Republicans have come close to winning a majority in the US House of Representatives while control of the Senate hinges on some close races, two days after Democrats averted a predicted “red wave” of Republican gains in the midterm elections.
Republicans have won at least 210 House seats, according to Edison Research, eight of the 218 needed to wrest the House from Democrats and effectively stall President Joe Biden’s legislative agenda.
While Republicans remain favourites, 33 House races remained to be decided, including 21 of the 53 most competitive races, according to a Reuters analysis by leading nonpartisan meteorologists, likely ensuring the final outcome will not be determined. for some time.
The fate of the Senate was much less certain. Both sides could take control if they win overly close bids in Nevada and Arizona, where officials are counting thousands of uncounted votes.
The ruling party historically suffered heavy losses in a president’s first midterm elections, and Tuesday’s results suggested voters were punishing Biden for the strongest inflation in 40 years.
But Democrats were able to avoid the big defeat that Republicans had predicted and held out in close Senate battles in Nevada and Arizona.
Tuesday’s findings also suggested voters were criticizing Republican efforts to ban abortion and questioning the nation’s vote-counting process.
President Biden framed the election as a test of American democracy at a time when hundreds of Republican candidates accepted former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
A split in the Senate vote would mean the majority would drop to a Georgia vote for the second time in two years.
Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker failed to reach 50% on Tuesday, forcing them into a one-on-one battle on Dec. 6.
Even a slim majority in the House would allow Republicans to shape the rest of Biden’s term, blocking priorities like abortion rights and investigating his administration and his family.
President Biden, who is traveling to Egypt today for the United Nations COP27 summit on climate change, acknowledged this reality on Wednesday and said he is ready to work with Republicans.
A White House official said Biden spoke by phone with House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, who announced hours earlier that he intended to run for House speaker if Republicans control the chamber.
If McCarthy is going to be the next House speaker, he may find it hard to keep his controversial caucus together, with a far-right wing that has little interest in compromise.
Control of the Senate, meanwhile, would give Republicans the power to block President Biden’s candidates for judicial and administrative positions.
There were still thousands of votes left uncounted in the two very competitive states of Arizona and Nevada.
Elections officials in Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous, said it could take at least until Friday to count all the votes there.
Several “election deniers” — those backing Trump’s false claim that they stole the 2020 presidential election from him — won Tuesday, but many seeking positions to oversee elections at the state level were defeated.
“It was a good day, I think, for democracy,” President Biden said, reports RTE.
Trump, who has played an active role in recruiting Republican candidates, has had mixed results.
He won in Ohio, where “Hillbilly Elegy” author JD Vance won a Senate seat to keep it in Republican hands.
But many other Trump-backed candidates have suffered defeats, such as famed retired surgeon Mehmet Oz, who lost a crucial Pennsylvania Senate race to Democrat John Fetterman.
Meanwhile, Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who could challenge Trump in 2024, won re-election by nearly 20 percentage points, fuelling his rising national profile.
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