Republicans make gains in US midterms but no ‘red wave’
Disappointing night for ex-president Donald Trump, who was counting on a powerful showing by GOP to boost his expected 2024 run to return to White House.
Republicans appear poised to eke out a slim majority in the US House of Representatives but their hopes of a “red wave” in the United States midterm elections were dashed as President Joe Biden’s Democrats outperformed expectations.
It was a disappointing night for Donald Trump, who was counting on a powerful Republican showing to boost his expected 2024 run to return to White House. He also saw his main rival for the party’s presidential nomination, Ron Desantis, record a thumping victory to remain governor of Florida.
With three key races yet to be called after Tuesday’s vote, the Senate remained in play but it was leaning Democratic and control may hinge on a run-off election in the southern state of Georgia in December.
Republicans seemed on track to reclaim the 435-member House for the first time since 2018, but by a handful of seats, a far cry from their predictions.
Top Republican Kevin Mccarthy, who had forecast a pick-up of as many as 60 House seats, put on a brave face after the underwhelming showing.
“It is clear that we are going to take the House back,” said Mccarthy, who hopes to be the lower chamber’s next speaker.
While the night saw wins by more than 100 Republicans embracing Trump’s disproven claim that Biden stole the 2020 election, several high-profile acolytes of the former president came up short.
“Many of the candidates he endorsed underperformed and cost their party a chance at picking up seats that should have been winnable,” said Jon Rogowski, a political science professor at the University of Chicago.
“Not only did voters reject many of Trump’s candidates, but they also rejected his policies,” Rogowski said, citing abortion as an example.
In ballot initiatives in five states, voters supported abortion rights in a rejection of the conservative-dominated Supreme Court’s ruling in June that overturned a constitutional right to the procedure.
Aiming to deliver a rebuke to Biden against a backdrop of sky-high inflation and bitter culture wars, Republicans needed just one extra seat to wrest control of the evenly divided Senate.
But by Wednesday the only seat to change hands went to the Democrats, with John Fetterman, a burly champion of progressive economic policies, triumphing in Pennsylvania over Trump-endorsed celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz.
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, a top Trump ally, bluntly conceded to NBC that the election is “definitely not a Republican wave, that’s for darn sure.”
‘NEVER UNDERESTIMATE’
“Never underestimate how much Team Biden is underestimated,” White House Chiefof-staff Ronald Klain tweeted.
A Republican-held House could still derail Biden’s agenda, launching investigations, scuttling his ambitions on climate change and scrutinising the billions of US dollars to help Ukraine fight Russia.
The president’s party has traditionally lost seats in midterm elections, and with Biden’s approval ratings stuck in the low 40s and Republicans pounding him over inflation and crime, pundits had predicted a drubbing. Such an outcome would have raised tough questions on whether the United States’ oldest-ever commander-in-chief, who turns 80 this month, should run again.
Instead, Biden stands to emerge in much better shape than either of his Democratic predecessors, Barack Obama or Bill Clinton, who both took a hammering at the midterms.
Democrats need two more wins to hold the Senate, while Republicans need two to flip it.
Wisconsin’s incumbent Republican Senator Ron Johnson was declared the winner on Wednesday, but counting the remaining votes in Senate races in Arizona and Nevada could take days.
Georgia is to hold a run-off on December 6 after neither candidate crossed the 50 percent threshold needed for victory in the Senate race there.
RISKY DEMOCRAT AD BUYS PAY OFF
In a number of key swing states throughout the nation, Democratic campaigns employed a spending strategy to elevate the profiles of far-right Republicans at the expense of their more moderate primary opponents.
This manoeuvre was premised on the theory that more radical candidates — including a number of individuals who openly question the legitimacy of the 2020 vote — would be easier to defeat in the next general election.
In what some analysts viewed as playing with fire, US$36 million was spent by Democratic groups in 13 Republican primaries leading up to Tuesday’s tight midterm contest. One notable target of this messaging effort was Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano, a state senator, right-wing Christian nationalist, and key figure in the movement to reverse Trump’s election defeat last cycle. Given that the certification of election results falls under the administrative purview of individual states, many analysts viewed Mastriano’s election as a contingency that would set the stage for a constitutional crisis were Democrats to carry Pennsylvania in 2024.