In the unexpectedly close US midterm elections, the Republicans will regain control of the House of Representatives by a slim margin, ushering in a new era of split government in Washington. This comes after Democrats maintained a majority in the Senate.
More than a week after tens of millions of voters headed to the polls in the midterm elections, the Associated Press reported on Wednesday evening that the Republicans would gain a majority in the House, which is the lower chamber of Congress, after claiming the required 218 seats to do so. This news came after the Republicans had won most of the required seats.
Due to the fact that seven House elections were still too close to call, it was still unknown how large the majority would be. But it looked like it was going to be a lot smaller than expected, and that’s a result that not only hurts the Republicans‘ chances of winning but also reveals deep fissures within the ranks of their party and raises questions about whether or not Kevin McCarthy will be the next Speaker of the House.
McCarthy received 188 more votes than any other candidate in a vote that was held earlier this week to choose who would represent their party as the nominee for Speaker of the House. On the other hand, McCarthy would require the support of at least 218 members of Congress if he wanted to be the next president of the United States. This is because there have been defections from members of Congress on the right who are loyal to former president Donald Trump.
In a statement, Vice President Joe Biden congratulated Kevin McCarthy on the win of the Republicans in the House of Representatives and added that he was “ready to work with House Republicans to achieve results for working families.”
While this was going on, on Tuesday night, President Trump announced that he would be running for president for the third time. This came despite the fact that Republican lawmakers were privately and publicly urging him to step aside after several of his handpicked candidates lost their races in the midterm elections last week.
A number of high-profile donors have also distanced themselves from the former president, including Stephen Schwarzman, chief executive officer of Blackstone, who said in a statement on Wednesday that “it is time for the Republican party to turn to a new generation of leaders and I intend to support one of them in the presidential primaries.”
In the past, midterm elections have been used as a referendum on the party currently in power. As election day approached, many Democrats were bracing themselves for devastating losses, particularly in the House of Representatives.
But the results of the House and Senate races across the country came in better than expected for Biden’s party, and they maintained their control on key important seats. Democrats were able to halt their losses in states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Virginia; nonetheless, it is noteworthy that they suffered significant setbacks in the states of New York and Florida, where Republicans gained a total of seven House seats.
As the weekend progressed, it became abundantly clear that the Democrats would also keep control of the Senate, which is the higher branch of Congress. This became apparent after Biden’s party gained narrow victories in elections in Nevada and Arizona.
The incumbent Democratic senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia and the Republican Herschel Walker will face off in a run-off election in Georgia next month to determine the extent of their razor-thin majority in the upper chamber. The election will take place in Georgia.
Senate Republicans held their leadership elections on Capitol Hill on Wednesday morning. In a race that further exposed the fissures and recriminations among Republican lawmakers, Mitch McConnell, the longtime Republican leader in the upper chamber, was challenged by Rick Scott. He led the GOP campaign effort heading into the midterm elections.
In a contest that further exposed the fissures and recriminations among Republican lawmakers, McConnell was re-elected with a comfortable margin, receiving 37 votes to Scott’s ten votes. Trump and some senators on the right wing of the ideological spectrum supported Scott.
Even though Democrats will keep the Senate and Republicans will have a more minor majority in the House than expected, the change of guard in the lower chamber will still make it hard for Biden to do his job for the next two years. GOP leaders have said they might use the debt ceiling as a bargaining chip to get their policy goals, like cutting federal spending, passed.
Republicans have also said that they will end investigations led by Democrats, such as the special committee looking into Trump’s role in the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, and start their investigations into everything from the cause of the Covid-19 pandemic to Hunter Biden, the president’s son.
Biden said in his speech on Wednesday that he was ready to work with Republicans during the next two years of his presidency. “The American people want us to get things done for them,” he said.
On Wednesday, the Associated Press also said that Democratic congresswoman Karen Bass won the race to be mayor of Los Angeles, a very close race. Rick Caruso, a billionaire real estate developer who used to be a Republican but switched parties and became a Democrat, was her opponent.
He spent about $100 million on his campaign, bringing up long-simmering tensions in southern California about crime and homelessness.
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