Democrats keep Senate control after key state win

Voters unhappy with nation's direction, but House outcome remains unclear

WASHINGTON — Democrats have managed to keep control of the US Senate for the next two years after Senator Catherine Cortez Masto was declared winner in Nevada, even though most voters in the state say the country is headed in the wrong direction and view the economy negatively.

The fate of the House of Representatives was still uncertain after Tuesday's midterm elections as Republicans struggled to pull together a slim majority. By press time, the Republicans had been declared winners of 211 seats and the Democrats of 204. A party needs 218 seats to have a majority in the House.

Before the elections, most pollsters and analysts had forecast that Democratic congressional power would be swept away in a "red wave "as the ruling party felt the brunt of voter anger over inflation and unhappiness with the performance of President Joe Biden.

On Saturday, US media called the key Senate race in Nevada for the incumbent Cortez Masto, who narrowly defeated Republican Adam Laxalt, a former state attorney general who had been endorsed by former president Donald Trump.

A closely divided swing state, Nevada is one of the most racially diverse in the nation, a working-class state whose residents have been especially hard-hit by inflation and other economic turmoil.

Roughly three-fourths of Nevada voters said the country is headed in the wrong direction, and about 5 in 10 called the economy the most important issue facing the country, according to the AP VoteCast, a survey of 2,100 of the state's voters.

Voters viewed the economy negatively, with VoteCast finding nearly 8 in 10 saying economic conditions are either not so good or poor. Only about 2 in 10 called the economy excellent or good. And about a third of voters said their families are falling behind financially.

Nevada's vote count took several days partly because of a mail voting system created by the state legislature in 2020 that requires counties to accept ballots postmarked by Election Day if they arrive up to four days later. Laxalt had an early lead that dwindled after late-counted ballots came in from the state's population centers of Las Vegas and Reno.

Cortez Masto's campaign fundraising far outpaced Laxalt's. She spent nearly $47 million and had more than $6 million in cash on hand until mid-October, according to OpenSecrets, a nonprofit group that tracks money in US politics. Laxalt was said to have spent nearly $13 million and had about $3 million remaining at the same time.

Democrats received an important boost late on Friday when the reelection of Arizona Senator Mark Kelly as he beat the Republican Blake Masters, a venture capitalist, put the party within one seat of retaining their majority.

Georgia runoff

The Nevada Senate result means the Democrats have 50 seats and the Republicans 49. This represents a Democratic majority because Vice-President Kamala Harris casts a vote in the event of ties in the Senate.

The winner of the last seat, in Georgia, will be decided by a runoff on Dec 6. In the race, for the incumbent Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock and his Republican challenger, Herschel Walker, a well-known former professional football player, campaigning has already begun. The runoff is required because neither of the two gained 50 percent of the vote on Tuesday.

Spending by the Warnock and Walker campaigns and outside groups has totaled $262 million, OpenSecrets said.

Sheila Krumholz, OpenSecrets' executive director, predicted at least $100 million more in outside spending before the runoff.

Trump has said that he is to make a "very big announcement" on Tuesday, widely expected to be that he will be a candidate for the presidency in 2024.

Trump, who will be 78 when the next election is held, had hinted at another presidential run as he campaigned for Republican candidates in the midterm elections, which many analysts have cast as a repudiation of him and his anointed candidates.

On Friday a longtime Trump adviser, Jason Miller, told the former Trump aide Steve Bannon, on the latter's popular War Room podcast: "President Trump is going to announce on Tuesday that he is running for president."

However, a University of Georgia professor of political science, Charles Bullock, told Fox News Digital that if Trump says he is running for a second term he risks drawing attention away from Walker in Georgia. "That would on balance help Warnock."

Last week Miller told Newsmax that he was encouraging the former president to hold off his announcement until after the runoff to keep the focus on Georgia.

Ai Heping in New York contributed to this story.