US midterms: Democrats reeling after wave of defeats Live US midterms blog: Republicans celebrate Governors' victories lift presidential prospects Meet America's new senators US midterm election results in full Gary Younge: let's get this result in perspective Midterms coverage in full
Texas Democratic candidate Wendy Davis delivers her concession speech, consoled by daughter Dru.Photograph: Tony Gutierrez/AP
The scale of the Democrats’ defeat in the US midterm elections
became apparent on Wednesday, with the party losing control of the US
Senate by a wider margin than predicted and their Republican opponents
on the verge of securing their largest majority in the House of
Representatives since the 1940s.
President Obama’s party awoke to the political equivalent of a pounding hangover with defeats more numerous and deeper than many Democrats had feared, while Republicans rode a wave of victories that gave them significant momentum going into the 2016 presidential elections.
Republicans gained seven Senate seats from Democrats, cementing the
GOP’s power base on Capitol Hill. They were poised to take an eighth,
Alaska, and if they win a runoff in Louisiana, Republicans would command
a 54-vote majority in the Senate.
On a night of few positives for Democrats, Republicans also outperformed them in most of the 36 governors’ races, clinching stunning victories in Democratic strongholds including Massachusetts, Maryland and Illinois.
“This is ugly,” one top Democrat involved in the party’s election
strategy told the Guardian in the early hours of Wednesday morning. “It
is so much worse than we expected.”
The defeat is a significant blow to the president, whose low approval
ratings contributed heavily to his party’s electoral drubbing. Obama,
an already isolated and unpopular leader, must now see out his remaining
two years in the White House with his Republican opponents controlling
both branches of Congress. The White House said he would speak at a news
conference on Wednesday afternoon.
The extent of the rout will also be a cause for concern for Hillary
Clinton, the heir-apparent for the Democratic presidential nomination,
who, along with her husband, former president Bill Clinton, stumped for
several of the party’s Senate candidates who lost badly. Kentucky senator Mitch McConnell waves to supporters with his wife Elaine Chao during his victory celebration in Louisville.Photograph: Mark Lyons/EPA
By the early hours of Wednesday, Republicans were assured of 52
seats in the upper chamber, making Mitch McConnell – who easily saw off a
well-funded challenge in his home state of Kentucky – the new Senate
majority leader.
“The message from voters is clear: they want us to work together,”
Harry Reid said in a statement, shortly after his demotion to Democratic
minority leader. “I look forward to working with Sen McConnell to get
things done for the middle class.”
Democrats lost seats in West Virginia, Montana, South Dakota,
Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa and, perhaps most surprisingly, North Carolina,
where Democrats were confident Senator Kay Hagan would hold on.
Republicans, in contrast, held on to all the seats they were defending, including close races in Georgia and Kansas.
In Louisiana the race was pushed into a runoff election that will
take place in December, where the Republican challenger Bill Cassidy is
favoured to unseat Democratic incumbent Mary Landrieu. If, as seems
likely, Alaska also goes the Republicans’ way, the GOP will have picked
up nine seats, a higher tally than even the party’s most optimistic
forecasters had expected.
In the House, Republicans already enjoyed a comfortable 233-199
majority. That lead has now been extended yet further, with the GOP
appearing on course to achieve a net gain of at least 12 seats, which
would match or even exceed its largest majority since Harry Truman was
president more than 60 years ago.
No result will be more unnerving for Democrats with an eye on the 2016 presidential race than Colorado, where the incumbent senator, Mark Udall, was comfortably dispatched by Republican Cory Gardner, a candidate Democrats tried and failed to paint as a rightwing extremist.
But in a pattern echoed by Republicans across the country, Gardner
disavowed several previous policy stances and mounted a concerted effort
to appeal to female and Latino voters.
Colorado is increasingly regarded as a bellwether in presidential
elections, akin to Ohio; the percentage of voters who supported Obama in
the state during the last two presidential elections closely mirrored
the nationwide breakdown. Charlie Crist concedes defeat before supporters in St Petersburg, Florida.Photograph: Zuma/Rex/Zuma/Rex
Although midterm electorates look very different to presidential
years, with lower turnout among young, minority and single-women voters,
who tend to lean Democratic, there were worrying signs for the party.
There were defeats for Democrats, for example, in two other
presidential swing states, Iowa and North Carolina. In Florida, another
pivotal state for 2016, Democrat Charlie Crist narrowly failed to
dislodge Republican governor Rick Scott.
A clutch of other Republican governors in Wisconsin, Maine, Michigan
and Kansas also held on to their posts, despite divisive terms in office
and fierce opposition that resulted in closely fought races.
As they engage in damage limitation, Democrats will in the next few
days argue that their defeats in the House and Senate were expected and
consistent with historical trends.
The party that controls the White House has only gained seats in a
midterm election three times since 1862. And in contrast to Tuesday’s
poll – where Democrats were defending an unusually large number of
Senate seats – the party faces a much more favourable electoral map in
2016 when it will hope to regain seats in the upper chamber.
Democrats will also take solace in success in two other states that
could be important in 2016: Pennsylvania, where Republican governor, Tom
Corbett, was beaten by Democrat Tom Wolf, and New Hampshire, where
Democrat Jeanne Shaheen held on to her seat in the face of a challenge from Republican Scott Brown.
Yet the scale of Tuesday’s Senate defeat, on a tide of support for
Republicans that rippled across House and gubernatorial races, with only
a handful of exceptions, will undoubtedly unnerve Democrats.
Over the past two decades the party of the incumbent president has
lost, on average, four Senate seats during midterms. This year’s
Democratic losses in the Senate are likely to be at least double that – a
defeat compounded by the Republicans’ huge majority in the House.
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