Democrat Ruben Gallego has defeated Republican Kari Lake in the race for Arizona’s open Senate seat.

The Arizona race for retiring independent Senator Kyrsten Sinema’s seat was the last race to be called by the Associated Press, bringing the final Senate tally to 53 seats for Republicans and 47 seats for Democrats. Republicans will assume the majority after successfully flipping seats in  West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Montana.

Gallego led with 50 percent support to Lake’s 47.8 percent, with an estimated 95 percent of the vote counted. Green Party candidate Eduardo Quintana pulled 2.2 percent of the vote.

The result marks a second loss for Lake, a former tv anchor who first entered politics with an unsuccessful bid for Arizona governor in 2022.

Lake was a strong supporter of president-elect Donald Trump on the campaign trail and often espoused his rhetoric about the 2020 election being stolen – and in 2022, made similar claims about her own race. Lake never conceded her 2022 race and even referred to herself as the “lawful governor” in her 2023 book. She was still fighting in court to overturn the results of the gubernatorial election when she launched her Senate bid.

Lake’s stop the steal comments and her flip-flopping positions on abortion proved a weakness in the close race, even as she tried to moderate by opposing a federal abortion ban.

She was also left to distance herself from comments she made about beloved longtime Arizona Senator John McCain, who died of brain cancer in 2018. During her gubernatorial campaign, she called McCain a loser and told his supporters to “get the hell out” of a campaign event. During her Senate race, she suggested the comments were made “in jest.”

“I think if John McCain — who had a great sense of humor — would have heard it, he would have laughed,” she said.

Trump-backed Senate candidates have lost in every race in Arizona since Trump was elected president in 2016. However, the president-elect won the state this year, a sign that many Arizona voters split their tickets, voting for Trump/Gallego. A similar scenario played out in several other swing states this cycle that voted Trump for president but saw a Democrat win in the Senate, including Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada.

Gallego, a five-term House member and an Iraq War veteran who will be Arizona’s first Latino senator, celebrated his win in remarks to supporters on Tuesday.

“I will fight for Arizona in Washington,” Gallego said, vowing to fight for those who voted for him and those who didn’t.