A president whose party controls both the Senate and House of Representatives can generally count on getting things done fairly quickly and Trump likely will not be an exception, despite starting with unusual handicaps. But both sides had anticipated they’d cut the historic GOP majority by perhaps a dozen seats, which now seemed unlikely.
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In the House, Republicans were on track to lose a maximum of nine seats, an unexpectedly modest reduction to a wide GOP majority that now stands at 247-188, including three vacant seats.
When Senator Pat Toomey was projected as victor of his tough re-election fight against Katie McGinty, an environmental aide to then-president Bill Clinton, Democratic hopes of regaining the chamber were dashed.
If the results hold, Republicans will hold 31 seats in the 63-seat Senate. That’s provided he can work with a GOP establishment he spent most of the campaign attacking.
The four Republican Senate candidates who are losing as I write are also the four in states where Trump is also losing. Ultimately it proved unavailing.
Democrats will still hold significant power as the minority party.
Trump campaign advisers said on Wednesday that the president-elect was turning to assembling a Cabinet and White House team and selecting a conservative nominee for the Supreme Court vacancy. Those counties are in the district that Democratic Rep. John Bradley lost by almost 6 percentage points. Richard Burr in North Carolina. North Carolina stays red. Ross had to fend of ties to her pass as a civil liberties lawyer, including defending flag burners and opposing a registry for sex offenders.
In the 47th State House District, Incumbent Republican Doug Dubitsky won out over Democrat Kate Donnelly.
Unless absentee ballots change the outcome of the Senate races it appears the status quo will continue in Albany. Johnson, a former plastics manufacturer, attempted to paint Feingold as a phony politician, which proved effective during a year where political outsiders were favored by American voters. That means numerous same issues that were gridlocked in the legislature in the past are likely to remain so, including, the Dream Act, which would provide college aid to children of undocumented immigrants, abortion rights measures, and ending the incarceration of 16 and 17 year olds in adult prisons.
The Senate race in the northeastern state of New Hampshire was still too close to call early Wednesday. Ron Johnson’s victory over former Democratic Sen. But just as in Wisconsin, the strategy didn’t take. Senator Toomey retaining his seat is a part of unpredicted Trump support in Pennsylvania and elsewhere.
To advance most bills in the House, 218 votes or more are needed. Duckworth is an Iraq war veteran who lost both her legs while piloting a helicopter.
In the Senate, Rand Paul was easily reelected with 57 percent of the vote, garnering over one million votes compared to Democrat challenger Jim Gray who received only 813,224 votes, 43-percent.
TransCanada said it hopes to persuade a new Trump administration to revive the controversial Keystone XL crude oil pipeline that President Obama rejected on November 6, 2015.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., established herself as a powerful, savvy speaker from 2007 to 2011 as the first woman ever in the office, securing the votes for President Barack Obama’s 2010 health care law.
Senate Republicans were reenergized Wednesday morning after pulling into a tie with Democrats for the first time in almost 125 years. While not all the races are decided at this hour, it is clear that the Republicans will maintain a majority of the U.S. Senate. There was a Trump-Kander vote, but it didn’t hurt Blunt.
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In Indiana, GOP Rep. Todd Young beat former Democratic senator and governor Evan Bayh, who mounted a much-ballyhooed comeback bid, but wilted under scrutiny. And he wants to shrink the role of the Environmental Protection Agency to a mostly advisory one and pull back the Clean Power Plan, Obama’s proposed plan to push utilities toward lower carbon emissions.
