Longtime Democrat Sen. Patty Murray of Washington won her election against her Republican challenger, Tiffany Smiley, in the 2022 midterm elections.
Decision Desk called the race at 12:35 a.m. ET.
Decision Desk HQ projects Sen. Patty Murray (D) wins re-election to the U.S. Senate in Washington.#DecisionMade: 12:35am EST
— Decision Desk HQ (@DecisionDeskHQ) November 9, 2022
Follow more results here: https://t.co/5VrcT8rfqf pic.twitter.com/FgMPam0Q3R
In recent weeks, several polls described the race between Murray, who was first elected in 1992, and Smiley as "neck and neck." One in particular from The Trafalgar Group showed Murray behind Smiley, where 49.4 percent of voters supported Smiley while 48.2 percent supported Murray. The margin of error for the poll was 2.9 percentage points and less than 3 percent of the respondents were undecided.
The New York Times published a report last week claiming that Murray was facing a “stiff challenge” from Smiley and that she was working to “ward off complacency” among Democrat voters.
“We need Democrats to vote,” Murray told the Times. At a rally, she added that Washington is “a Democratic state,” but only “if people vote.”
The Times acknowledged that Democrats have considered Washington a “safely Democratic seat until this month.”
Murray pushed abortion to the front of her campaign in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, though several polls have shown that Americans are more concerned about inflation, the economy and crime.
In an interview with Fox News this week, Smiley, who worked as a triage nurse and is a mother, said Murray was first elected when she was 11 years old and that it was time for her to be voted out.
Decision Desk called the race with just over half the votes in. Murray had 57 percent support to Smiley's roughly 43 percent. Like many states, the more densely populated areas swayed the election.