Democrats win key Nevada race, giving party control of Senate

Washington: Joe Biden’s Democrats have secured control of the US Senate, giving the president greater leverage over his agenda even if Republicans win the House of Representatives.

In a nail-biting count that continued for almost four days, Nevada Democrat incumbent Senator Catherine Cortez Masto held off Republican Adam Laxalt, a former state attorney general who filed several lawsuits for Donald Trump seeking to overturn the 2020 election results.

Adam Laxalt and Catherine Cortez MastoCredit: Fairfax Media

The outcome is a blow for the former US president as he lays the groundwork for another run for the White House in 2024, with an announcement expected on Tuesday.

Biden said the result would force the Republican Party to decide “who they are”.

Earlier, Trump lashed out over the vote-counting process in Arizona, where two more of his endorsed candidates lost their races: Blake Masters, a venture capitalist who was running for the Senate; and Mark Finchem, a member of the militia group the Oath Keepers, who was vying to be Arizona’s top elections official, otherwise known as Secretary of State.

“Idiot, and possibly corrupt officials have lost control of the tainted Election in Arizona. MACHINES BROKEN IN REPUBLICAN AREAS,” Trump claimed without evidence on his Truth Social online site. “A NEW ELECTION MUST BE CALLED FOR IMMEDIATELY!”

The victory in Nevada gives the Democrats control of 50 of the Senate’s 100 seats. If they also win Georgia – where a rematch will take place on December 6 – that would give them an outright majority of 51 to 49 seats in the Senate. If they lose Georgia, the Democrats would still have a majority in the Senate by virtue of Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote.

The result means President Joe Biden will have the ability to push through nominations for key appointments, such as judges and cabinet secretaries, which are rubber-stamped by the Senate.

Democrats will also have some insulation from Republican legislation and could launch their own inquiries to counter investigations threatened by Republicans if they win the House of Representatives.

However, Biden’s policy agenda is still under threat if the Republicans wrest control of the House, where they could seek to reverse initiatives they don’t like, such as climate change spending, corporate tax increases, or student loan forgiveness.

Joe BidenCredit: AP

Republicans currently have 211 House seats – seven short of the 218 required to win the House – while the Democrats have won 202.

In Phnom Penh, Cambodia, for the summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the president said the election results meant he would be “coming in stronger” to Monday’s meeting with China’s Xi Jinping.

He also remained hopeful that the Democrats might still keep full control of Congress by pulling off a win in the House.

“It’s a stretch,” he acknowledged. “Everything has to fall our way.”

The Nevada victory is nonetheless a big relief for Democrats, who came into Tuesday’s election expecting to be facing a Republican “red wave” due to record inflation, cost-of-living pressures and rising crime.

In the end, Biden ended up outperforming expectations, after concerns about democracy and abortion rights shaped voter sentiment, particularly among young people, women and independent voters.

Young people also showed up in force. Among them was 21-year-old Las Vegas hospitality worker Edrulfo Camacho who spent weeks ahead of the midterms doorknocking with his mother, Angelica, in a bid to get more people to vote (voting is not compulsory in the US).

Culinary Union members Edrulfo Camacho and his mother Angelica door knocking in Las Vegas.Credit: Farrah Tomazin

“I know a lot of people who are struggling, moving house to house, or apartment to apartment because rent costs so much,” he said. “I’m blessed because I can still live with my mum and dad, even though I really want to move out, but other young people don’t have that luxury.”

The pair are members of the Culinary Workers Union, which represents the 60,000 hospitality workers that drive Nevada’s economy: from cooks and bussers, to waiters and guest attendants.

These workers were among the hardest hit during the pandemic, said treasury-secretary Ted Pappageorge, but embarked on a massive mobilisation effort for the Democrats on the belief they would do more to tackle issues such as housing affordability, which he blamed on “Wall Street landlords” that were raising rents through the roof, and oil companies he said were “price gouging”, which was pushing up the cost of gas.

“Republicans are not going to take on big oil or Wall Street landlords,” he said.

The Nevada result is likely to lead to even further soul searching and recriminations in the Republican Party.

Ahead of the midterm elections, National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Rick Scott predicted his party would likely control 52 Senate seats – and possibly even get up to a 55-seat majority – given polls showed GOP candidates picking up momentum.

Cortez Masto was also viewed as the Democrats’ most vulnerable incumbent – so much so, that Barack Obama travelled to the state in days before the midterms to boost her prospects.

Tonight though, a jubilant Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said regaining the Senate was “a vindication for Democrats, our agenda, and for the American people.”

“The American people rejected the anti-democratic extremist MAGA Republicans,” he added.

Nevada was also a crucial battleground because it was a hotbed of election denialism. The Republican candidate for Secretary of State, Jim Marchant, had pushed the state’s biggest county to switch to hand counting paper ballots based on Trump-conspiracy theories about the validity of voting machines.

Catherine Cortez Masto speaks alongside Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak during an election night party hosted by the Nevada Democratic Party.Credit: AP

Marchant led a national coalition of like-minded conservatives also running for secretary of state across the US, declaring at a Trump rally in June: “When my coalition of secretary of state candidates around the country get elected, we’re going to fix the whole country and President Trump is going to be president again in 2024!”

He was defeated by Democrat Cisco Aguilar, a lawyer and former chair of the Nevada Athletic Commission. Republicans, however, had a win in the governor’s race, where Trump-backed Vegas sheriff Joe Lombardo defeated Steve Sisolak.

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for the weekly What in the World newsletter here.