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With a comfortable lead when early ballot results were posted, Debbie Lesko and her campaign felt confident the numbers would remain in her favor as she returned to her hotel room Tuesday night.
And with 100 percent of precincts reporting Wednesday morning in Arizona’s 8th U.S. Congressional District, Ms. Lesko appears to have retained her seat in Washington, D.C.
Voter turnout as of 10:20 a.m. Wednesday was estimated at 48 percent in CD 8, with nearly 222,000 ballots casted.
“First I want to thank the voters who elected me to serve in Congress,” Ms. Lesko told the Daily News Sun Tuesday night, around the same time The Associated Press called the race in her favor.
“It would be really nice for Republicans and Democrats to get immigration reform done,” she said about next steps in Congress. “One of the issues is security at the border and I hope we can work together to get that done.”
Democrats took a majority in the U.S. House after Tuesday’s election with a 225-197 edge as of 11 a.m. Thursday, with 13 seats still to be decided.
However, Ms. Lesko is looking past the shift.
“I have a long history of working with people on both sides of the aisle and getting things done,” she said Thursday. “I hope to work with my colleagues in both chambers to build relationships and pass legislation that will help my constituents and Americans across the nation.”
The U.S. Senate remains Republican (51-44-2 with three seats still undeclared) as Arizona counties continue to count up votes in the race between Martha McSally and Kyrsten Sinema. Ms. McSally was leading as of noon Thursday by just over 17,000 votes.
However, Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous county, still has about 472,000 ballots to go through, according to Recorder Adrian Fontes on Wednesday afternoon.
Ms. Tipirneni thanked her supporters and congratulated Ms. Lesko in statement released Wednesday morning.
“Even though our campaign wasn’t victorious, our comm unities made their voices heard, demanding that this seat could no longer be taken for granted and that candidates must ask for the honor of representing us,” Ms. Tipirneni states. “I congratulate Debbie Lesko on a hard-fought campaign, wish her good luck, and pray that she takes the wisdom and messages gleaned from our campaigns to better represent us in Congress.”
Lesko returning to D.C.
Ms. Lesko said it has been an interesting year in which she has had to campaign for four elections and split time between the Capitol and Arizona. She had to beat out a slew of Republican challengers in the special election primary before defeating Ms. Tipirneni in April’s election. She ran unopposed in the August primary before Tuesday’s 14-point margin in the midterm general.
“It will be nice to relax maybe a little bit without having four elections in one year,” she said, adding she plans to return to Washington, D.C. next week.
Her focus in Congress will continue to be introducing and passing legislation affecting veterans affairs, Medicare, and Social Security.
She will begin her first full two-year term when the U.S. House of Representatives returns to session Tuesday.
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