Washington: Democrats rode a wave of dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump to win control of the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday, Fox News and NBC News projected, giving Democrats the opportunity to block Trump’s agenda and open his administration to intense scrutiny.
In midterm elections two years after he won the White House, Trump and his fellow Republicans were set to maintain their majority in the U.S. Senate, CNN, NBC and ABC News said, following a divisive campaign marked by fierce clashes over race, immigration and other cultural issues.
At last count, Democrats had gained a net 14 of the 23 Republican-held seats needed to capture a majority.
With a House majority, Democrats will have the power to investigate Trump’s tax returns and possible conflicts of interest, and challenge his overtures to Saudi Arabia, Russia and North Korea.
They also could force Trump to scale back his legislative ambitions, possibly dooming his promises to fund a border wall with Mexico, pass a second major tax-cut package or carry out his hardline policies on trade.
A simple House majority would be enough to impeach Trump if evidence surfaces that he obstructed justice or that his 2016 campaign colluded with Russia. But Congress could not remove him from office without a conviction by a two-thirds majority in the Republican-controlled Senate.
Democrats in the House could be banking on launching an investigation using the results of U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s already 18-month-old probe of allegations of Russian interference on Trump’s behalf in the 2016 presidential election. Moscow denies meddling and Trump denies any collusion.
In the House, Democrat Jennifer Wexton ousted incumbent Republican Barbara Comstock in suburban Virginia outside Washington and Democrat Donna Shalala, a former Cabinet secretary under President Bill Clinton, captured the south Florida seat of a retired Republican. That gave Democrats two of the 23 seats they need to capture the Republican-held House, slam the brakes on Trump’s agenda and exercise renewed oversight of his administration.
In the Senate, Republicans are favored to maintain control, and Democrats must pick up two seats to win a majority. Republican candidate won Texas, defeating Democrat’s Beto O’Rourke, thus ensuring that the GOP retains power in Senate, news agency AFP reported.
Incumbent Democratic Senator Joe Manchin won a hotly contested race in conservative West Virginia, and Marsha Blackburn held a Senate seat for Republicans.
Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a 2016 Democratic presidential contender, and Tim Kaine of Virginia, Hillary Clinton’s vice presidential nominee in 2016, easily won re-election, news networks projected. Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown was projected to hold his seat in Ohio.
High-profile races for governor in Georgia, Florida and Ohio also were too close to call. A full picture of the voting results were not expected for hours, with many of the most important races considered toss-ups heading into Election Day.
The first national elections since Trump captured the White House in a 2016 upset became a referendum on the polarizing president, and a test of whether Democrats can turn the energy of the liberal anti-Trump resistance into victories at the ballot box.
The Democrats were favored by election forecasters to pick up the 23 seats in the House, but opinion polls showed they had slimmer hopes in the Senate. All 435 seats in the House, 35 seats in the 100-member Senate and 36 of the 50 state governorships were up for grabs.
The volatile midterm campaign was marked by clashes over race, immigration and trade. In the final stretch, Trump hardened his rhetoric on issues that appealed to his conservative core supporters, issuing warnings about a caravan of Latin American migrants headed to the border with Mexico and condemnations of what he called U.S. liberal “mobs.”
Many Democrats, already benefiting from anti-Trump enthusiasm, focused on bread-and-butter issues like maintaining health insurance protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions and safeguarding the Social Security retirement and Medicare healthcare programs for the elderly.
If Democrats capture the House, they could launch congressional investigations into Trump’s administration, including his tax returns, possible business conflicts of interest and the nature of his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia. A Republican victory in both chambers of Congress would be a validation for Trump’s polarizing style, a month after he solidified a conservative majority on the Supreme Court when the Senate confirmed his nominee Brett Kavanaugh after a fight over sexual misconduct accusations against the jurist.
Striking a dark tone at a rally in Indiana on Monday evening, Trump accused Democrats without offering any evidence of “openly encouraging millions of illegal aliens to break our laws, violate our borders and overrun our country.”
Ahead of the results, U.S. stocks closed higher, with the benchmark S&P 500 Index ending the day at a two-week high. U.S. Treasury securities prices fell, and the 10-year yield closed at its highest level since 2011. The dollar was unchanged.
Recent Random Post:
