ANALYSIS: What do the midterms mean amid no sign of Republican 'red wave'?

Record ID: 1696758

  • Title: ANALYSIS: What do the midterms mean amid no sign of Republican 'red wave'?
  • Date: 9th November 2022
  • Summary: DETROIT, MICHIGAN, UNITED STATES (NOVEMBER 8, 2022) (REUTERS) SIGNS OUTSIDE POLLING LOCATION WARREN, MICHIGAN, UNITED STATES (NOVEMBER 8, 2022) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF VOTERS CASTING BALLOTS (SOUNDBITE) (English) MIKE PRZYBRANOWSKI, 67, MICHIGAN VOTER, SAYING: "You know, the Democrats are spending out of control, Congress is spending out of control. That needs to come back in
  • Embargoed: 23rd November 2022 15:49
  • Keywords: Biden DeSantis Trump abortion democrats election inflation midterm republicans
  • Location: VARIOUS, UNITED STATES
  • City: VARIOUS, UNITED STATES
  • Country: US
  • Topics: Government/Politics,United States,Elections/Voting
  • Reuters ID: LVA001798809112022RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Republicans made modest gains in Tuesday’s (November 08) 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 (November 09) morning.
    A political analyst told Reuters that the modest gains for Republicans could be seen as a win for U.S. President Joe Biden and could be politically damaging to former President Donald Trump, who has hinted at another White House run in 2024.
    “I think that Biden will look at this result and say, Hey, we did okay. I should run again,” said Nathaniel Birkhead, a political science professor at Kansas State University, referring to Biden’s own 2024 re-election plans.
    Democrats were apparently buoyed by voter turnout on the issue of abortion, following the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Roe v. Wade, Birkhead said.
    “Voters really are animated by those issues, that they deeply feel,” he said.
    By early Wednesday, Republicans had flipped a net six Democratic House seats, Edison Research projected, one more than the minimum they need to take over the chamber.
    That number could go up or down as more final results roll in.
    While the sweeping “red wave” victory Republicans sought apparently fell short, even a slim majority in the House of Representatives would let Republicans hem in Biden during his next two years in office, blocking legislation and launching potentially politically damaging investigations.
    Control of the Senate remained unclear, as Democrats picked up a seat in Pennsylvania but awaited results from Nevada, Georgia and Arizona that would define the outcome.
    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.
    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.
    Trump, who took an active role in recruiting Republican candidates for Congress, had mixed results.
    He notched a victory in Ohio, where "Hillbilly Elegy" author J.D. Vance won a Senate seat to keep it in Republican hands. But retired celebrity surgeon Mehmet Oz, who was strongly endorsed by Trump, lost his Pennsylvania Senate race to Democrat John Fetterman and Doug Mastriano, another Trump ally, was handily defeated in the state's governor's race.
    Trump allies also were struggling in Arizona, Georgia and Nevada Senate races, where ballots were still being counted.
    Poor performances by some candidates backed by Donald Trump 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.
    Meanwhile Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who could challenge Trump in 2024, won re-election by nearly 20 percentage points, Edison projected.
    "If I was a Republican, I would absolutely distance myself from Trump. The Trump candidates are top to bottom, have done far, far more poorly than the more independent ones,” Nathaniel Birkhead of Kansas State University, said.
    DeSantis may now be in a better position to set himself up as Trump’s heir, Birkhead said.
    “I think that DeSantis has not positioned himself yet to be the to be the sort of the heir apparent to the Trump wave. But I think that we should expect to see him position himself just that way coming forward,” he said.
    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.
    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.
    Thirty-five Senate seats, all 435 House seats and three dozen governors' races were on the ballot.
    (Production: Deborah Lutterbeck)
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