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How much room for maneuver the next president of the United States will have also depends on whether he has a majority in the United States Senate. Even if the Senate race receives far less attention than the White House, it is almost as important. If the president lacks a majority in the Senate, he cannot pass many important laws.
Republicans currently have a majority, but it is not that large. They have 53 seats, Democrats 47. Just four additional seats were enough to take over the majority. More than 35 places were voted in the course of the presidential elections.
All hope is in Georgia
For a long time it seemed that Republicans would retain a majority in the Senate. But the forces change the longer the count takes. In the state of Georgia, the Republican incumbent slipped David Perdue, an ally of Trump, below the 50 percent mark, he is currently more than 100 votes away from a clear victory. Votes yet to be counted tend to be in districts with Democratic voters.
Perdue’s Democratic Challenger Jon ossof, an investigative journalist and CEO of a UK production company, is 47.7 percent. If Perdue stays below 50 percent of the vote, he will have to run a runoff against Ossof in January.
This would be the second round of elections for a Senate seat in the state of Georgia. Because also the senator and republican Kelly loeffler must run in a second round against their democratic rival: the African-American pastor Raphael warnock. On this close election, Loeffler, a very conservative senator, said on election night: “The radical left wants to take over the country. It will be a long fight.”
Without a majority in the Senate, Biden would be blocked as president
Senators are each appointed for a six-year term, and a third is elected every two years.
Without a majority in the Senate, Joe Biden would have his hands tied on numerous bills if he became president. For example, with the help of the Crown, reforms in the health care system or in climate policy: the Republicans could block it. It would also be impossible to fill the justices without the approval of the Republican senators. Biden would then have to govern with regulations, the so-called executive orders.
Re-elected Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced that he would block policies under a Democratic president.
If Democrats win both seats and Joe Biden the presidency, they would have the 50 senators they need. Biden’s vice president, Kamala Harris, would then be the tiebreaker, giving Democrats a – very limited – majority in the Senate.
In a statement from Ossof’s campaign team on Thursday, they said they were confident. It sounded similar to Republican Perdue: “We are ready, we will win,” said an election manager.
The race for the Senate, like that of the presidency, remains very close. Democrats won a previously Republican seat in Colorado and Arizona, but lost one in Alabama. In other states, too, their often very expensive and tough election campaigns have not paid off.
If Donald Trump wins the election, it will be difficult for Democrats to obtain a majority in the Senate. Then you would have to get the Georgia seats and Thom Tillis’ Republican seat in North Carolina. Tillis is currently ahead. He has already declared his victory.
