US Midterm Elections: No Republican ‘red wave’, race remains tight for control of Congress

Washington: Republicans were favoured to wrest control of the US House of Representatives away from President Joe Biden’s Democrats based on early returns in Tuesday’s midterm elections, though the prospects of a “red wave” appeared to have dimmed. With polls closed across most of the country, Republicans had flipped five Democratic seats in the US House, Edison Research projected, the very number needed to capture a majority and cripple Biden’s legislative agenda.

Control of Congress still hangs in the balance as Democrats showed unexpected resilience in the midterm elections. With votes still being counted across the country, Republicans still had the opportunity to win control, but the results were nonetheless uplifting for Democrats who were braced for sweeping losses, AP national political reporters Sara Burnett, Jill Colvin and Will Weissert report.

Republicans who backed Donald Trump’s failed efforts to overturn the 2020 election lost key races to oversee elections in some competitive states, even as others remained positioned to take those offices in more conservative parts of the country.Doug Mastriano, the GOP nominee for governor in Pennsylvania who was seen outside the U.S. Capitol on the day of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and regularly communicated with Trump as the then-president tried to reverse his loss to Joe Biden, lost to Democrat Josh Shapiro on election night. The state’s governor appoints the secretary of state, who is the top voting official.

For weeks, Republicans predicted a “red wave” would carry them to power in Congress, as voters repudiated majority Democrats for failing to tame skyrocketing inflation and address worries about rising crime.The reality appeared far different early Wednesday. Rather than a wholesale rejection of President Joe Biden and his party, the results were far more mixed as returns from Tuesday’s midterms trickled in.

Control of Congress hung in the balance early on Wednesday as Democrats showed surprising strength, defeating Republicans in a series of competitive races and defying expectations that high inflation and President Joe Biden’s low approval ratings would drag the party down.In the most heartening news for the party, Democrat John Fetterman flipped a Republican-controlled Senate seat that is key to the party’s hopes of maintaining control of the chamber.It was too early to call critical Senate seats in Wisconsin, Nevada, Georgia and Arizona that could determine the majority. In the House, meanwhile, Democrats kept seats in districts from Virginia to Kansas and Rhode Island, while many districts in states like New York and California had not been called.