GOP nudges closer to House win; Senate could hinge on runoff
Republicans inched closer to a narrow House majority Wednesday, while control of the Senate hinged on a few tight races in a midterm election that defied expectations of sweeping conservative victories driven by frustration over inflation and President Joe Biden’s leadership. Either party could secure a Senate majority with wins in both Nevada and Arizona — where the races were too early to call. But there was a strong possibility that, for the second time in two years, the Senate majority could come down to a runoff in Georgia next month, with Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker failing to earn enough votes to win outright. In the House, Republicans on Wednesday night were within a dozen seats of the 218 needed to take control, while Democrats kept seats in districts from Virginia to Pennsylvania to Kansas, and many West Coast contests were still too early to call. In a particularly symbolic victory for the GOP, Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, the House Democratic campaign chief, lost his bid for a sixth term. Control of Congress will decide how the next two years of Biden’s term play out and whether he is able to achieve more of his agenda or will see it blocked by a new GOP majority. Republicans are likely to launch a spate of investigations into Biden, his family, and his administration if they take power, while a GOP takeover of the Senate would hobble the president’s ability to appoint judges. “Regardless of what the final tally of these elections show, and there’s still some counting going on, I’m prepared to work with my Republican colleagues,” Biden said Wednesday in his first public remarks since the polls closed. “The American people have made clear, I think, that they expect Republicans to be prepared to work with me as well.” Democrats did better than history suggested they would. The party in power almost always suffers losses in the president’s first midterm elections, though even if the GOP ultimately wins the House, it won’t be by a margin as large as during other midterm cycles. Democrats gained a net of 41 House seats under then-President Donald Trump in 2018, President Barack Obama saw the GOP gain 63 in 2010, and Republicans gained 54 seats during President Bill Clinton’s first midterm. A small majority in the House would pose a great challenge for the GOP and especially California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who is in line to be House speaker and would have little room for error in navigating a chamber of members eager to leverage their votes to advance their own agenda. In the fight for Senate control, Pennsylvania was a bright spot for Democrats. Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who suffered a stroke five months ago, flipped a Republican-controlled Senate seat, topping Trump-endorsed Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz. Georgia, meanwhile, was set for yet another runoff on December 6. In 2021, Warnock used a runoff to win his seat, as did Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff — which gave Democrats control of the Senate. Both Warnock and Walker were already fundraising off the race, stretching into a second round. Both Republican and Democratic incumbents maintained key Senate seats. In Wisconsin, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson prevailed over Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, while in New Hampshire, Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan beat Don Bolduc, a retired Army general who had initially promoted Trump’s lies about the 2020 election but tried to shift away those views closer to Election Day. AP VoteCast, a broad survey of the national electorate, showed that high inflation and concerns about the fragility of democracy were heavily influencing voters. Half of voters said inflation factored significantly, with groceries, gasoline, housing, and other costs that have shot up in the past year. Slightly fewer — 44% — said the future of democracy was their primary consideration. Biden didn’t entirely shoulder the blame for inflation, with close to half of voters saying the higher-than-usual prices were more because of factors outside of his control. And despite the president bearing criticism from a pessimistic electorate, some of those voters backed Democratic candidates. Democrats counted on a midterm boost from the Supreme Court’s decision to gut abortion rights, which they thought might energize their voters, and the bet paid off. In four states where the issue was on the ballot, voters backed abortion rights. VoteCast showed that 7 in 10 national voters said overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision was an important factor in their midterm decisions. It also showed the reversal was broadly unpopular. And roughly 6 in 10 said they favor a law guaranteeing access to legal abortion nationwide. In the first national election since the January 6 insurrection, some who participated in or were in the vicinity of the attack on the U.S. Capitol were poised to win elected office. One of those Republican candidates, Derrick Van Orden in Wisconsin — who was outside the Capitol during the deadly riot — won a House seat. Another, J.R. Majewski, lost to Ohio Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur. Republicans had sought to make inroads in liberal New England but were shut out of House contests, with one Maine race still set to be determined by ranked-choice voting. Governors’ races took on outsized significance this year, particularly in battleground states that could help decide the results of the 2024 presidential election. Democrats held on to governors’ mansions in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, defeating Republicans who promoted Trump’s lies about a stolen 2020 election. Republicans held on to governors’ mansions in Florida, Texas, and Georgia, another battleground state Biden narrowly won two years ago. Trump found some success as well. He lifted Republican Senate candidates to victory in Ohio and North Carolina. JD Vance, the bestselling author of “Hillbilly Elegy,” defeated 10-term congressman Tim Ryan, while Rep. Ted Budd beat Cheri Beasley, the former chief justice of the state Supreme Court. Trump had endorsed more than 300 candidates across the country, hoping the night would end in a red wave he could ride to the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. After summoning reporters
Death threats, tweets jolt GOP infrastructure supporters
The last time Congress approved a major renewal of federal highway and other transportation programs, the votes were 359-65 in the House and 83-16 in the Senate. It was backed by nearly every Democrat and robust majorities of Republicans. This year’s $1 trillion infrastructure bill easily cleared the Senate 69-13 with GOP support but crawled through the House last week by 228-206 with just 13 Republican votes. Those defectors were savaged afterward by former President Donald Trump, hard-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., called them “traitors” while tweeting their names and office telephone numbers, and one of the 13 says he received a death threat. The votes, six years apart, and the harsh blowback against Republican mavericks illustrate a GOP in which conservative voices have grown louder and more militant, fanned by Trump’s bellicose four years in office. Growing numbers of progressives have made Democrats more liberal, too, with both shifts fueling a sharpening of partisanship in Washington. “This madness has to stop,” said Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., an 18-term moderate, who said his offices received dozens of threatening calls following his yes vote. That included one obscenity-laced rant that aides provided in which the caller repeatedly called Upton a “traitor” and expressed hope that the lawmaker, his family, and aides would die. Upton closed his two Michigan offices for a day and reopened them after increasing their security. This year’s bill, triple the size of the 2015 measure, is a keystone of President Joe Biden’s push to create jobs and build out the nation’s roads, water systems, broadband coverage, and other projects. A compromise between Senate Democrats and Republicans, it will send money into every state and is the kind of bill that politicians have loved promoting back home for decades. Biden plans to sign it Monday. Democrats say GOP opposition to the bill is indefensible on policy and political grounds. “It’s a sad statement of how the other party has lost its way,” said Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-N.Y., who’s leading the House Democratic political arm into a 2022 campaign in which Republicans have solid chances of capturing congressional control. ”If you want our country to fail so you can say things are bad and win power for yourself, you act like the House Republicans are.” But for many Republicans, infrastructure projects — once an issue the two parties would reflexively work together on for mutual and national benefit — now offer a complex political calculation. “When it comes to policy these days, we’re basically divided into two tribes. And you stick with your tribe, and you don’t try to help the other tribe,” said Glen Bolger, a GOP pollster, and strategist. As president, Trump repeatedly promised his own massive infrastructure plan but never produced one, making the phrase “infrastructure week” a Washington synonym for “pipe dream.” But he opposes the current package, and his ability to rally his conservative supporters against those who cross him was a factor as GOP lawmakers decided how to vote. Even so, hard-right cries for retaliation against the 13 pro-infrastructure Republicans, largely moderates from the Northeast and Midwest, have prompted their own pushback. “This notion that we’re going to have people that are on the fringe, in terms of the Marjorie Taylor Greenes of the world and others, imposing some kind of a purity test on substance is lunacy,” said Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo. Cheney has been at war with Trump and the party’s far-right ever since backing his impeachment early this year. Cheney opposed the bill, saying it contained clean energy and other provisions that would hurt Wyoming. She said the 13 Republicans who backed it are “among some of our very best members” who did it “because it was the right thing for their districts.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., an unabashed partisan warrior, was among 19 Senate Republicans who voted for the bill in August. McConnell, who doesn’t have to worry about being re-elected until 2026, said this week he was “delighted” the measure was heading to Biden. A day earlier, McConnell had already drawn Trump’s wrath. Trump issued a statement denigrating GOP senators who’d backed the bill for “thinking that helping the Democrats is such a wonderful thing to do.” Those Republicans “should be ashamed of themselves, in particular Mitch McConnell,” Trump wrote. That was just the tip of the iceberg for the attacks. In an interview, the leader of the conservative House Freedom Caucus said GOP lawmakers should consider removing from their posts the 10 of the 13 defectors who are the senior Republicans on committees and subcommittees. “I respect their right to vote, their districts, and their conscience. But that doesn’t mean that they should get the privilege of leading” House Republicans, said Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz. At a private Florida dinner Monday to bolster House GOP campaign prospects, Trump said he loves House Republicans but not the 13 who voted for the bill, according to an attendee who described Trump’s remarks on condition of anonymity. Earlier, House GOP leaders tweeted, and then deleted, that “Americans won’t forget” a vote for the “socialist” infrastructure bill. “Time to name names and hold these fake republicans accountable,” tweeted Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo. Before last week’s vote, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said it would be “very difficult” for Republicans to promote backing the infrastructure bill during their campaigns because it is so closely linked to Democrats’ accompanying $1.85 trillion social and climate measure, which the GOP has solidly opposed. Rep. Jeff Van Drew, R-N.J., who switched parties in 2019, said he supported the infrastructure bill because his state would receive over $20 billion “we desperately need.” Van Drew, who said he had heard “some cranky things” from some people, scoffed at the notion that the bill would “catapult the president” politically. “If Marjorie Taylor Greene wants to be mean to me, that’s fine,” he said of the colleague who labeled him and 12 others traitors. “I love America very much. I would never ever do anything to hurt this country.” Republished
