US Midterm Elections: Cortez Masto Beats Laxalt in Nevada; Democrats Secure Senate Control

Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto, the incumbent US senator, won re-election in Nevada, giving the party control of the Senate and winning the party's 50th seat in a tight race.

She bested Republican candidate Adam Laxalt, a former state attorney general with Donald Trump's support. With Vice President Kamala Harris's tiebreaker vote, Cortez Masto's win keeps the Democrats in majority in the Senate, according to ABC.

Democrats Continue To Dominate Senate

Republicans' aspirations of controlling Congress in a midterm election that traditionally favors the opposition are shattered by Democrats' Senate majority. As counting went on in California and a few other states, it was still unclear which party would be in charge of the House of Representatives.

The Republican Party had high aspirations of unseating Cortez Masto, the first Latina to serve in the Senate and the most threatened Democratic senator in the midterm elections. But even though national GOP groups spent a lot of money on attack ads, Cortez Masto won her bid to stay in office, per AP News.

Democrats now have a 50-49 advantage in the Senate thanks to Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly's win in Arizona on Friday. Regardless of the outcome of the Georgia runoff election next month, the party will continue to have the majority in the chamber because to Vice President Kamala Harris' tie-breaking vote.

The Democratic majority would increase to 51-49 if Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia defeated Republican candidate Herschel Walker in the runoff election on December 6. That would provide Democrats an advantage in enacting a few unpopular laws that can pass with a simple majority rather than the 60 required for most legislation.

Democratic senators from West Virginia's Joe Manchin and Arizona's Kyrsten Sinema, known as "swing" votes, have thwarted or postponed a number of Biden's main proposals, including the enlargement of a number of social programs. However, Manchin and Sinema's power would be marginally diminished by the 51 Democratic members in the forthcoming Congress.

Majority in US House of Representatives Still Unclear

The dominant party for the upcoming two years in the US House of Representatives remains a mystery. Although Republicans still had the advantage, results were still coming in for a number of seats, including many in liberal California, according to Reuters report.

In Washington's 3rd congressional district, Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez beat Joe Kent, who was backed by Donald Trump, on Saturday.

Before the results of enough House contests are known, it may take several days or longer to establish party control of the 435-seat chamber.

Late on Friday, Kelly, a Democratic senator from Arizona, was predicted to retain his seat against Republican Blake Masters, who, like Laxalt, had received Trump's support. This gave Democrats a significant boost. Masters has not renounced the competition.

The former astronaut and combat pilot for the Navy, Kelly, spoke briefly to his fans in Phoenix on Saturday while his wife, the late Democratic congresswoman Gabby Giffords, stood by his side. His remarks centered on the need of bipartisan cooperation in Congress.

We've seen the results when politicians reject the truth and concentrate more on previous conspiracies than on the problems we have now, Kelly added, without mentioning Masters.

Many Republican candidates in the midterms, including Masters, repeated the fallacious claim made by the former president Trump that widespread voting fraud caused him to lose the 2020 election to Joe Biden.

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United States, Politics, Nevada, Democrats, Republican, Kamala Harris, U.S. Senate