Democrats maintain control of the Senate
The election of Catherine Cortez Masto provided Democrats a one-two punch in Arizona and Nevada, two crucial states that Republicans claimed were closely disputed. After incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto won a race in Nevada on Saturday, Democrats were able to seize control of the Senate.
Due to Cortez Masto’s razor-thin victory over Republican Adam Laxalt overnight, the Georgia Senate runoff election scheduled for next month will only determine the percentage of seats held by Democrats, not the balance of power. When lawmakers are sworn in the following year, it guarantees that President Joe Biden will have a chamber of Congress on his side.
After days of anxiously awaiting vote tallying, Cortez Masto has ultimately declared the winner in Nevada. Her victory dealt Democrats in Arizona and Nevada, two crucial states that Republicans had high expectations of taking back, a one-two punch.
Republicans are only slightly more likely than anyone else to win the House. Even while the Senate is a more challenging target for the GOP, the party is certain that it will win the chamber, with NRSC Chairman Rick Scott predicting that Republicans would hold a number of seats.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer credited the calibre of the candidate, Democratic legislative accomplishments over the previous two years, and “anti-democratic, radical MAGA Republicans” as the main factors in the victory speech he gave on Saturday night.
In her general remarks regarding the upcoming Congress, the New York Democrat said that the Senate serves as “a barrier against the prospect of a countrywide abortion ban that many Republicans are now talking about.”
The stakes in the Georgia Senate runoff election on December 6 were lowered by Cortez Masto and Kelly’s successful reelection campaigns. Both candidates, Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock and retired football player Herschel Walker are just short of the required 50% of the vote to win the Nov. 8 election in a landslide.
The election of next month won’t determine who controls the Senate, unlike the state’s runoff election in January 2021, but it will determine if Democrats can maintain their tenuous majority of seats. Democrats will have 51 senators in 2023 if Warnock wins. The Senate will stay tied for another two years if Walker wins, with Vice President Kamala Harris deciding the outcome.
In order to gain control of the Senate in 2022, Republicans only needed to flip one seat. However, the party suffered a setback when Lt. Governor John Fetterman of Pennsylvania upset celebrity Dr. Mehmet Oz to win the state’s open Senate seat. It was one of four Senate contests that a supporter of former President Donald Trump lost in November.
Blake Masters, a young venture capitalist, lost to Kelly in Arizona, while Adam Laxalt, a former Nevada attorney general, lost to Cortez Masto. Retired Army Brigadier General Dan Bolduc fell short of Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire by over ten points.
It contradicts both historical precedent and general assumptions that the Democrats would be able to keep control of the Senate in this midterm election. They achieved this despite President Joe Biden’s low approval ratings, a 40-year high inflation rate, skyrocketing gas costs, and a disorganized withdrawal of US soldiers from Afghanistan that claimed 13 lives of service members.
Republicans are blaming Trump, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Rick Scott, and other Republicans for their losses in the Senate. Throughout the campaign, Scott and McConnell sparred for control, with McConnell urging Scott’s committee to do more to block the nomination of unpopular candidates.
At the same time, Scott deviated and unveiled a 12-point policy proposal that was rejected by McConnell and other GOP leadership figures.
This summer, McConnell claimed that the party’s nominees had “candidate quality” issues. This claim was supported by public polling that revealed many of this year’s Senate Republican candidates to be unpopular or under-recognized by voters.
After unusually fierce and bitter primaries, Oz and Vance worked for months to win over Republican voters. Ultimately, Democrats were successful in portraying the television doctor as a wealthy Hollywood mogul who came to Pennsylvania in search of power.
There were significant financial repercussions when some candidates received favorable GOP base support. Republican nominees have had difficulty raising money for the general election, requiring major super PACs like the Senate Leadership Fund, which is affiliated with McConnell, to spend $240 million on candidate promotion.
Some of that money, $32 million for Vance and $37 million for Ted Budd in North Carolina went to support underdog nominees in places the party believed would be simpler to win this year. That entails taking money away from states like Colorado and Washington, which the GOP early in the cycle considered to be difficult but winnable races.
SLF has stopped supporting its campaigns in Arizona and New Hampshire because, according to the super PAC, these two competitive states can no longer be won by party nominees. Leading conservatives were outraged by the decision, which resulted in financing being withheld from Masters and Bolduc in revenge for the candidates’ refusal to back McConnell.
Republican candidates lost by double digits in both Colorado and Washington after spending some money there.
Biden still has to deal with the prospect of leading a polarised Congress, even if Democrats win the Senate.
In the House, where many races are close, Republicans are predicted to keep a slim majority. Biden will once more have to deal with conflicts between Sens. Joe Machin and Kirsten Sinema in his party if the Senate is split evenly.
As promised, Biden will cooperate with Republicans.
At a press conference last week, Biden declared, “I’m ready to work with my Republican colleagues no matter what the final tallies reveal in this race — and there’s still some counting going on. The American public expects Republicans to be open to working with me as well, I’ve made that plain.
