Roving Periscope: As Democrats retain US Senate, midterm polls boost Biden regime

Virendra Pandit

New Delhi: The recently held midterm elections to the US Congress have reinforced the Democrats’ trust in President Joe Biden’s policies and took the steam off the Republicans’ gargantuan claims, as they expected to ride a mighty “Red Wave” and capture both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Traditionally, midterm elections in the US deliver a rejection of the party in power. It was expected this time as well, particularly amid surging inflation and Biden’s own popularity plummeting, something former President Donald Trump was counting on when he tried to pump life back in his dwindling Republican Party supporters last week.

But President Joe Biden’s Democrats successfully kept control of the US Senate on Saturday last week, a remarkable midterm election result that defied predictions of a Republican win over both houses of Congress, the media reported.

The results showed the Republicans’ “Red Wave” fizzled out as a ripple.

The Democrats’ victory gave them control in the Senate as Vice President Kamala Harris can now cast the tie-breaking vote in the Upper House evenly split 50-50 between the two principal parties.

“I feel good and I’m looking forward to the next couple of years,” President Biden remarked after the result while speaking at a meeting of Southeast Asian leaders in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, on Sunday.

One Senate race remains in the air—a runoff in Georgia set for December 6, in which the Democrats could add to their majority.

However, the result in the Lower House (of Representatives) still hangs in the balance. While Republicans are slightly favored to take control, it would be with a far smaller majority than they had envisaged going into last Tuesday’s election.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the result showed Americans “soundly rejected the anti-democratic, authoritarian, nasty and divisive direction the MAGA Republicans wanted to take our country,” referring to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement.

Resurfacing after months, a high-profile Trump was omnipresent on the campaign trail, putting his thumb on key Republican primaries and holding rallies nationwide, during which he repeated his ‘baseless’ claims of fraud in the 2020 race, the reports said.

While over 100 Republican candidates who challenged the 2020 presidential election results won their races, according to US media projections, some of Trump’s hand-picked candidates failed to boost the Republicans’ confidence and damaged their own party.

After the unexpected Democratic win, it is uncertain if Trump would, as per his announcement, go ahead with his 2024 White House bid on Tuesday (November 15). He had planned it as a triumphant follow-on to an expected crushing election victory by the Republican Party he still dominates.

Maintaining control of the Senate means Biden and the Democrats will keep critical leverage in legislative debates, particularly in domestic and foreign spending policy.

The two rival parties had been neck-and-neck at 49 seats each after Democrat Mark Kelly was projected to win a tight Senate race in Arizona on Friday evening last week. The former astronaut beat out challenger Blake Masters, who has not yet conceded defeat and was backed by Trump.

As expected, Trump’s response to the Arizona result was to double down on unfounded claims of ballot rigging, posting on his Truth Social platform that the Democrat’s victory was a “scam” and the result of “voter fraud.”

If anything, the midterm election results have divided the Republican Party itself. It is now riven with factionalism and a bout of internal finger-pointing, with targets including Trump, the party leaders, and the campaign messaging.

Three Republican Senators have since called for the postponement of party leadership elections currently scheduled for the middle of next week.

“We are all disappointed that a Red Wave failed to materialize, and there are multiple reasons it did not,” their letter circulated in the media said.

“We need to have serious discussions within our conference about why and what we can do to improve our chances in 2024,” it added.

After the Senate result was projected, Republican Senator from Missouri Josh Hawley called in a tweet for the party to “build something new.”

“The old party is dead. Time to bury it,” he remarked.