Democratic incumbent Senator Mark Kelly has been declared the winner of the Arizona Senate race, according to Decision Desk, besting Republican candidate Blake Masters, 51.78% to 46.1%.

The winner was projected late Friday evening after a lengthy ballot count in which Masters trailed Kelly consistently.

The battle to represent Arizona in the Senate was a closely watched race, as it was widely seen as a key battleground in determining control of the Senate. Kelly was one of the best funded candidates of the 2022 cycle, having raised over $70 million over the course of the campaign. Masters’ campaign was hampered in the general by poor fundraising relative to Kelly’s machine.

Kelly led for the majority of his race for re-election despite significant perceived headwinds for Democrats. In 2022, Democrats across the country faced poor approval ratings relative to Republicans in a number of key election issues, such as inflation, crime, and immigration. Democrats were also burdened with an unpopular Democratic president in the White House.

Kelly tried to blunt Republican criticism of him on those topics by running somewhat as a maverick. Kelly touted studies that ranked him as one of the most bipartisan lawmakers in the Senate. He also distanced himself from President Joe Biden, never requesting that Biden come to Arizona to campaign with him and demurring when asked about it by reporters.

Polls tightened between Kelly and Masters in the closing weeks of the race. With one week left until election day, the Libertarian candidate in the race, Marc Victor, announced that he was dropping out and endorsed Masters. While Victor never polled high, Masters touted the endorsement as a “major boost” in the close race against Kelly.

While Masters trailed Kelly for most of the race, he closed the gap in October. Election forecasters for outlets such as Politico and Cook Political Report moved the Arizona Senate race from a Democratic-leaning race to a toss-up in response.

Masters won a competitive primary race largely because of the financial backing of tech mogul Peter Thiel and former President Donald Trump’s endorsement. Masters was running third in the GOP primary behind Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich and businessman Jim Lamon until Trump endorsed Masters in early June. Masters then soared into the top spot until winning the primary in August.

While he projected himself as an “America First” Trump ally in the primary, Masters pivoted in the general to put the spotlight on Kelly. Masters emphasized his conservative stances on immigration and federal spending, while hammering Kelly for voting with Biden 95% of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight.

Kelly and Masters debated each other one time during the campaign. During the October 6 event, in which Victor also participated, Masters attacked Kelly for his record voting with Biden. Kelly worked to distance himself from the president and claimed that he had secured “$1 billion more” in funding for the U.S. Border Patrol.

The following is the opening satirical monologue from “The Andrew Klavan Show.”

Well, Republicans were hoping for a Red Tsunami. Unfortunately, Red Sue Nami turned out to be an embarrassed Japanese girl, saying, “Oh rook, rots of Lepub-Ricans are rusing.” We did, however, experience a red wave as we waved goodbye to Red Sue Nami.

In the wake of these absurd puns, election analysts and other people without any discernible skill set, are trying to make sense of the mid-term results so that Americans can find out what the people who were wrong about everything will be wrong about next. This is called “expertise,” and it’s actually a great way to make a living while the country is going down the drain.

One lesson we can take away is that, even though Democrats destroy the economy, fill our city streets with homelessness and crime, and sell pornography and sexual deviance to little children before butchering their bodies on the basis of an insane gender theory with no basis in fact, Republicans can still find just the right candidates to lose to them as long as the Democrats carefully select candidates who hate America and have had a stroke.

Exit polls show that the issues voters cared about most included what color sneakers they were wearing and where they could score some of those powerful new strains of legalized marijuana so they could make themselves psychotic and everything would seem fine. Also inflation was a big issue because after shelling out for the dope nowadays, you have no money left to buy Oreos, which is a downer when you have the munchies and are psychotic. Legalized abortion was also important because many voters seem to remember having sex with someone last night while they were stoned out of their minds and if it now turns out they have a baby, they want to be able to kill it without violating their parole and getting sent back to prison.

Among the biggest Democrat supporters were women, who seem to be allowed to vote now for some reason. Also young people lean Democrat, because they’ve had the traumatic experience of not being aborted and want to make sure nothing like themselves ever happens again. The Democrats also seem to have had some success with their clever campaign strategy of turning everything to crap and then screaming about the weather, because climate change was named as a big issue when exit pollsters polled people who were exiting reality.

But what effect did Donald Trump have and how can we get him to stop? Trump devised the strategy of only endorsing candidates who agreed that the last election had been stolen from him. This, in fact, did turn out to be a very big issue with the guy who still gives a rat’s ass about the last election — it was also big with his best friend who pretended to give a rat’s ass about the last election in order to avoid arguments and then voted Democrat because who gives a rat’s ass about the last election?

Now — despite the disappointing results, there were bright spots for Republicans. For instance, they lost in California, Oregon and Washington so they can’t be blamed for those dumpster fires. And they do seem to have eked out a majority in the House so we now have an inspiring titan of a House speaker in Kevin McCarthy. Okay, I’m joking about that one.

But we do have to remember, winning the Senate was always going to be difficult because of the terrible map, which showed all of the races taking place in America where people have gone insane and keep electing Democrats who turn everything to crap and then scream about the weather which kind of does make sense when you really think about it and are stoned out of your mind on some of that great new dope.

But what now? How can we endure the next two years of Democrats thinking they won because we lost? Well, first of all, let’s try to stay calm. Remember there’s always a new day and you just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other until you get to Mexico where you can catch a plane to Norway. You also have to have faith that God is still in his heaven and so we’re probably getting what we deserve which, all right, isn’t really all that encouraging.

But still, politics isn’t everything. There’s also all that great legal marijuana. And once you’re psychotic, things won’t look so disappointing, because you’ll be a Democrat.

Andrew Klavan Is the host of The Andrew Klavan Show at The Daily Wire. A popular political satirist and Hollywood screenwriter, Klavan is also an award-winning novelist. Be sure to order his new novel today: A Strange Habit of Mind, book two in the Cameron Winter Mystery series.

The views expressed in this satirical article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.