Democrats will proceed to regulate the Senate after the 2022 midterm elections, after Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto on Saturday was projected by CBS News to win a decent reelection race in opposition to Republican Adam Laxalt.
Her victory provides Democrats 50 seats within the 118th Congress. Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote, ought to or not it’s wanted, provides them the bulk, whatever the final result of the Georgia runoff election in December between Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker.
Earlier than Election Day, some Republicans had begun to consider Senate management was inside attain, since President Biden is affected by underwater approval scores amid excessive inflation and voters’ unfavourable views of the financial system in all of the battleground states.
However within the months earlier than the overall election, Senate Minority Chief Mitch McConnell expressed doubt that Republicans might take the Senate, which he blamed on “candidate high quality.” Most of the Republican candidates who misplaced had been far-right and endorsed by former President Donald Trump, which gave them momentum throughout the main season. However they did not enchantment to independents and moderates within the common election.
Sen. Pat Toomey, who’s retiring from the Senate, and whose seat was won by Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, blamed Trump for the missed GOP alternative.
“The information is overwhelmingly clear — the extra candidates who’re related to Donald Trump, and the extremely MAGA motion, and this false notion that the election was stolen from him in 2020, the extra that was the message, the extra they misplaced, and in lots of locations, it was a stark to a extra typical Republican who was successful,” he mentioned in an interview on Fox Information Saturday.
Although he did not establish him by identify, Toomey referred to the far-right Republican candidate for governor Doug Mastriano as “a weak candidate who loses by 15 factors, essentially the most for an open seat because the Fifties.”
He went on to notice that “we misplaced three alternatives to flip Home seats, misplaced management of the state Home…and the social gathering must get previous Donald Trump.”
Alaska, the place three candidates are on the poll in a ranked-choice voting system, has additionally not but been referred to as, however with the highest two finishers each Republicans, CBS Information initiatives it would keep in Republican palms.
On Friday night, CBS Information projected Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly will win reelection over Republican challenger Blake Masters.
In different battleground states, CBS Information projected the races in Wisconsin, Florida, Ohio and North Carolina will go to Republicans, whereas Democrats will win in Colorado, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania.
In every of the Senate battlegrounds the place CBS Information has carried out exit polls, voters mentioned management of the Senate was vital to their vote. CBS Information carried out statewide surveys in 11 key battleground states: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin.
In every of those states, voters had unfavourable views of the nation’s financial system.
In a lot of the Senate battleground states, the difficulty of inflation outpaced abortion when it comes to the significance of the difficulty to voters. However in Pennsylvania’s closely-watched race, the place Fetterman got here out forward of Republican candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz, exit polling confirmed abortion outpaced inflation as a priority for voters.
In keeping with early exit polling Tuesday, practically three in 4 voters mentioned they had been dissatisfied in regards to the nation. That features nearly one-third who mentioned they had been indignant. Nearly three-quarters mentioned the financial system is unhealthy, and practically half of voters mentioned their household’s funds are worse than they had been two years in the past.
Thirty-five Senate seats had been up for grabs in whole within the 2022 midterm elections, however underneath one-third had been anticipated to be shut.
Musadiq Bidar and Jack Turman contributed to this report.
