24 hours after US midterm elections, Democrats & Republicans still don't have confirmed control of Congress

All to play for.

Sulaiman Daud | November 10, 2022, 03:02 PM

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Americans went to the polls on Nov. 9 (Singapore time), but around 24 hours later, the fate of both chambers of Congress are still up in the air.

As of time of writing, both the House of Representatives and the Senate have yet to be called for either the Democratic or Republican parties due to some surprising results and close-run races.

The Senate

Control of the 100-member chamber comes down to results in just three states -- Arizona, Nevada and Georgia.

The Democrats have secured 48 seats, including flipping Pennsylvania with John Fetterman beating Mehmet Oz.

The Republicans have 49, after recording wins like Ron Johnson in Wisconsin, Chuck Grassley in Iowa and Marco Rubio in Florida.

However, Democrats have cause for optimism in the three remaining races.

Democrat Mark Kelly is leading in Arizona over Republican Blake Masters, while the race between Catherine Cortez Masto (D) and Adam Laxalt (R) in Nevada is extremely close.

Meanwhile, even though Raphael Warnock (D) beat Herschel Walker (R) in Georgia, neither candidate got 50 per cent of the vote. Under Georgian law, they will face each other in a runoff election in a month's time.

As the 50-50 tie can be broken by the Vice President, currently Kamala Harris of the Democrats, either party needs two out of the last three races to control the Senate.

The House of Representatives

The Republicans, who expected to seal control of the House relatively early on polling night, will still have to wait for final confirmation.

Although it is likely that they will eventually end up in control of the 435-member chamber, votes in some outstanding races have yet to be counted.

The Republicans picked off some big scalps, like Mike Lawler beating Sean Patrick Maloney in New York, who served as the campaign chair for the Democrats.

However, the Democrats also managed to flip some seats, including Greg Landsman in the trending-red state of Ohio.

According to the New York Times, the Republicans just need 11 more seats, while the Democrats need to win 29.

If the Republicans win, Nancy Pelosi will give up her role as Speaker of the House to Kevin McCarthy, a noted backer of former president Donald Trump.

With predictions that the midterm elections would see a "red wave" of overwhelming Republican victories all but dashed, President Joe Biden felt emboldened enough to say to reporters early on Nov. 10 (Singapore time): "Giant red wave, didn't happen."

Mothership is taking a look at the U.S. midterm elections. Check out the other stories in our series:

Top image from John Fetterman and Marco Rubio's Facebook pages.