The United States legislative elections have begun to draw a picture of advances for the Democratic Party, which has achieved its first victory in a Republican Senate seat and has defended several of its most important positions. However, the possibility that the opposition will regain control of the Upper House continues to depend on the results in other states, where the vote count still does not allow determining which party will prevail.
The victory of the former governor Roy Cooper in North Carolina, against the Republican Michael Whatley, is so far the most significant result for Democrats. The party recovers a seat that had been in Republican hands and achieves the first of the four net gains it needs to reach a Senate majority.
To this result are added the victories of Jon Ossoff in Georgia, Mark Warner in Virginia, and Chris Pappas in New Hampshire, which allow Democrats to retain three fundamental seats for their aspirations. Although none of these triumphs modifies the balance of power between the parties, they prevent losses that would have complicated considerably the path toward a majority.
Democrats need three more Republican seats
The Republican Party entered the elections with 53 senators, compared with 47 for the Democratic bloc, including independents who usually vote with the latter. With this distribution, Democrats need to reach 51 seats to take control of the Upper House, given that a tie at 50 would favor the Republicans due to the tiebreaking vote of Vice President JD Vance.
The conquest of North Carolina reduces that distance, but three additional net gains are still needed, as long as Democrats manage to defend all the seats they already controlled before the elections.
Attention is directed especially to Maine, where Republican Susan Collins defends her seat; Texas, with Ken Paxton as the Republican candidate; and Ohio, where Republican Jon Husted faces Democrat Sherrod Brown. The three races are part of the opportunities Democrats need to turn into victories to alter the Senate majority.
Iowa, Kansas and Alaska continue to be under surveillance, while Michigan demands special attention for a different reason: there, the Democrats are defending a seat of their own. A loss in that state would force the party to compensate for that loss with an additional victory in Republican territory.
The Senate remains up for grabs and the House of Representatives is also in play
The Democratic advance in North Carolina is not enough on its own to anticipate a shift in the majority. The final distribution of seats will depend on several elections that have not yet been decided and in which the count may change the positions of the candidates.
At the same time, the House of Representatives continues to be another of the major arenas of these legislative elections. The 435 seats in the chamber are up for election and either of the two parties needs to reach 218 to obtain the majority.
The outcome of both chambers will determine the scope of action of Donald Trump during the last two years of his term. A Democratic majority in either of them would allow the opposition to exercise greater parliamentary control over the White House, push investigations, and condition the approval of the president’s legislative initiatives.
An election night that still does not allow a winner to be declared
The first results give Democrats a concrete gain in the Senate and the preservation of several seats they needed to defend. For Republicans, Kevin Hern’s victory in Oklahoma ensures the continuity of another of their seats in the Upper House.
The main unknown remains whether the Democrats will manage to turn their initial lead into a parliamentary majority. North Carolina has opened up that possibility, but the answer will depend on pending recounts in Maine, Texas, Ohio and other decisive states, in addition to the final composition of the House of Representatives.