Rep. Kyrsten Sinema is the Democratic candidate for Senate in Arizona. | Alex Wong/Getty Images Elections Sinema continues to expand lead in Arizona Senate race

Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema continued to expand her lead over GOP Rep. Martha McSally on Sunday as new votes were counted in Arizona’s still-uncalled Senate race.

Sinema lead McSally by 32,640 votes as of Sunday evening, and now has 49.6 percent of the vote compared to 48.1 percent for McSally. There are still more than 200,000 votes left in the state to count, a process that could continue into the middle of the coming week.


Sinema trailed McSally on election night, but took the lead late last week as the state began counting hundreds of thousands of outstanding ballots. Sinema has expanded her lead each day as new ballots have been counted. Republicans had hoped that later vote tallies would shift and begin to benefit McSally as the state began counting early ballots dropped at polling places on Election Day, rather than late-arriving early votes, which had leaned toward Sinema. But Sinema continued to increase her lead Sunday night.

There are still more than 160,000 votes outstanding in Maricopa County, home to Phoenix and the largest county in the state. Sinema now leads McSally by about 46,000 votes in the county.

“With the latest ballot count, Kyrsten’s lead is insurmountable. McSally’s campaign said today’s results would be her ‘firewall’ but, as we expected, no firewall emerged," Andrew Piatt, Sinema's campaign manager, said in a statement.

Sinema and McSally are vying to replace retiring Republican Sen. Jeff Flake, and either victor would be the first woman to represent Arizona in the Senate. The race was one of the most hotly contested of the cycle, with more than $50 million spent between the two parties and outside groups.

The Arizona race is one of three Senate races that remains uncalled: The Florida race is heading to a recount and the Mississippi race will be a late-November runoff. Republicans have a 51-49 majority, but have currently added two seats to that majority having flipped Indiana, Missouri and North Dakota while Democrats flipped Nevada.

