Election Suprises

Hello everyone and welcome back to another week of Politics Explained. This is the Super Bowl week of politics, with a Presidential race, and control of the Senate and House up for grabs. Let’s dive right in.

Former President Donald Trump was re-elected as the 47th President of the United States in a surprise turn of events, besting Vice President Kamala Harris by a wide margin, and most probably won the popular vote (which hasn’t happened for a Republican candidate in many decades). Trump swept most of the so-called swing states (North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, with Arizona and Nevada still to be decided), which was surprising, since Harris was expected to win several of them. The next weeks will be full of post-mortems about why Trump won and Harris lost, but Americans apparently decided that they wanted a change of course from the Biden Administration and Vice President Harris.

In the Senate, Republicans won in Montana (Tim Sheehy), Ohio (Bernie Moreno), Pennsylvania (Dave McCormick), Utah (John Curtis), Indiana (Jim Banks) and West Virginia (Jim Justice), with the races in Arizona (Democrat Ruben Gallego vs Kari Lake) and Nevada (Democratic Senator Jacky Rosen vs Sam Brown) still outstanding. This gives the Republicans at least 53 seats in the upcoming Congress. The Democrats retained open seats in Maryland (Angela Alsobrooks), Delaware (Lisa Blunt Rochester), New Jersey (Andy Kim), California (Adam Schiff) and Michigan (Elissa Slotkin), and held onto Tammy Baldwin’s seat in Wisconsin. Another new Senator will be appointed in January by Ohio Governor Mike DeWine to replace Vice President-elect JD Vance.

In the House, Democrats picked up 3 seats in New York, 1 seat in Alabama, and 1 seat in Louisiana. Republicans picked up 2 seats in Pennsylvania and 3 seats in North Carolina.  While there are about 25+ seats still to be decided in the western states (mostly in California and Arizona), it appears that the Republicans are on track to retain the House, with the margins roughly what they were for the current Congress. House Speaker Mike Johnson is expected to retain his title, but if the incoming Trump Administration takes away more than a couple of House Members for Cabinet positions, his hold on the House may be in danger.

Orientation* for new Members of Congress will start next week in Washington, DC. 

*Definition of the Week (Orientation): When new members of Congress come to Washington DC to be trained on how to be members of Congress.