock trading ban with fellow freshman Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia, proposing that lawmakers and their immediate family members curb potential conflicts of interests by placing their financial assets in blind trusts.
Masters is a first-time candidate vying to reinsert some red into the battleground state after voters handed control of the Senate delegation to Democrats Kelly (2020) and Kyrsten Sinema (2018). Masters has migrated from the venture capital world into politics with the help of tech billionaire Peter Thiel.
Former President Donald Trump endorsed Masters in early June based on Masters’ denial of Joe Biden’s lawful victory.
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