Tuesday night, former President Trump won a signal victory in which Americans repudiated the last four years of deliberate cruelty and calculated neglect to return President Trump to the White House. Winning non-consecutive terms as president has only been accomplished once before in American history when Grover Cleveland returned to the White House in 1892 after a hiatus of four years. Not only did voters return Trump to the presidency, but they seem to have given him the tools to accomplish something. For at least two years, Trump will have GOP majorities in the House and the Senate to help implement his agenda.
Senate Control
On Election Night, Americans brought the Republican Party to the majority in the Senate.
Ohio: Bernie Moreno defeated Sherrod brown and ended Chuck Schumer’s reign as Senate majority leader.
Montana: Tim Sheehy resigned Jon Tester, who shouldn’t have been elected to the Senate in the first instance. Tim Sheehy flips Montana US Senate Seat.
They were almost a foregone conclusion if Trump did well, and they provided the new Senate majority leader with a buffer of one vote to work from. Tester was an ineffective candidate in a red state, while Brown was a survivor who sounded like what the Ohio electorate was looking for in a Senator.
Pennsylvania: Although the race hasn’t been called yet, it’s hard to imagine how the incumbent could find the votes needed to win. As of this writing, Dave McCormick is leading Casey by more than 50,000 votes. Over 95% have been counted. Only Republican strongholds haven’t reached the 95% threshold. If the voting machine didn’t work for Kamala I doubt it will for Casey.
If the stars align, there are still more possibilities.
Nevada: Sam Brown is 1,000 votes ahead of Jacky Rosen. Even though I believe Brown would be a great senator, he will have a hard time holding on to his seat with 84% votes counted. Many of these outstanding votes are located in Democrat-heavy Clark County and Washoe County.
Mike Rogers started the night strongly but is now 10,000 votes behind Elissa Slotkin. There are still enough votes uncounted to give Rogers his seat. Uncounted ballots are equally distributed between Democrat and Republican counties.
Eric Hovde is now 27,000 votes behind Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin. 95% of all the votes have been counted. It’s hard to imagine how he will win.
House Control
The House is currently made up of 197 Republicans, and 177 Democrats. A majority requires 218 votes.
The Cook Political Report is a good baseline. The GOP has all of the “Likely Republicans”, even though only five seats have been announced. The GOP caucus now has 205 members. The GOP also won all the seats that lean Republican. Six of these seats are still undecided but seem to be safe. They bring the GOP’s total up to 211. On 11 of the 22 “Toss-Up” seats, we won, while two “Leans Democrat ” seats were lost. If those victories hold, the GOP would have 224 seats. I don’t think that 100% of the lead will hold. But I expect at least 218 Republicans to be in the new House and vote for the Speaker. This link will give you the detailed race status.
It won’t be an easy job for the new Speaker because there are a few Republicans who prefer social media engagement over governing, but it is better to be in the majority than in the minority.
Looking Forward
The GOP will narrowly control Congress and the Executive Branch. His cabinet nominations must be filled quickly. If the opportunity is not wasted, President Trump has a rare chance to implement a pro-liberty, pro-economic-growth agenda and fill judicial positions with Originalists.
