Reid no longer majority leader
By David Espo and Robert Furlow, AP
WASHINGTON — Riding a powerful wave of voter discontent, resurgent Republicans captured control of the Senate and tightened their grip on the House Tuesday night in elections certain to complicate President Obama’s final two years in office.
Republican Mitch McConnell led the way to a new Senate majority, dispatching Democratic challenger Alison Lundergan Grimes in Kentucky after a $78 million campaign of unrelieved negativity. Voters are “hungry for new leadership. They want a reason to be hopeful,” said the man now in line to become majority leader and set the Senate agenda.
Two-term incumbent Mark Pryor of Arkansas was the first Democrat to fall, defeated by freshman Rep. Tom Cotton. Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado was next, defeated by Rep. Cory Gardner. Sen. Kay Hagan also lost, in North Carolina, to Thom Tilllis, the speaker of the state House.
Republicans also picked up seats in Iowa, West Virginia, South Dakota and Montana, all states where Democrats retired. They had needed a net gain of six seats to end a Democratic majority in place since 2006.
In the House, with dozens of races uncalled, Republicans had picked up 11 seats that had been in Democratic hands, and given up only one.
A net pickup of 13 would give them more seats in the House than at any time since 1946.
Obama was at the White House as voters remade Congress for the final two years of his tenure — not to his liking. With lawmakers set to convene next week for a postelection session, he invited leaders to a meeting on Friday.
The shift in control of the Senate, coupled with a GOP-led House, probably means a strong GOP assault on budget deficits, additional pressure on Democrats to accept sweeping changes to the health care law that stands as Obama’s signal domestic accomplishment and a bid to reduce federal regulations.
Obama’s ability to win confirmation for lifetime judicial appointments could also suffer, including any Supreme Court vacancies.
Speaker John Boehner, in line for a third term as head of the House, said the new Republican-controlled Congress would vote soon in the new year on the “many common-sense jobs and energy bills that passed the Republican-led House in recent years with bipartisan support but were never even brought to a vote by the outgoing Senate majority.”
Said outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, ” The message from voters is clear: They want us to work together.”
Legislation to approve the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada is likely among the disputed issues to be debated.
There were 36 gubernatorial elections on the ballot Tuesday, and several incumbents struggled against challengers. Tom Wolf captured the Pennsylvania statehouse for the Democrats, defeating Republican Gov. Tom Corbett. Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn lost in Illinois, Obama’s home state. Republican Larry Hogan scored one of the night’s biggest upsets, in Maryland.
In a footnote to one of the year’s biggest political surprises, college professor Dave Brat was elected to the House from Virginia, several months after he defeated Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a Republican primary.
House Republicans defeated 19-term Democratic Rep. Nick Rahall in West Virginia, beat Rep. John Barrow in Georgia and picked up a seat vacated by a lawmaker in North Carolina.
After years of a sluggish economic recovery and foreign crises aplenty, the voters’ mood was sour.
Nearly two-thirds of voters interviewed after casting ballots said the country was seriously on the wrong track. Only about 30 percent said it was generally going in the right direction.
More than four in ten voters disapproved of both Obama and Congress, according to the exit polls conducted for The Associated Press and the television networks.
Still, a majority of those polled supported several positions associated with Democrats or Obama rather than Republicans — saying immigrants in the country illegally should be able to work, backing U.S. military involvement against Islamic State fighters, and agreeing that climate change is a serious problem.
No matter which party emerged with control of the Senate, a new chapter in divided government was inevitable in a nation marked by profound unease over the future and dissatisfaction with its political leaders.
Several Senate races were close, a list that — surprisingly — included Virginia.
There, Democratic Sen. Mark Warner held a narrow lead over former Republican Party chairman and Bush administration official Ed Gillespie.
There was a little good news for Democrats in New Hampshire, where Sen. Jeanne Shaheen was re-elected after a difficult race against former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown.
But in Georgia, Michelle Nunn lost to businessman David Perdue, depriving the Democrats of their last chances to take away a Republican seat. In Kansas, 78-year-old Sen. Pat Roberts fended off a challenge from independent Greg Orman, shutting off another avenue for the Democrats.
Among the newly elected Republican senators was Rep. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, the first member of her party to win a seat there in more than a half century.
State Sen. Jodi Ernst of Iowa also won, after a campaign that took off when she aired an ad saying she had learned how to castrate hogs as a girl growing up on a ranch.
In statehouse races, Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York won a second term.
Former Republican Rep. Asa Hutchinson was elected governor of Arkansas more than a decade after playing a prominent role in President Bill Clinton’s impeachment and trial, and Florida Gov. Rick Scott won a tough race for a new term.
Also winning new terms were Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Republican and potential presidential candidates in 2016.
Another possible White House hopeful, Republican Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, also won.
The elections’ $4 billion price tag spending was unprecedented for a non-presidential year.
Time for liberals to sit down and get their EBT cards out for some fresh truck loads of crow. What a right turn this country took at the right time.
This state, the one every tax payer is leaving, will continue the decline under the senile hook-beaked Brown to become a safe haven and cess pool for tens of thousands of early released welfare-felon criminals and illegals and unless this state is split there is no hope for it. Hook-Beak Brown’s plan is the same as Insane-Husseins, which is cause as much damage to taxpayers and productive people as possible and put as many on welfare as possible and retire to their tax payer bought mansion and pretend they know nothing of what they did.
Yes, the fool in the white house is hell bent on destroying this country. Telling the nation “all can vote, you don’t have to show I.D. just vote democrat”. His insane moves get more and more insane. He is inviting voter fraud, among inviting ILLEGALS.
He’s a man with a grudge and that is QUITE OBVIOUS. He and his disgusting looking, flapping gums wife need to leave.
The country has spoken. Tired of all the political lies and denies and it was evidenced by the votes!
@inJustice-Best democracy billionaire’s can buy by lying, suppressing the vote and ramping up fear and hatred.
Right Hmm-Less, them GOP’s might even require ID for voting so that millions of illegals can’t vote along with the millions of felons and dead people that the jack-ass party counts on. They might even shut down welfare handouts and Obola phones for 50 million and require them to find a job and get out of section 8 free welfare housing. They might even secure the US border from drug cartel murderers and defend this country from terrorist hordes from the Middle East. It is a right turn at the right time for this country.
You are unhinged….turn in your weapons.
Justice all that will Hakeem is over the next two years the GOP week be seen for what it is and and will actually have to take responsibility for its actions and will not be able to hide behind blaming democrats for the GOPs shortcomings. And then the American electorate will swing wildly back and Hillary will be elected as our next POTUS by a resounding margin.
So enjoy your “victory” now cause it won’t last long!
Haahahahahahahaha! That’s funny, Bigs.
I believe it was because the Democrats, while in complete control of the government for the past 6 years, were finally seen for what THEY are that yesterday’s election resulted in a sweep across most of the country.
You can bluster all you want, but the people have finally seen through the lies and booted your peeps.
Nice wave! … THAT was fun, huh? Clearly, for Obama that was NOT a shellacking… it was something much worse, more like a cataclysmic earthquake. Complete and total repudiation and rejection for “Wacky Baracky” and his moronic, mumbling minion, Harry Reid.
Nearly seventy percent of voters said they were angry, dissatisfied (or both) and felt that the country was on the wrong track.
Who knew?
Wait, I knew. I and countless millions of other actual informed voters knew who Obama was, and wasn’t, in 2007. It was only the ignorant, hapless “low-information voters” and the hard-core leftist progressives who actually wanted this mess. Six years later… “Oops… our bad, totally sorry ’bout yer’ country, dude.” … Only they’re not sorry for the destruction they have wrought, it’s all just part of the grand plan to “remake America”.
That bottle of Champagne was great last night, but there’s a lot of work to be done to undo the damage of Obama/Reid and turn this nation around and get it heading back in the right direction… on the RIGHT track!
Meanwhile, watch for Obama to continue to spitefully govern against the obvious will of the people and pack the courts full of hard-core leftist judges during the lame duck session (while he still can). And then there’s the “comprehensive immigration reform” executive amnesty yet to be rammed down our throats as well. Just a few more parting “payback” shots to America’s gut before he becomes totally irrelevant-because Obama is nothing if not vindictive.
Even the widely reported Mrs. Bummer’s call to vote and then have fried chicken didn’t work this time. The sane 90% of the country has spoken to the 10% liberal whack-jobs that live in mostly coastal states and the result is clear that the left has failed in all of their policies and were thrown out the door and through the window of reality. What to do with the millions newly placed into welfare and millions newly added to SSI is as big a question as to how to encourage the immigration laws be enforced and suggest immediate self-deporting to the millions they let illegally enter the country by the criminal Bar-hack-Hussein gang of comic clown imposters.
As was said in France a couple of hundred years ago, “the people get the government they deserve” . . .
Well said Ralph. Especially the vindictive part. THAT has been quite obvious throughout his stay in our white house.
What is it about the extreme right wing and their deep seeded hatred for anyone they disagree with?
Should be fun to watch the GOP implode upon itself.
Project much, Level?
Dog,
As we all well know by now, projection is sort of a specialty of the left… one of the very few things they actually do pretty well.
“…the Democrats, while in complete control of the government for the past 6 years,…’ WHAT???