Matt York / AP

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio speaks to supporters during an election night party Tuesday, Nov. 6, in Phoenix. At right is his wife, Eva.

Other results that might have flown under your radar on Election Night:

• Republican Joe Arpaio, 80, nationally famous for his fierce enforcement of laws against illegal immigration, won his sixth straight term as sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz. Arpaio — who is the defendant in federal and civil lawsuits accusing him of violating the rights of undocumented immigrants — defeated Democrat Paul Penzone, a former Phoenix police officer, Telemundo Arizona reported.

• Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., beat Republican former Gov. Tommy Thompson to become the nation's first openly gay senator, NBC News projected. Thompson — who served as secretary of Health and Human Services in the administration of former President George W. Bush, announced his retirement from politics in his concession speech.

• The latest effort to abolish the death penalty in California was headed for defeat, NBC 4 in Los Angeles reported. Proposition 34 would have applied retroactively to nearly 725 people on California's Death Row and would also have diverted $100 million from the state's general fund to help solve more homicide and rape cases.

• Republican Kerry Bentivolio — a reindeer farmer and Santa Claus impersonator — defeated Democrat Syed Taj, a physician, in Michigan's 11th Congressional District, NBC News projected. The race became wide open after Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, a five-term Republican, resigned in July after failing to produce enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot.

• "Joe the Plumber" — real name Samuel Wurzelbacher — lost his House race to Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, winning only 24 percent of the vote, NBC station WNWO of Toledo reported. Wurzelbacher, who came to prominence as a politicized symbol of the economy's toll on the middle class in during the 2008 campaign, had said he would advocate for veterans and use his "notoriety" to help others — no matter their party affiliation.

• Republicans lost their 102-member supermajority in the Texas House, opening the door for Democrats to slow or block the majority's conservative agenda, The Associated Press reported. That means Republicans can no longer suspend the rules to push through legislation over the objections of minority Democrats. Last year, Republicans had enough lawmakers to form a quorum without any Democrat showing up for work.

• But Republicans won enough seats in the Tennessee Senate to earn their first supermajority since Reconstruction.

• Voters in Wichita, Kan., defeated a measure to put fluoride in their water, NBC station KSN reported. "I'll be in my office tomorrow morning at 7:30 like most every dentist in Wichita," said Dr. Lucynda Raben of Wichitans for Healthy Teeth.

More election coverage from NBCNews.com:

• Obama wins re-election; Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin prove pivotal
• Democrats retain control of Senate with series of hard-fought wins
• Rape remarks sink two Republican Senate hopefuls
• In costliest-ever Senate race, Warren beats Brown for Mass. seat
• Maine's Harley-riding King vowed to 'shake up' D.C.
• Republicans easily maintain control of House
• Colorado, Washington approve recreational marijuana use
• Pence in as governor of Indiana; Hassan wins in N.H.
• Majority of voters see American on wrong track

Follow NBC Politics on Twitter and Facebook

President Barack Obama leads presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney in Wisconsin in the first major poll of Badger State voters since Rep. Paul Ryan was added to the Republican ticket.

Forty-nine percent of likely Wisconsin voters said they would vote for Obama if the election were held today, versus 46 percent of voters who said they would vote for the Romney-Ryan ticket, according to a Marquette University Law poll released Wednesday.

That's a much closer margin than has separated Romney and Obama in this swing state for much of 2012; the two candidates were tied in Marquette's likely voter model in mid-May, but Obama opened a wider lead over Romney during the course of the summer. The law school's last poll conducted before the Ryan pick had Obama ahead, 50-45 percent.

NBC News currently rates Wisconsin a "toss up" in its ratings of swing states this fall. But no Republican presidential candidate has won there since President Ronald Reagan in 1994. Nonetheless, the GOP ticket did campaign there shortly after Ryan was named Romney's running mate, and some Republican super PACs have spent on television advertising in the state.

To that end, 29 percent of registered Wisconsin voters said the choice of Ryan made them more likely to vote for Romney, and 13 percent said it would make them less likely to support the former Massachusetts governor. But 53 percent said Ryan's addition to the GOP ticket had no impact on their vote.

**Also of note: Former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson, on the heels of his victory this month in a three-way Republican primary, leads Democratic Rep. Tammy Baldwin in the race for Wisconsin's open Senate seat.

Fifty percent of registered Wisconsin voters said they would vote for Thompson, versus 41 percent who would back Baldwin. Both are running to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Herb Kohl.

The poll, conducted Aug. 16-19, has a 4.2 percent margin of error for its sample of likely voters, and a 3.8 percent margin of error for its sample of registered voters.

Democrats control the Senate by a 53-47 majority. Two years ago, Republicans seized control of the House of Representatives in the 2010 mid-term election and hold a 240 to 192 majority.

In Florida, two-term Democratic Senator Bill Nelson faced minor opposition in his primary, but was expected to be in for a tough re-election battle in November against the Republican primary winner, U.S. Representative Connie Mack.

Mack, the son of a former senator, easily won the Republican primary over three other candidates and could edge out the incumbent Nelson in a general election, according to a recent poll. But political analysts said Nelson has ample resources to attack Mack.

"Tonight's results really show that a lot of Republicans are voting for the candidate they think will have the best chance of beating the Democrat" and putting aside negative concerns about individual candidates, said University of South Florida political analyst Susan MacManus.

Because of population shifts over the past decade, Florida added two congressional seats, but the redrawn districts pitted two incumbent Republicans against each other. Republican John Mica, a 20-year veteran, easily beat Sandy Adams, a favorite of the conservative Tea Party movement, in a central Florida district.

The Cook Political Report considers seven of the 23 Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate seats to be toss-ups. Nelson's re-election chances were seen as particularly tough. Three of the 10 Republican-held seats up for election this year are toss-ups.

"It's a 50-50 ball game right now," said Cook Political Report analyst Jennifer Duffy. "When I look at the map, I find it improbable that any party would have 52 (Senate) seats, with 51 more probable."

A 50-50 tie in the Senate would give control of the chamber to the candidate who wins the presidency - Democratic President Barack Obama or his Republican challenger, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

Wisconsin race 
A wild card in the Senate will be if former Maine Governor Angus King, an independent, wins the seat of retiring Republican Olympia Snowe. King has said he will not declare which party he will side with until after the November vote.

Wisconsin and Connecticut voters set the stage to fill U.S. Senate seats being vacated by retiring Democrat Herb Kohl and Joseph Lieberman, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats.

Wisconsin Democrat Tammy Baldwin, a seven-term U.S. representative and avowed liberal, ran unopposed in her party's primary. Former four-term Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson beat businessman and political neophyte Eric Hovde and two other candidates for the Republican nomination.

Thompson may benefit in the general election from Romney's choice over the weekend of Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan as his vice presidential running mate, analysts said.

However, Ryan is a polarizing figure in Washington, where he led his party's push to cut domestic spending, lower taxes and scale back the size of the federal government as chairman of the House of Representatives Budget Committee.

The Connecticut contest was won by favorite Linda McMahon, a professional wrestling executive. McMahon is seeking another chance after she lost a Senate race two years ago despite spending $50 million.

On the Democratic side, U.S. Representative Christopher Murphy was favored to win the primary and has already been targeted by McMahon's campaign ads.

In June, a Quinnipiac University poll found Murphy with a slight lead over McMahon if the two candidates face each other in the November general election.

Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat, was predicted to be heavily favored in November against the winner of the Republican contest. The party-endorsed candidate, Republican state representative Kurt Bills, was leading handily with more than half the vote counted. 

(Additional reporting by Edith Honan in New York, David Bailey in Minneapolis and David Adams, Tom Brown and Barbara Liston in Florida.; Writing by Andrew Stern. Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Christopher Wilson)