Narrow Senate win in Michigan the ray of hope for Democrats

DEMOCRATS held on to a Senate seat in Michigan following a close-fought race, offering a glimmer of hope in an otherwise poor set of congressional results for the party.

Gary Peters held on to the seat by 1.6 per cent despite a surge from John James, a former Iraq war veteran backed by Donald Trump.

With only a few Senate seats left to be decided it was anticipated that gridlock in Washington would continue regardless of who ended up in the White House.

Republicans were confident of maintaining control of the Senate and also performed unexpectedly well in races for the House of Representatives.

After hundreds of millions of dollars spent on campaigning, Democrats retained control of the House, but lost seats. That dampened the authority of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and even led to speculation over a potential internal Democrat challenge to her position.

It also raised questions over Democrat decisions to plough resources into long-shot races around the country.

Another key Senate race was in North Carolina. Votes were still being counted, but Republican senator Thom Tillis declared victory. Mr Tillis had been behind in polls but the race was affected by a sex scandal involving the Democrat challenger Cal Cunningham.

Mitch Mcconnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, said: “If we win in North Carolina I’m still the offensive coordinator [in the Senate]. I don’t know whether I’m going to be the defensive coordinator or the offensive coordinator as I speak.”

In Georgia, two seats were being contested and at least one was heading for a runoff in January after no candidate reached the 50 per cent mark.

The runoff will pit Republican senator Kelly Loeffler against Democrat Raphael Warnock, a black pastor at the church where the Rev Martin Luther King Jr preached.

In the other Georgia race Republican senator David Perdue, a former business executive whom Mr Trump called his favourite senator, was leading Democrat Jon Ossoff. However, with 97 per cent of the vote counted Mr Perdue was at 50 per cent. If he fell any further that would mean another January runoff.

If there were two Georgia runoffs that would give Democrats an opportunity to tie the Senate at 50-50 if they won both races.