Story updated on 11 November
DAYS after polling closed in the US mid-term elections, it remains unclear who will control Congress, with the overall results for the Senate on a knife edge. Republicans appear to be inching towards taking control of the House of Representatives.
What is clear, however, is that the anticipated trouncing of the Democrats’ majority in the Senate failed to materialise, and many candidates personally endorsed by former President, Donald Trump, were unsuccesful.
Counting is ongoing in two key states — Arizona and Nevada — and might continue into next week. Depending upon their success in these states, either the Republicans or the Democrats could seize control of the House. A win apiece would focus all attention on the state of Georgia, where the Democratic candidate and Baptist pastor, the Revd Raphael Warnock, was being challenged by a former football star, Herschel Walker. This will now go to run-off in December, since no candidate captured 50 per cent of the vote.
Democrats were buoyed early on after the polls closed by gaining a crucial seat in the state of Pennsylvania, where the candidate John Fetterman won, despite suffering a stroke earlier in the year.
Many Episcopal churches served as polling stations for the election, and one installed a cellist to play calming music to those in line. Church leaders of Emmanuel Episcopal Church, Boston, served as guides and greeters to voters in a bid to make the church more welcoming to voters.
The Episcopal Church urged churches to encourage voter participation, without being partisan. An election-day vigil with the Presiding Bishop, the Rt Revd Michael Curry, was live-streamed on election night on Tuesday.
Voter turnout in the US during this year’s mid-term elections was the second highest in more than 50 years, but lower than the last mid-terms in 2018: just under 50 per cent.
Democrats had feared a rout at the polls, as the party in power in Washington usually loses seats in the mid-terms, but President Biden appears to have done better than expected, despite poor poll ratings, rising inflation, and concern over the cost of living. Democrats campaigned vociferously on the threat to democracy, and abortion rights, which they hoped would gain them support from women voters in the wake of the US Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade earlier this year (News, 1 July).
Exit polling in Pennyslvania suggested that this strategy had paid off, as 57 per cent of women supported the winning Democrat candidate, Mr Fetterman.
Michigan, Kentucky, Vermont, Montana, and California had special propositions on the ballot — effectively state-wide referendums — on abortion rights. By Wednesday, voters in Michigan, Vermont, and California had voted to enshrine abortion rights in their constitutions.
Several high-profile 2020 election-result deniers were seeking election as Republicans, including Doug Mastriano, who failed in his bid to be Pennsylvania governor. J. D. Vance, backed by Donald Trump, won the Senate seat in Ohio. Dozens of Republican candidates for both the House of Representatives and the Senate had refused to confirm that they would accept the result if they lost.
The Democrats’ Wes Moore became the first Black governor in Maryland, and Maura Healey the first openly lesbian governor in US history after winning Massachusetts for the Democrats.
All 435 House of Representative seats and 35 Senate seats were on the ballot, as well as many state governorships. If Democrats lose control of the House of Representatives, President Biden will find it hard to carry out his remaining agenda. The Senate had been controlled by the Democrats by just one vote.