It has been clear since last night that the Democrats will retain their slim majority in the US Senate. President Biden and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer never doubted the success. The previously victorious Republicans are turning their backs on their leader, Donald Trump.
Joe Biden is on the other side of the world when the good news from home reaches him. A hotel in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh is the place where the US President comments on the important and, above all, surprising success in the congressional elections at home. The 79-year-old is traveling to Asia for several international summits. It’s already Sunday there, and it’s still Saturday evening in Washington, when Biden steps in front of the microphone and triumphs that his Democrats have just defended their majority in the Senate for the next two years.
“I’m incredibly pleased with the outcome,” said the President. “I’m feeling good and looking forward to the next few years.” He is an incorrigible optimist, so the result does not surprise him. Could the Democrats keep their majority in the House of Representatives? Not excluded, says Biden.
About 14,000 kilometers away in New York, Chuck Schumer stands in front of microphones just a few minutes after the announcement of the Senate majority. The last election forecasts from the big TV stations are still coming in when the top Democrat from the Senate is already standing in front of journalists. “The Democrats will have a majority in the Senate and I will be majority leader again,” the 71-year-old announced. “We always believed in our victory more than many experts and forecasters.” In fact, it hadn’t looked like the Democrats would do that well in the midterm elections in Biden’s mid-term.
The President had to struggle with lousy poll numbers for months. High inflation and increased prices, for example for fuel, put Biden on the election campaign. Despite all the gloomy forecasts, Biden’s Democrats have managed to retain their thin majority in the Senate. In a runoff election in the last remaining Senate race in the US state of Georgia in early December, they could possibly even win an additional seat.
In the House of Representatives, where the majority is still unclear, the Republicans have a better chance of seizing control – which could make Biden’s next two years uncomfortable because of blockades and parliamentary investigations from the Republican side. But even in the House of Representatives, the race is much closer than expected. Nothing remains of the predicted wave of Republican success.
Normally, the ruling president’s party gets a lesson in mid-term elections. This time the party of the former president gets a reminder – probably also for not breaking away from him. Ex-President Donald Trump played a prominent role in the election campaign. The Republican held rally after rally and campaigned for a variety of candidates, hoping to present himself as the kingmaker, decision-maker and leader of the Republican Party. But Trump speculated: He pushed some radical and shrill candidates who ultimately did not prevail. And he contested the election campaign primarily with horror scenarios about a country under Biden and with his invented narrative of systematic electoral fraud.
With all this, he not only harmed his party, but also himself. Because there is now rumbling among Republicans – that could possibly cost Trump the leadership role in the party. Conservative commentators from media mogul Rupert Murdoch’s empire have given Trump the thumbs down, at least for now. Some Republican politicians are already publicly blaming Trump for the defeat – after the decision in the Senate they will increase.
Outgoing Republican Governor of Maryland Larry Hogan vented his frustration on Sunday. “Trump cost us the last three elections and I don’t want that to happen a fourth time,” Hogan told CNN. “I’m sick of losing – that’s all he did.” The Republican Party must finally consider how to send more hopeful and positive messages and reach out to more people, not just the hard Trump base. “The people on the extreme right really lost this election,” says the 66-year-old, who after two terms as governor of Maryland was not able to run again in the election. The rather moderate Republican is said to have ambitions for his party’s presidential candidacy.
But Republican Senator Josh Hawley from Missouri – one of the right wingers – wrote on Twitter about his own party shortly after the announcement of the Democrats’ success in the Senate: “The old party is dead. Time to bury it.” It’s time to build something new.
According to some, Trump has bent the Republican Party beyond recognition in recent years. The Democrats also see their own success in the midterm elections as a rejection of this Trump course. “The American people have rejected, and vehemently, the anti-democratic, authoritarian, vicious and divisive direction in which MAGA Republicans want our country to be taken,” Schumer said. MAGA stands for Trump’s campaign motto: “Make America Great Again”.
Trump is expected to announce a presidential bid for 2024 as early as Tuesday evening. “There’s no doubt he’s still the 800-pound gorilla,” Hogan said of Trump’s role with Republicans. “And the struggle will continue for years to come.” But he thinks it would be a mistake to make Trump the candidate for 2024. Biden also has advice for Republicans at his appearance in Phnom Penh: The party must decide who it is.
