US President Joe Biden’s Democrats regain control of the US Senate after a remarkable midterms election on Saturday. The results withstood predictions of a Republican sweep in both houses of Congress.
Catherine Cortez Masto became the key Senate player in Nevada for the Democrats. She gave the party 50 seats that were needed for the race.
Cortez Masto narrowly defeated Republican challenger Adam Laxalt, an ex-state attorney general who was supported by former President Donald Trump.
The Senate diverges 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans. The recently elected Senate will be sworn in on January 3.
If Raphael Warnock wins the December 6 election, Georgia runoff election against Republican contestant Herschel Walker, that would boost Democrats’ majority to 51-49.
“I feel good and I’m looking forward to the next couple of years,” Biden said of the result, speaking at a conference of Southeast Asian leaders in Phnom Penh on Sunday.
The outcome in the House of Representatives still dangles in the balance. Although Republicans are slightly favored to take power, it would be with a far less majority than they had envisaged proceeding into Tuesday’s election.
After the Senate result was tossed, Republican Senator from Missouri Josh Hawley called in a tweet for the party to “build something new.”
“The old party is dead. Time to bury it.”
With Masto’s triumph on the heels of Democratic Senator Mark Kelly winning re-election in Arizona late on Friday, Democrats will control at least 50 Senate seats, with Vice President Kamala Harris able to crack ties in the 100-member chamber.
It was still unclear which party will hold the majority in the US House of Representatives for the next two years. Republicans persisted to have an edge, but returns were still flowing in for several races.
Democrats got a vital boost late on Friday when Kelly, the Democratic senator for Arizona, was projected to carry onto his seat, winning against the republican Blake Masters, who like Laxalt was supported by Trump.
Kelly, an ex-Navy combat pilot, and astronaut gave a short winning speech to his supporters in Phoenix on Saturday with his wife who is the former Democratic Representative Gabby Giffords. His speech focused on working in Congress in a bipartisan method.
Kelly did not comment on Masters, but said: “We’ve seen the consequences that come when leaders refuse to accept the truth and focus more on conspiracies of the past than solving the challenges that we face today.”
The midterm elections witnessed many Republican candidates, including Masters, echo former President Trump’s false assertion that he failed the 2020 election to Biden because of huge voter fraud.
