World News | Democrats' Senate Drive Halted by GOP, but Control Teeters
Get latest articles and stories on World at LatestLY. Democrats had a disappointing night in the battle for Senate control, but it was too soon for Republicans to take a victory lap Wednesday, although they brushed back multiple challengers to protect their now teetering majority.
Washington, Nov 4 (AP) Democrats had a disappointing night in the battle for Senate control, but it was too soon for Republicans to take a victory lap Wednesday, although they brushed back multiple challengers to protect their now teetering majority.
Key races in North Carolina, Maine and Michigan remained undecided, and at least one in Georgia was headed to a January runoff.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said President Donald Trump's campaign helped his GOP allies, but it's still to soon to declare victory as state election officials count ballots.
“We're waiting — whether I'm going to be the majority leader or not,” McConnell said at a press conference in his home state of Kentucky.
In a delicate pushback against Trump's own premature claims of victory over Joe Biden in the presidential race, the GOP leader said: “Claiming you've won the election is different from finishing the counting." McConnell said he felt “pretty good” about the remaining contests. He secured a seventh term in a costly campaign, fending off Democrat Amy McGrath, a former fighter pilot.
Election Night delivered a jarring outcome for Democrats who had devised an expanded political map, eager to counter Trump and his party's grip on the Senate.
While Democrats picked up must-win seats in Colorado and Arizona, they suffered a setback in Alabama, and Republicans held their own in one race after another — in South Carolina, Iowa, Texas, Kansas, and Montana, dramatically limiting Democrats' hopes to make inroads.
The races attracted an unprecedented outpouring of small-dollar donations for Democrats, from Americans apparently voting with their pocketbooks to propel long-shot campaigns.
The voters' choices will force a rethinking of Democratic Party strategy, messaging, and approach in the Trump era.
"You wasted a lot of money,” said White House ally Sen. Lindsey Graham in Columbia, South Carolina, after defeating Jamie Harrison, despite the Democrat's stunning $100 million haul for his upstart campaign.
“This is the worst return on investment in the history of American politics.” Trump loomed large over the Senate races as did Democratic rival Joe Biden. The Trump administration's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout, as well as the nation's uneasy mood all seemed to be on the ballot.
Voters ranked the pandemic and the economy as top concerns, according to AP VoteCast, a national survey of the electorate.
“It's time for a different approach,” said Democrat John Hickenlooper, a former governor who unseated Republican Sen. Cory Gardner in Colorado, in a live video message posted on Facebook.
Yet voters, for the most part, stuck with the status quo.
Securing the Senate majority will be vital for the winner of the presidency. Senators confirm administration nominees, including the Cabinet, and can propel or stall the White House agenda. With Republicans now controlling the chamber, 53-47, three or four seats will determine party control, depending on who wins the presidency because the vice president can break a tie in the Senate.
Democrats contested seats from New England to the Deep South and the Midwest to the Mountain West, reaching deep into GOP strongholds. But by early Wednesday, the tally was not too different from before Election Day.
The Democrats' gains were in Colorado and Arizona, where former astronaut Mark Kelly beat GOP incumbent Martha McSally. But they couldn't hold on in Alabama: Former college football coach Tommy Tuberville defeated Sen. Doug Jones.
Several battlegrounds broke for Republicans: In South Carolina, Graham survived the race of his political career against Harrison; in Texas, Sen. John Cornyn turned back former Air Force helicopter pilot MJ Hegar; in Iowa, Sen. Joni Ernst defeated Democrat Theresa Greenfield in a race seen as a toss-up; in Montana, Sen. Steve Daines routed Gov. Steve Bullock; and in Kansas, Rep. Roger Marshall prevailed over state Sen.
Barbara Bollier, a former Republican who energized Democrats in a state that hasn't elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1932.
The final breakdown awaited the outcome of races in Alaska, Maine, Michigan, North Carolina.
North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis has struggled against Democrat Cal Cunningham, despite the married challenger's sexting scandal with a public relations strategist.
And in Maine the race between GOP Sen. Susan Collins and Democrat Sara Gideon could be another one that pushes later into the week. If no one in the multi-candidate field breaks the 50% threshold in the first-round votes, then there are additional tabulations in which last-place finishers are eliminated. Under the state's rank-choice system the tabulations continue until a candidate achieves a majority.
In Georgia, two seats were being contested and at least one is headed to a runoff after no candidate reached the 50% threshold to win.
GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler will face Democrat Raphael Warnock, a Black pastor at the church where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. preached, in the Jan. 5 runoff special election for the seat Loeffler was tapped to fill for retired Sen. Johnny Isakson.
In the other Georgia race, GOP Sen. David Perdue, the former business executive Trump calls his favorite senator, tried to stave off Democrat Jon Ossoff, another candidate who has benefited from the “green wave” of campaign donations. It, too, could go to a runoff. (AP)
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)