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Democrats are expected to retain control of the Senate on Saturday, winning a narrow majority, as they showed strength in battleground races in a daunting midterm year that gave President Biden a major victory as he watches his two years in office
The final blow to Republican hopes of retaking the chamber came in Nevada, where on Saturday Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D) was expected to win re-election, beating Adam Laxalt (R), a former state attorney general. Cortez Masto’s projected victory guarantees Democrats a 50-seat seat, with a runoff in Georgia on Dec. 6 that could make up for their narrow majority. With 97 percent of the vote, Cortez Masto led by half a percentage point.
Control of the House was still up in the air Saturday as vote counting continued days after an election that began with Democrats expected to suffer heavy losses as midterm elections historically have favored the party out of power. But Democrats have held on and even made some gains in many key contests, leaving many Republicans nervous. By regaining control of the Senate, they dashed GOP hopes of a total takeover of the Capitol.
That’s good news for Biden, who was looking down on the possibility of humiliating defeats as the election neared. Now the Senate, which oversees the confirmation of executive staff and federal judges, will be backed into his party’s corner. A majority in the Senate will also give the president and his party more voice over legislative debates over domestic and foreign spending and other important issues.
“I’m feeling good and I’m looking forward to the next two years,” Biden told reporters. He called Cortez Masto and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (DN.Y.) to congratulate them from Cambodia, where he is attending a summit of Asian nations, according to the White House.
Schumer called the results a “vindication” of Democrats and their agenda, saying Republicans had turned off voters with extremism and “negativity,” including some candidates’ false insistence that the 2020 election had been stolen . “America showed that we believe in our democracy,” he told reporters in New York, while praising the quality of the Democratic incumbents.
Most national Republicans remained silent on the expected outcome Saturday night, and Laxalt’s campaign has yet to publicly acknowledge Cortez Masto’s projected victory.
Still, a few Republicans began to voice their displeasure as they faced at least two more years in the minority. “The old party is dead. Time to bury him. Build something new,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) tweeted shortly after calling the race.
Shiree Verdone, a Republican fundraiser, said Saturday night that GOP donors and activists are dismayed by the outcome of the election.
“We need to examine what went wrong. There needs to be some kind of study of what happened in this election.” said Verdone, who did a fundraiser for Laxalt and acknowledged that Democrats know how to get out the vote in Nevada with the “Reid machine,” named for the late Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who in October predicted as the head of the Senate GOP’s campaign arm that his party would carry between 53 and 55 seats, had not yet made a statement late into the night of Saturday
Cortez Masto announced that he would give a victory speech on Sunday.
Democrat Cisco Aguilar was also projected to win Nevada’s secretary of state race, beating a Republican candidate, Jim Marchant, who sought oversight of Nevada’s elections while baselessly denying the 2020 results. Former President Donald Trump endorsed Marchant in the race.
Democrats were also slated to pick up a House seat in Washington state from Republican Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, who was unseated in a Republican primary after voting to impeach Trump for the attack on the Capitol on 6 of January 2021 by a pro- Trump Mafia.
In Nevada’s Senate race, Cortez Masto’s victory was part of a perfect record so far by incumbent senators seeking midterm re-election as voters leaned heavily against flipping the order established in the chamber. It was part of a strong showing by Democrats in battleground areas where Republicans fell short after emphasizing rising prices and concerns about crime during an era of one-party control in Washington.
Republicans began the election needing to pick up a seat to take control of the Senate. Democrats flipped a seat in Pennsylvania and held on in several other states considered vulnerable, running as protectors of abortion rights after the end of Roe v. Wade and labeling GOP rivals as extremists. One of those states was Arizona, where Sen. Mark Kelly (D) was expected to win over Republican challenger Blake Masters on Friday night.
In Nevada, Laxalt tried to tie Cortez Masto to Biden while blaming inflation and crime on Democratic policies, pointing to a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill that Cortez Masto helped pass during his prime of the pandemic
Republicans predicted his economic message would especially resonate in a working-class state with some of the highest inflation in the country. But both sides always expected the race to be decided by razor-thin margins, with Cortez Masto claiming a second term in a state the GOP has long considered a top pickup opportunity.
Cortez Masto, who is the first Latina elected to the Senate, made abortion access central to her campaign, warning that her opponent could help pass a federal abortion ban even though Nevada had guaranteed access to the procedure by popular vote. He also touted Democrats’ efforts to lower costs, including the price of prescription drugs.
Laxalt has said he would not support a national abortion ban, although he supports a statewide referendum to ban abortion after 13 weeks. During the general election, he said little about his role in stoking former President Donald Trump’s false claims of voter fraud as Democrats attacked him on the issue.
During a news conference earlier Saturday, Clark County Recorder Joe Gloria was asked if any campaigns had expressed concerns about the recount process. “I have nothing to report there,” he said. Gloria later added that she had heard “nothing from any campaign” about allegations of fraud.
The Senate has been evenly split between the two parties during Biden’s presidency, with Vice President Harris empowered to cast tie-breaking votes. The fight for the majority was a focal point of the midterm campaign, with large sums of cash flooding into key states. Inexperienced candidates elevated by Trump eased the way for Democrats in some important races, sometimes stumbling and giving Democrats more room to attack.
In Pennsylvania, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D) defeated celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz, a Republican frontrunner pushed by the former president. Oz faced scrutiny for his popular television show, which promoted questionable products; his long residence in New Jersey; and instances that Democrats used to paint him as an out-of-touch candidate, including his reference to raw vegetables as “raw.”
The Arizona race also featured a Trump-backed newcomer to Masters, whom Democrats called an extremist. They seized on comments he made about privatizing Social Security and his support for abortion restrictions, including a national 15-week ban.
Democrats held off other challenges, holding off Republican attempts to advance in Colorado, Washington state and New Hampshire. Republicans nominated more moderate candidates in the top two states, but in New Hampshire the GOP nominee was Don Bolduc, a far-right candidate who embraced much of Trump’s platform and who had falsely claimed that Trump won the 2020 elections.
Republicans retained control of open seats in North Carolina and Ohio and will send two new senators to the upper house in those states: Rep. Ted Budd and author JD Vance, respectively. In Wisconsin, Sen. Ron Johnson (R) narrowly won re-election in a competitive contest.
In Georgia, Sen. Raphael G. Warnock (D) ran narrowly ahead of Republican candidate Herschel Walker, a former football player. But neither candidate reached the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff. The two will meet again in a second round next month. Both sides have been preparing in the purple state.
In Alaska, vote counting continues under a new ranked-choice system. Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Trump target, and Kelly Tshibaka, a challenger backed by the former president, competed in that race.
In all, Democrats were playing defense in the Senate in 14 states this year in the midterms, all of which were won by Biden in 2020. Republicans were playing defense in 21 states, including two where Biden won. One was Pennsylvania, so far the only seat flipped.
Schumer praised the quality of the Democratic incumbents, saying they won in part because Republicans nominated “flawed” candidates. Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the chairman of the Senate Democrats’ campaign arm, said in a statement that the victories represent a “resounding endorsement of the majority of Democrats in the Senate” and “a rejection of extremism championed by the GOP.” .”
The losses have sparked discontent among Senate Republicans, with at least six of them pushing for next week’s leadership election to be delayed in a challenge to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s leadership.
The Senate Leadership Fund, an outside group closely associated with McConnell (R-Ky.), spent more than $230 million this cycle supporting Republicans in races across the country. Without directly criticizing Trump, McConnell lamented before the election that “quality of nominees” issues made it harder for Republicans to flip the Senate than the House.
As several Trump-backed Senate candidates have lost, Trump and his allies have tried to turn McConnell around, criticizing him for not spending more in Arizona to…