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WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Donald Trump’s Republican Party won another seat in the United States Senate on Wednesday (November 11), with a victory in Alaska that places it within a majority vote in the upper house of Congress.
Incumbent Dan Sullivan was easily re-elected with more than 57 percent of the vote, according to CNN and NBC television screenings.
His victory confirms the strong performance of the Republican Party in the Congressional elections, which were held on November 3 at the same time as the presidential elections won by Democrat Joe Biden.
Republicans now have 50 seats, compared to 48 for Democrats in the 100-seat Senate. There are still two spots to fill in the runoff scheduled for January 5 in the southern state of Georgia.
Democrats would have to win both seats to catch up with Republicans and give Biden more room to implement his policies. Then it would be the voice of vice president-elect Kamala Harris that would decide the tie in a vote of 50 to 50 in her role as president of the Senate.
No law can be passed in the United States without the upper house, which also has the power to approve the president’s appointments – his secretaries, his ambassadors, and the judges, especially the Supreme Court.
If the Senate remains Republican, Biden, who was in it for 36 years, would have to use his bipartisan and negotiation skills.
The president-elect said Tuesday he was confident that he could work with a sufficient number of lawmakers on the other side of Congress.
Trump has now won Alaska and three more electoral votes, US media said Wednesday, in a push that does not change Biden’s victory in the White House.
Biden now has at least 279 of the electoral college’s 538 votes (he needed 270) and Trump now has 217.
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