The majority in the Senate could remain up in the air until December 6, when the second round is held in Georgia
MADRID, 9 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Republican Party is one step away from regaining control of the House of Representatives after Tuesday’s mid-term elections, although the expected Republican “wave” is far from coming true, since the majority in the Lower House could be very close and the result in the Senate is yet to be decided.
So far each of the two parties has secured 48 seats in the Senate, which renewed a third of its members on Tuesday. The Republican Party needs 51 senators to guarantee a majority, while the Democratic Party needs 50 for the quality vote that Vice President Kamala Harris has as Speaker of the House.
In the House of Representatives, which is completely renewed, the Republican Party has 204 secure seats, compared to 176 for the Democrats. Whoever reaches 218 is guaranteed control of the House. The final result could take days to know due to mail-in voting, recounts and possible legal challenges.
Since World War II, on average the party that controlled the White House has lost 26 seats in the House of Representatives: Barack Obama lost 63 in 2010 and Donald Trump lost 40 in 2018.
With these data in hand, the polls have failed in their attempt to predict the outcome of these ‘midterms’ and analysts took it for granted that concern about crime and inflation would be the wind in favor that would give Republicans a clear victory.
The US press is already speaking openly of surprise to refer to the elections and highlights the unquestionable defeats of the initiatives submitted to a referendum to toughen abortion defended by the Republican leader, Donald Trump, and his associates.
Voters in Michigan, California, Vermont and Kentucky have supported measures in favor of abortion rights in rejection of what the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has called an “extremist attempt to permanently ban abortion.”
Also significant is the victory of John Fetterman in the debate for a seat in the Senate in Pennsylvania, after defeating the famous Republican doctor Mehmet Oz. In Wisconsin, the Republican candidate, Ron Johnson, has managed to revalidate his mandate despite being one of the declared targets of the Democratic Party and his candidate, Mandela Barnes.
Despite the joy over the much better results than the polls predicted, Democrats have little reason for optimism, since if the Republican control of the House of Representatives is confirmed, the legislative agenda of President Joe Biden will be seriously affected.
On the horizon, a new confrontation could break out over the spending ceiling, with a Republican Party inclined to limit the Administration’s indebtedness, which could seriously limit Biden’s plans. It could also spark a wave of investigative commissions against Biden and his administration for his performance under Kevin McCarthy as the new Speaker of the House.
One of the possible keys to this surprise would be turnout, which has grown significantly in states like Georgia, where senator candidates Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker will have to wait for the second round of voting, scheduled for December 6, to find out who will have a reserved seat in the Senate, in Washington.
Results also remain in Arizona and Nevada, where the current Democratic senators could be unseated by their Republican rivals to give the Great Old Party, as it is colloquially known, control of the upper house of the Capitol.
Yes, Florida has been confirmed as a bastion of the Republican Party, with the victories of Governor Ron DeSantis, Trump’s possible rival in the primaries for the 2024 presidential candidacy, and Senator Marco Rubio, one of the most important voices of the formation in matters immigration and foreign relations with Latin America.
