Joe BidenCredits: AP
Republicans currently hold 211 House seats, seven short of the 218 needed to win the House, while Democrats have won 202.
However, the Nevada victory is a big relief for Democrats, who came to Tuesday’s election hoping to face a Republican “red wave” due to record inflation, pressures of the cost of living and the increase in crime.
In the end, Biden ended up beating expectations, after concerns about democracy and abortion rights shaped voter sentiment, especially among young people, women and independent voters.
Young people also showed up in force. Among them was Edrulfo Camacho, a 21-year-old Las Vegas hospitality worker who spent weeks before the midterms knocking on doors with his mother, Angelica, in a bid to get more people to vote (voting is not mandatory in the US).
Culinary Union members Edrulfo Camacho and his mother Angelica knock on the door in Las Vegas. Credit: Farrah Tomazin
“I know a lot of people who are struggling, moving from house to house or apartment to apartment because the rent is so expensive,” she said. “I’m blessed because I can still live with my mum and dad, although I really want to leave, but other young people don’t have that luxury.”
The couple is a member of the Culinary Workers Union, which represents the 60,000 hospitality workers who drive Nevada’s economy — from cooks and delivery drivers to waiters and guests.
Those workers were among the hardest hit during the pandemic, Treasury Secretary Ted Pappageorge said, but they embarked on a massive mobilization effort for Democrats on the belief that they would do more to address issues such as affordability housing, which he blamed on “Wall Street”. landlords” who were driving rents through the roof and oil companies, he said, were “raising prices,” which was driving up the cost of gas.
“Republicans are not going to take on the big oil owners or Wall Street,” he said.
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The Nevada result is likely to lead to even more investigations and recriminations in the Republican Party.
Before the midterm elections, National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Rick Scott predicted that his party would likely control 52 seats in the Senate, and possibly even reach a 55-seat majority, as polls showed that Republican candidates gained momentum.
Cortez Masto was also seen as the most vulnerable Democratic incumbent, so much so that Barack Obama traveled to the state days before the legislature to boost her prospects.
Tonight, however, a jubilant Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said that taking back the Senate was “a vindication for Democrats, for our agenda, and for the American people.”
“The American people rejected the anti-democratic extremist MAGA Republicans,” he added.
Nevada was also a crucial battleground because it was a hotbed of electoral denial. Republican secretary of state nominee Jim Marchant had pushed the state’s largest county to switch to manual ballot counting based on Trump conspiracy theories about the validity of voting machines.
Marchant led a national coalition of like-minded conservatives also running for U.S. secretary of state, declaring at a Trump rally in June: “When my coalition of nominees for secretary of state is chosen been all over the country, we’re going to fix the problem. all over the country and President Trump will be president again in 2024!”
He was defeated by Democrat Cisco Aguilar, a lawyer and former president of the Nevada Athletic Commission. Republicans, however, had a victory in the governor’s race, where the Trump-backed Vegas sheriff defeated Steve Sisolak.