[1/11] The sun rises over the US Capitol, as control of Congress remains unclear after the 2022 US midterm elections in Washington, US, November 9, 2022. REUTERS/Tom Brenner
PHOENIX, Nov 10 (Reuters) – Two days after Americans went to the polls, the political world remained on tenterhooks on Thursday, with both chambers of the US Congress ready to seize as election officials painstakingly count hundreds of thousands of votes in the process. may take several days to complete.
Republicans have secured at least 211 seats in the House of Representatives, Edison Research estimated, just seven shy of the 218 needed to wrest control from Democrats and end President Joe Biden’s legislative ambitions.
But 27 races have yet to be determined, including the 16 most competitive according to a Reuters compilation of leading nonpartisan forecasts.
The fate of the Senate, meanwhile, rests on a trio of hotly contested states. Either party can win the majority by sweeping races in Nevada and Arizona, where the counting of late ballots is expected to last a few more days.
If the race does not deliver a majority for either party, control of the Senate will be decided in a runoff election in Georgia for the second time in two years. Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker will go one-on-one on December 6 after both fell just short on Tuesday of the 50% threshold needed to win outright.
(Live election results from all countries are here)
Although Republicans remain heavily favored to take control of the House, their performance on Tuesday looked unimpressive. Some Republicans blamed former President Donald Trump after several of their endorsed candidates, including celebrity surgeon Mehmet Oz of Pennsylvania, lost high-profile races.
Trump’s diminished brand could further push Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to challenge for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, after he won re-election with a majority on Tuesday.
In a statement on Thursday, Trump took aim at his rival, calling him “Ron DeSanctimonious” for the second time in recent days and taking credit for his political rise. The former president is expected to make a third White House run next week; he sent reporters an invitation to a “special announcement” at his Florida club on Tuesday.
Even a slim House majority will allow Republicans to block Biden’s priorities and launch an investigation into his administration, while setting the stage for bruising battles over pressing issues like increasing the nation’s spending limit.
Senate Republicans will control Biden’s judicial appointments, including potential Supreme Court vacancies.
Biden told reporters on Thursday he had not given up hope that Democrats could hold both chambers, saying their chances were “still alive.”
VOTE-COUNTING CHUGGING ALONG
As the votes are tallied, Democrats expressed cautious optimism about the Nevada and Arizona Senate races. On the same subject : The US change in child labor could cause the electric vehicle industry to scramble.
In Nevada, the Republican challenger Adam Laxalt, the state’s attorney general, clung to the lead by less than 2 percentage points, but his advantage over the Democratic incumbent Catherine Cortez Masto has shrunk as ballots in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, are counted.
Arizona presented a mirror image: Democratic incumbent Mark Kelly has seen his margin over challenger Republican Blake Masters narrow since Tuesday, although he is still led by more than 5 percentage points.
Bill Gates, chairman of the board of supervisors in Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, said on Thursday that the backlog count of more than 400,000 votes is likely to last until next week.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, who has echoed Trump’s false claims about voter fraud and whose race against Democrat Katie Hobbs remains too close to call, has accused Maricopa officials of dragging their feet on purpose, an allegation Gates called “attacking”.
“Everybody needs to calm down a little bit and tone down the rhetoric,” said Gates, a Republican.
Despite deep voter frustration over high inflation and Biden’s low approval ratings, Democrats avoided the runaway losses that the party in power has historically suffered in its first presidential midterm election.
That’s partly because of anger over the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down national abortion rights, which led to Republican-backed bans in more than a dozen states.
“Women in America are making their voices heard, man,” Biden said at a political event in Washington.
The president has also cast the election as a test of US democracy at a time when hundreds of Republican candidates have rejected Trump’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged.
Reporting by Tim Reid in Phoenix and Joseph Ax, Jason Lange, Trevor Hunnicutt, Andy Sullivan, Makini Brice, Eric Beech, Susan Heavey, Richard Cowan, Steve Holland, Jeff Mason and Doina Chiacu in Washington; Written by Jeff Mason and Joseph Ax; Editing by Ross Colvin, Rosalba O’Brien, Leslie Adler and Tom Hogue
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
