Nov 09, 2016 | By Steven T. Dennis, Laura
Litvan, Billy House
Republicans
shocked Democrats by keeping control of the Senate, setting the stage for
President-elect Donald Trump to enact a broad conservative agenda and
ensure a Republican Supreme Court for a generation. That’s provided he can work
with a GOP establishment he spent most of the campaign attacking.
Election night
amounted to an almost complete disaster for Senate Democrats in a year when the
map greatly favored them -- 10 of 11 battlegrounds were on Republican turf --
and only weeks ago they were hoping that an anti-Trump wave would carry them to
the majority.
Republicans
clinched at least 51 Senate seats, with races in New Hampshire and Louisiana
still to be decided. They also kept control of the House.
One-party rule
creates the potential to reshape the Supreme Court and use Senate procedures to
muscle through changes in tax policy and Obamacare.
Although most
Americans will be watching the returns for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton,
state races will play an important...
First, Trump
and his fellow Republicans would have to find a way to work together.
‘Drain the swamp’
He repeatedly
promised to “drain the swamp” of the Washington establishment and has called
House Speaker Paul Ryan “a weak and ineffective leader.” Ryan and Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell almost always avoided speaking Trump’s name in
public, and while they nominally supported him, they never campaigned alongside
him.
Republicans who
will control the Senate are sharply divided over matters that include
immigration, trade and climate change.
Indeed, some
Republicans weren’t even willing to vote for Trump, and few have embraced some
of his signature proposals, such as building a wall on the border with Mexico
and enacting 35 percent tariffs on Mexican imports from U.S. companies.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said on Twitter that he
voted for an independent candidate for president. Republicans Jeff Flake of
Arizona and Ben Sasse of Nebraska also spoke out strongly against Trump.
"We now
have a country to run," Graham said in a statement posted on Twitter.
"President-elect Trump and the new Congress will face many challenges. We
have wars to win, threats to be dealt with and a stagnant economy which must be
revived. To the extent that I can help President-elect Trump, I will do
so."
Maine Senator
Angus King, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, in a statement
Wednesday called on all sides to "look to one another with compassion and
understanding, to view each other as neighbors rather than adversaries."
He added, "It will be difficult, but it is achievable."
The party also
faces significant challenges in the Senate because it still lacks the 60 votes
needed to force through most legislation over Democratic objections.
Republicans could change the rules to keep Democrats from blocking Trump’s
Supreme Court nominees, including one to replace the late Justice Antonin
Scalia.
One big winner
on the night was McConnell, whose gamble to block Merrick Garland’s nomination
to the high court paid off. The Trump win put an end to Democrats’ dreams of a
liberal court; progressive interest groups were relishing the prospect that the
court would have a majority of Democratic appointees for the first time since
1969.
The three
oldest Supreme Court justices all support Roe v. Wade, the landmark abortion
rights ruling that Trump has predicted would be
overturned by his court picks.
October surprises
Republican
Senate candidates were victorious amid an uncertain electoral landscape that
was complicated by high disapproval ratings for both Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary
Clinton. Surprise developments in the campaign’s closing weeks
weakened both White House aspirants, including a tape of Trump bragging about
groping women and FBI Director James Comey’s shock announcement 11 days before
the election that his agency was looking at more Clinton e-mails.
The list of
Republican incumbents who survived tough Democratic challenges was long, and
started with Marco Rubio of Florida, whose decision to run for the Senate after
an all-hands-on-deck recruitment effort by GOP leaders dramatically boosted
their prospects for keeping hold of the chamber.
John McCain of
Arizona, Richard Burr of North Carolina, Roy Blunt of Missouri, Pat Toomey of
Pennsylvania and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin also won re-election, and
Representative Todd Young defeated the Democrats’ star recruit in Indiana,
former Senator Evan Bayh.
In an otherwise
disastrous evening for Democrats, the party gained a seat in Illinois, as
Representative Tammy Duckworth ousted incumbent Mark Kirk. They also managed to
salvage Harry Reid’s Senate seat in Nevada, with Catherine Cortez Masto
defeating Representative Joe Heck, making her the first Latina to ever win a
Senate seat.
Republicans
took over the Senate two years ago after losing control to Democrats in 2006.
The GOP could add to its majority in 2018, when 25 of the 33 seats up for
election are held by Democrats and two independents who caucus with them.
GOP House
On the House
side, Republicans easily cleared the 218 seats needed to control the chamber,
losing only a handful of races.
Republican
incumbents in Florida were ousted, including former House Transportation and
Infrastructure Chairman John Mica and David Jolly, who was defeated by
party-switching former Governor Charlie Crist. The Democrat who defeated Mica
in Florida, Stephanie Murphy, came to the U.S. as a Vietnamese refugee.
Also falling in
the Republican ranks was Representative Scott Garrett of New Jersey, a
senior member of the Financial Services Committee who chairs the subcommittee
on capital markets and government-sponsored enterprises.
Ryan will
likely win credit from many Republicans for helping them to run campaigns that
kept some strategic distance from Trump, even as many probably benefited from
Trump-fueled turnout. Even so, Ryan -- the party’s 2012 vice presidential
nominee who became speaker a year ago after conservatives pushed Speaker John
Boehner out of office -- could still see his own leadership under question for
his less-than-full-throated support of Trump.
The speaker did
energetically campaign and raise money for his House colleagues, even as
some Republicans publicly complained of the potential harm they saw for GOP
candidates from Ryan’s tepid backing of the presidential nominee. In the final
days of the campaign, he started backing Trump more explicitly.
But it’s
unclear how well Trump and Ryan will get along, or whether they can agree on an
agenda, given their high-profile splits on immigration and trade.
Ryan
congratulated Trump early Wednesday on his "incredible" win.
"It marks
a repudiation of the status quo of failed liberal progressive policies. We are
eager to work hand-in-hand with the new administration to advance an agenda to
improve the lives of the American people," Ryan said in a statement.
"This has been a great night for our party, and now we must turn our focus
to bringing the country together."
Possibility of reconciliation
Even though
Senate Republicans will have a slim governing margin next year, their control
of the chamber and the House could let them make big changes to the tax code
and health-care policy. That’s because of a powerful procedure called budget
reconciliation that can allow the Senate to pass bills containing revenue- or
entitlement-related changes with just 51 votes.
Republicans
used the method to pass President George W. Bush’s tax cuts in 2001 and 2003,
and it helped Senate Democrats push through the Affordable Care Act in
2010. Trump and virtually all Republicans in Congress agree that they want to
repeal Obamacare as soon as possible. This year, they put a partial repeal on
President Barack Obama’s desk.
He vetoed it.
This time,
they’ll have a president who says he will sign it.
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