US Midterms: Advantage Democrats In The Senate?

Most polls suggested that Republicans will gain control of the House, but that the Senate was a coin toss and could go either way. If GOP succeeded in getting control of the Senate, then the executive branch i.e. President Joe Biden would face significant resistance from the Legislative branch i.e. the US Congress, which is made up of the House and the Senate.

Now, it looks like Democrats have increased their chances of controlling the Senate. Democrat John Fetterman is claiming victory in Pennsylvania's pivotal race for US Senate, flipping a Republican-held seat and giving Democrats hope they can retain control of the closely divided chamber.

Mr. Fetterman, who became a progressive hero as mayor of a downtrodden steel town, spent much of the campaign recovering from a stroke while fending off attacks by Dr. Oz that questioned whether he was honest about its effects and fit to serve.

Mr. Fetterman credited on Tuesday evening his "every county, every vote" campaign strategy in which the tattooed and hoodie-wearing candidate sought to bring the Democratic Party back to predominantly white working-class areas that have increasingly rejected the party.

"And that’s exactly what happened," Mr. Fetterman, 53, told a cheering crowd at a concert venue in Pittsburgh.

"We jammed them up. We held the line. I never expected that we would turn these red counties blue, but we did what we needed to do and we had that conversation across every one of those counties."

Along the way, he had vowed to be the Democrats' "51^stvote" to pass foundational legislation to protect rights to abortion, health care, same-sex marriage, unions and voting, as well as to raise the minimum wage.

He has likened his stroke, which he had in May, to getting knocked down and adopted that as a campaign mission.

He ran for "anyone that ever got knocked down that got back up," he told the crowd. "This race is for the future of every community across Pennsylvania, for every small town or person that felt left behind, for every job that has been lost, for every factory that was ever closed and for every person that worked hard but never gets ahead."

Mr. Fetterman spoke smoothly early Wednesday, but two weeks ago turned in a rocky debate performance, struggling to complete sentences, jumbling words throughout the hourlong televised event and fueling concern inside his party that it had damaged his chances.

To underscore the importance of the race, President Joe Biden campaigned in Pennsylvania for Mr. Fetterman three times in the final three weeks, while former President Donald Trump came in to hold a rally for Dr. Oz, his endorsed candidate.

Dr. Oz, 62, carried his own baggage into the election in the presidential battleground state. The smooth-talking and wealthy heart surgeon-turned-TV celebrity just moved from his longtime home in neighboring New Jersey – a mansion overlooking the Hudson River, just across from Manhattan – and barely won a bruising primary in which opponents cast him as an out-of-touch Hollywood liberal.

Polls had shown a close race, with the economy weighing heavily on voters. The GOP will have to flip some other Senate seat now, if they want to control the Senate.

(With inputs from AP)