Her victory gives Democrats 50 seats in the 118th Congress. Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie, if necessary, gives them a majority regardless of the outcome of a runoff election in Georgia in December between Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker. “The election is a great victory for the American people,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said at a late-night briefing Saturday. “With the races being called now in Arizona and Nevada, the Democrats will have the majority in the Senate and I will be the majority leader again.” Republicans could still take control of the House, where a handful of races remain unresolved. However, control of the Senate means that Democrats will be able to effectively kill any legislation that emerges from a Republican-led House, allowing them to shield President Biden from politically dangerous legislation that a Republican-led Senate might pass. had brought to a vote. A Democratic Senate also makes it easier for Mr. Biden to win approval for judicial appointments and appoint the nominees he wants to government-wide posts in his final two years in office. A delighted Mr Biden – who is in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where he is attending a summit for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations – told reporters on Sunday morning that Schumer “has the majority again”. “We are now focused on Georgia,” Mr. Biden said. “We feel good about where we’re at. And I know I’m optimistic. I understand that from the beginning, but I’m not surprised by the turnout. I’m incredibly pleased with the turnout. And I think it’s a reflection of the quality of our candidates. And everybody’s on board. program. There was no one who wasn’t nominated in what we did. They all stay, they stay in it. And so, I feel good. I’m looking forward to the next couple of years.” Before Election Day, some Republicans had begun to believe that control of the Senate was within reach, as Mr. Biden suffers from underwater approval ratings amid high inflation and voters’ negative views of the economy in all battleground states. But in the months leading up to the general election, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell expressed doubt that Republicans could take the Senate, which he blamed on the “quality of the candidates.” Many of the losing Republican candidates were far-right and endorsed by former President Donald Trump, which gave them a boost during the primary season. But they failed to appeal to independents and moderates in the general election. Sen. Pat Toomey, who is retiring from the Senate and whose seat was won by Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, blamed Trump for the GOP’s missed opportunity. “The data is overwhelmingly clear – the more candidates are associated with Donald Trump and the ultra MAGA movement, and this false idea that the election was stolen from him in 2020, the more that was the message, the more they lost and in many places, it was intense for a more conventional Republican who was winning,” he said in an interview with Fox News on Saturday. While not identifying him by name, Toomey referred to far-right Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano as “a weak candidate losing by 15 points, the most for an open seat since the 1950s.” He went on to note that “we’ve lost three opportunities to flip House seats, we’ve lost control of the state House…and the party has to get over Donald Trump.” Alaska, where three candidates were on the ballot in a ranked-choice voting system, has also not yet been called, but with the top two and two Republicans, according to CBS News, it will remain in Republican hands. On Friday night, CBS News predicted that Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly would win re-election over Republican challenger Blake Masters. In other battleground states, CBS News predicted that races in Wisconsin, Florida, Ohio and North Carolina would go to Republicans, while Democrats would win in Colorado, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania. In each of the Senate battlegrounds where CBS News conducted exit polls, voters said control of the Senate was important to their vote. CBS News conducted statewide surveys in 11 key battleground states: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin. In each of these states, voters had negative views of the nation’s economy. In most Senate battleground states, the issue of inflation surpassed abortion in terms of the issue’s importance to voters. But in the closely watched Pennsylvania race, where Fetterman came out ahead of Republican candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz, exit polling showed that abortion surpassed inflation as a concern for voters. According to early exit polls on Tuesday, nearly three in four voters said they were dissatisfied with the country. That includes nearly a third who said they were angry. Nearly three-quarters said the economy is bad, and nearly half of voters said their family’s finances are worse than they were two years ago. Thirty-five Senate seats were up for grabs in the 2022 midterm elections, but less than a third were expected to be close. Musadiq Bidar and Jack Turman contributed to this report.

2022 Midterm Elections

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