Republicans made modest gains in U.S. midterm elections but Democrats performed better than expected, as control of the Senate hinged on three races that remained too close to call on Wednesday morning.
The Georgia U.S. Senate race between Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker will go to a Dec. 6 runoff, Edison Research projected. That means it could be weeks until control of that chamber is known, unless Democrats hold off challengers in Nevada and Arizona.
Meanwhile, even a slim majority in the House of Representatives would let Republicans hem in Democratic President Joe Biden during his next two years in office, blocking legislation and launching potentially politically damaging investigations.
But they appeared to be far short of the sweeping “red wave” victory they had sought, as Democrats were avoiding the kind of heavy midterm defeat that often plagues sitting presidents of either party.
The results appeared to show voters punishing Biden for presiding over an economy hit by steep inflation, while also lashing out against Republican efforts to ban abortion.
Poor performances by some candidates backed by Donald Trump — including Walker — indicated exhaustion with the kind of chaos fomented by the former Republican president, raising questions about the viability of his possible run for the White House in 2024.
“I think his ego is just too big to handle,” said Yvonne Langdon, 75, as she cast her ballot for Republican candidates in Michigan on Tuesday.
Biden had framed Tuesday’s election as a test of U.S. democracy at a time when hundreds of Republican candidates embraced Trump’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.
A number of election deniers who backed Trump’s claims were elected to office on Tuesday, but fears of violence or other major disruptions by far-right poll watchers at voting stations did not materialize.
By midday Wednesday, Republicans had flipped a net seven Democratic House seats, Edison Research projected, two more than the minimum they need to take over the chamber. That number could go up or down as more final results roll in, with 45 races still to be called.
Control of the Senate would give Republicans the power to block Biden’s nominees for judicial and administrative posts. But in a critical win for Democrats, John Fetterman flipped a Republican-held U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania, beating retired celebrity surgeon Mehmet Oz and bolstering his party’s chances of holding the chamber.
The White House seized on the lighter-than-expected losses. “Never underestimate how much Team Biden is underestimated,” White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain said on Twitter.
But Democrats also had their share of embarrassments, as New York Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, the chairman of the committee charged with reelecting House Democrats, conceded he had lost his own race.
Meanwhile eight Americans of Nigerian descent won seats in the elections. They include Segun Adeyina, Gabe Okoye, Solomon Adesanya, Tish Naghise, Phil Olaleye, Carol Kazeem, Oye Owolewa and Esther Agbaje.
