US Elections 2024: On Tuesday night, Nebraska’s surprising battlefield victory helped Republicans regain control of the US Senate by sweeping up seats in West Virginia and Ohio.
Notably, the Republican party has won a majority in the Senate for the first time in four years.
The incumbent Republican senator Deb Fischer dismissed an unexpectedly fierce challenge from Dan Osborn, an independent.
Democrats watched their attempts to hold onto their tiny majority evaporate as the results came in on a geography that favored Republicans.
Several US media sites predicted that incumbent Democrat Sherrod Brown will lose to Republican Bernie Moreno in Ohio. Republicans will have at least a 51-49 lead in the Senate thanks to those two wins, and further gains might be made once the outcomes of other close contests are known.
In an effort to hold onto the House, which they now control by a slim 220-212 margin, Republicans also reported gains.
While Democrats took control of a Republican-held seat in Alabama that had been reconfigured to comply with a US Supreme Court decision to create a Black majority district, they also won three seats from Democrats in North Carolina, where they had changed district lines to their favor.
In order to gain control of the 435-seat Senate, Democrats must now flip at least six seats.
A tiny percentage of votes will probably decide the outcome, just like in the presidential election. It is believed that fewer than 40 House contests are actually competitive.
If Republicans win in Montana, where Democrat Jon Tester is facing a fierce reelection campaign, and in a number of vulnerable Midwestern states, they have an opportunity to substantially expand their Senate advantage. They are unlikely to obtain the 60-vote majority required to pass the bulk of legislation in the house, though.
