But in the face of a struggling economy, dire approval ratings and the slimmest of legislative majorities, Joe Biden has defied history with today’s election results.
With a handful of Senate races and dozens of House of Representative races yet to be called, it appears possible that Biden’s Democratic Party may have gained ground today.
Republicans needed to pick up a single seat to take control of the Senate. But at the count at the time of publishing, they are likelier to lose one.
And they needed to pick up five seats in the House of Representatives.
At the moment they have picked up seven seats, and lost two. There are 73 yet to be called.
Whether they take control of the House or not, Republicans will be asking themselves what happened.
Once again, Donald Trump happened.
Though he’s been out of office for two years now, Trump remains an overwhelming presence within the Republican Party.
And he has used that power to endorse candidates across the country, whether they are qualified or not.
And many of those candidates have alienated, irritated or frightened voters, sending them running to Democrats.
In Georgia, scandal-plagued football star Herschel Walker is currently trailing Democratic senator and pastor Raphael Warnock.
And in Arizona, Trump-endorsed Blake Masters is trailing senator and former astronaut Mark Kelly.
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Midterms are usually a referendum on the sitting president. Voters don’t like Joe Biden, but they dislike Donald Trump even more.
In more bad news for Trump, just about the only Republican to outperform expectations was Florida governor and presidential aspirant Ron DeSantis.
One of the key issues driving voters to the polls is one out of Congress’s hands.
The Supreme Court’s overturning of abortion rights outraged millions, and led to an army of young women casting a ballot.
While Republicans talked about inflation and crime, Democrats focused on abortion rights. And it appears to have worked.
Today’s result is an upset only for those who ignored the polls.
Polling showed close races across the country, but pundits burned by 2016 and 2020 misses took them with more grains of salt than they should have.
If Democrats do maintain the Senate, it allows Biden to continue one of a president’s greatest powers – appointing judges.
A Republican-controlled Senate would likely bring his appointments to a grinding halt.
Inauguration Day: A ceremony like no other
