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Republicans win majority in US Senate, giving party control of Congress Republicans win majority in US Senate, giving party control of Congress
(35 minutes later)
Republicans have won a majority of the seats in the US Senate, handing them control of both houses of Congress after a miserable set of midterm election results for President Barack Obama and his Democratic party. Republicans swept to power in the US Senate on Tuesday after a rout for Democrats in midterm elections that were dominated by criticism of Barack Obama’s presidency and are likely to hobble his last two years in Washington.
Republicans captured Senate seats in West Virginia, Arkansas, South Dakota, Montana, Colorado, North Carolina and Iowa, and fended off Democrats in Kentucky, Georgia and Kansas, giving the party the 51 seats needed for a majority in the upper chamber of Congress, though it could still win more. A stronger-than-expected Republican performance, including wins in states such as Colorado and Iowa that Obama carried in 2012, allows Republicans to take full control of Congress. The GOP also expanded its majority in the House of Representatives.
Mitch McConnell, who as the top Republican in the Senate is poised to become majority leader, pledged to work with Obama in the last two years of the president’s term. By midnight ET Republicans already had 52 Senate seats confirmed. Election results were still outstanding in Alaska and Louisiana – the latter of which will hold a run-off election in December after neither candidate reached 50% of the vote – could add two more to leave Republicans with as much as an eight-seat advantage over Democrats.
“We do have an obligation to work together on issues where we can agree,” he told supporters in a conciliatory victory speech in Kentucky. “I don’t expect the president to wake up tomorrow morning and view the world any differently. He knows I won’t either.” Despite some initial Democratic optimism after they held on to New Hampshire and temporarily appeared to be ahead in North Carolina, the party lost almost all its key target Senate seats.
The Democrats’ loss of the Senate was confirmed shortly before 11.30pm ET when the Associated Press called the North Carolina race in favour of Republican Thom Tillis.
Republicans also held off a challenge from independent candidate Greg Orman in Kansas and managed to prevent a run-off for a Senate seat they’ve held in Georgia by comfortably defeating Democrat Michelle Nunn.
The presumptive new Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, pledged to work with Obama in the last two years of the president’s term after McConnell’s own decisive reelection victory in Kentucky began a steady rout for Democrats across the country.
McConnell’s win over Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes – who controversially refused to say whether she had voted for Obama – was the first key race to be called, shortly after polls closed.
“We do have an obligation to work together on issues where we can agree,” he told supporters. “I don’t expect the president to wake up tomorrow morning and view the world any differently. He knows I won’t either.”
The White House has invited a number of leaders from both the House of Representatives and the Senate to a meeting on Friday that may prove to be a moment of reconciliation aimed at forging compromise on issues such as tax reform and trade negotiations where there is some common ground.The White House has invited a number of leaders from both the House of Representatives and the Senate to a meeting on Friday that may prove to be a moment of reconciliation aimed at forging compromise on issues such as tax reform and trade negotiations where there is some common ground.
Opinion polls had predicted a night of heavy losses for Democrats, who have struggled to distance themselves from an unpopular president, but the scale of the Democratic defeat still came as something of a surprise. Obama had earlier conceded that this year’s midterm elections have proved tough for Democrats, who were defending many of their seats in traditionally Republican-leaning states that he lost in the presidential election.
Obama conceded that this year’s midterm elections were tough for Democrats, who defending many of their seats in traditionally Republican-leaning states that he lost in the presidential election. “This is the worst possible group of states for Democrats since Dwight Eisenhower – there are a lot of states being contested that just tend to tilt Republican,” the president said in one of a series of last-minute radio interviews.
“This is the worst possible group of states for Democrats since Dwight Eisenhower – there are a lot of states being contested that just tend to tilt Republican,” said the president in one of a series of last-minute radio interviews. The misery for Democrats was evident in results around the country. In Kentucky, Grimes took the stage for her concession speech with a rueful look . “While tonight didn’t bring us the result that we had hoped for, this journey, the fight for you was worth it. I will continue to fight for the commonwealth of Kentucky each and everyday.” She did not mention McConnell by name or congratulate him from the stage.
In North Carolina, the defeat for the incumbent Kay Hagan’s defeat came as a heavy blow for the Democratic party in North Carolina, a purple state that now has no Democratic senator or governor for the first time in 30 years. With fewer than 50,000 votes separating the two candidates, turnout appears to have been key.
A clue to why North Carolinians swung in the end to the Republican challenger was given in exit polls, which showed 51% of voters saying they believed that Hagan was too close in her politics to President Obama – the message that Republican Thom Tillis had relentlessly pounded on the campaign trail.
Democrats suffered a heavy blow in Colorado, where the incumbent senator Mark Udall was ousted in decisive fashion by the Republican challenger, Cory Gardner. Udall mounted a disastrous campaign that focused solely on female voters, rarely straying from two topics: contraception and abortion.
The Democrats’ only consolation prize came in New Hampshire, where the incumbent, Jeanne Shaheen, saw off a strong challenge from Republican Scott Brown.
Shaheen, the first American woman to be elected both a governor and US senator, defended herself by painting Brown, who sat in the US Senate for Massachusetts from 2010 to 2012, as an opportunistic carpetbagger who was in hock to out-of-state billionaires.
“We have better days, because the Senate has turned Republican, the House is Republican,” Brown said. “I’m hopeful that the president will come back and try to place our country’s interests first and be a uniter, not a divider.”