(AFP) – US President Donald Trump resumed complaining about election results Thursday, but the Democratic midterms steamroller powered ahead, with a potential new Senate pick-up in Mississippi underlining the historic drubbing dealt to Republicans. The dust was still settling after Tuesday’s election, in which Americans overwhelmingly chose to hand control of Congress to Democrats, turning their backs on the decade-long Trump era and a Republican Party he remade in his norm-smashing image.
Trump returned to form with a social media post complaining that the still-undecided race for senator in Alaska was unfair and that votes from two minor candidates “should be immediately given” to the currently trailing Republican. Even a week ago, this kind of blast on Truth Social would have raised fears that Trump planned to use his huge powers to try and tilt the election in his direction — as he did in attempting to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential vote. But the midterm earthquake has reshaped the landscape beyond Trump’s control. Democrats are already set to hold 54 Senate seats to the Republicans’ 44, and 240 House seats to 147 for Republicans. The only question Thursday was how much farther these majorities might go.
– Mississippi, Alaska nail-biters –
The biggest nail-biter was in Mississippi, one of the most solidly Republican states in the nation, where against all expectations, a 43-year-old Black man, Scott Colom, appeared to be on the cusp of winning a Senate seat. By mid-morning, Colom was ahead of incumbent Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith by 1,138 votes, with only a handful of ballots left to count. Colom would be the first Democrat to win a Senate seat from the southern state since 1982 — and the first African American to do so since 1874.
In Alaska, Democrat Mary Peltola was inching ahead of the pack with 48.17 percent of the vote, followed by Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan with 47.88 percent. Trump’s Truth Social outburst referred to a fringe candidate also named Dan Sullivan, whom Republicans accuse of being a plant aimed at siphoning votes from their candidate, and another minor contender, Gerald Heikes, who is registered as a Republican. At the latest count, the second Dan Sullivan had won only 1.68 percent of the vote, while Heikes had 2.27 percent. Trump — who initially stood out for an uncharacteristically quick acceptance of the midterm results Tuesday — posted that all the votes for the “Fake” Sullivan and Heikes “should be immediately given to the REAL Dan Sullivan, and the Election is over.” “There is no other fair solution!”
– Making history –
If Colom wins in Mississippi, he would join a host of other new faces smashing racial and cultural barriers in the midterms. Keisha Lance Bottoms, great-great-granddaughter of a slave, became the first Black female governor of Georgia — and in the country. Deb Haaland in New Mexico was elected to be the country’s first Native American female governor. Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed beat a Trump ally to become the first Muslim to enter the US Senate. And Chris Pappas, who easily won in New Hampshire, will become the first openly gay senator.
In purely political terms, Tuesday’s midterms were no less dramatic, featuring wins for Democrats in territory where Trump had previously been so dominant that it was all but written off by the left. James Talarico broke a 38-year hoodoo by winning a Senate seat in ultra-Republican Texas, and Adam Hamilton did even better, becoming the first Democratic senator from Kansas in 94 years. The verdict from one of the country’s most senior Republicans, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, was bleak. “This is close to an extinction-level event for Republicans in many parts of the country as we have seen probably in the last 100 years,” he said.
– Sebastian Smith
© 2024 AFP
