Democrats are just one seat away from keeping control of the US Senate as all eyes turn to Nevada, where the competitive Senate race is increasingly trending in Democrats’ direction.

CNN projected late Friday that Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, who was elected in 2020 to fill the term of the late GOP Sen. John McCain, will win reelection, capping a string of victories for his party. Kelly’s defeat of venture capitalist Blake Masters, who had echoed former President Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, marked yet another rejection by voters of a Trump-backed candidate who Democrats portrayed as an extremist.

So far, Democrats will hold 49 seats in the Senate and Republicans will hold 49 – meaning Democrats only need one more seat to clinch the majority in the Senate (with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie breaking vote). They could reach that critical 50-seat threshold if they are successful in Nevada, where Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto is closing in on Republican Adam Laxalt, the state’s former attorney general – who called the 2020 presidential election “rigged” and filed lawsuits on Trump’s behalf trying to overturn Biden’s 2020 victory in the Silver State.

The Nevada Senate race has been deadlocked for months, but it could ultimately determine the balance of power in the upper chamber. Democrats are also defending a seat in Georgia, where Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker are headed to a December 6 runoff, CNN projects.

Control of the US House still hangs in the balance. But it is clear that even if Republicans win a majority, it will be by a far more slender margin than GOP leaders had hoped. That unexpected outcome has already produced recriminations and second-guessing of Republican leaders, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who had hoped to be emerging from these contests with a clear mandate to become the next House majority leader.

The string of Democratic wins Friday night marked a stunning reversal of fortune for a party that had appeared to be in serious trouble heading into Tuesday’s elections. Candidates like Kelly and Cortez Masto were laboring under President Joe Biden’s low approval ratings, an unfavorable economic climate – with inflation and high gas prices pinching the budgets of families all across the country – and facing historical trends that tend to lead to steep losses in the first midterm cycle of a new president.

But this has been a complex cycle with many different crosscurrents affecting voter behavior, including the Supreme Court’s decision in June overturning abortion rights that angered many voters across the country. Republicans were also hamstrung by Trump’s decision to boost far-right candidates who were loyal to him, but often too extreme to appeal to the swing voters who decide elections. In the end, many independent voters and moderates appear to have rejected candidates they viewed as too extreme or too closely aligned with Trump – and Democrats turned out in droves to protect their incumbent candidates.