Democrats will maintain their narrow majority in the Senate for the next two years, according to CNN, after winning close contests in Nevada and Arizona. Democrats now hold 50 seats in the Senate to Republicans’ 49. In Nevada, CNN predicts Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, a former state prosecutor and attorney general, will defeat Republican Adam Laxalt, her successor in the attorney general’s office and the son and grandson of former senators.
In Arizona, CNN predicts that Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, a former astronaut and husband of former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, will defeat Republican Blake Masters, a Trump-backed venture capitalist backed by tech mogul and emerging Republican donor Peter Thiel. . The Georgia race between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker is headed for a December runoff after neither candidate cleared the 50 percent threshold on Tuesday.
Even if Republicans win the Georgia runoff, however, Vice President Kamala Harris will still give the tie in an evenly divided Senate to guarantee a Democratic majority. Only one Senate seat has changed hands so far in the 2022 midterm elections: Pennsylvania, where Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who campaigned while recovering from a stroke in May, defeated Republican Mehmet Oz, the celebrity doctor endorsed by former President Donald Trump.
Republicans successfully defended hard-fought seats in Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, and Wisconsin, while Democrats held on to tightly contested seats in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, and New Hampshire.
More on Democrats’ Senate win: Retaining control of the Senate is a huge boost for President Biden in the remaining two years of his first term in the White House.
It means Democrats will be able to confirm Biden’s judicial nominees — avoiding scenarios like the one former President Barack Obama faced in 2016, when then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to hold a vote on his nominee. Supreme Court, Merrick Garland. It also means Senate Democrats can reject bills passed by the House and can set their own agenda.