Democrats’ Victory in Nevada Is a Bad Sign for Trump

With Saturday’s victory, the Democratic Party has secured the deciding vote in the U.S. Senate.

On Saturday, after counting mail-in ballots, it turned out that Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto defeated her Republican rival, Adam Laxalt, in this year’s Senate race in Nevada. As a result, the Democratic Party already has 50 of the 100 seats in the upper house, which — including Vice President Kamala Harris, who has the deciding vote in the event of a tie — allows them to maintain a majority in the House of Representatives. Until Dec. 6, the race for the Senate in Georgia will remain unresolved. There, the battle is between the incumbent Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and his Republican rival, Herschel Walker, who is supported by Donald Trump. Warnock’s victory may tip the scales in favor of the Democrats, but his defeat will not change anything.

Republicans’ hopes of taking control of both houses of Congress have not been fulfilled. It will make it harder for them to block aid for Ukraine. This is good news for our security.

In the elections for the House of Representatives, where the votes are still being counted, Republicans are estimated to gain the majority with a historically small number of seats*.

Miscalculation

Republicans ran their election campaigns convinced that they would triumph on a grand scale.

Many factors worked to their advantage: low ratings for the Democratic president, high inflation, which they blamed on the Democrats, and the fact that, as a rule, the president’s party always loses seats in Congress in the midterm elections during his first term. They miscalculated. As a result, Joe Biden and the Democratic Party came out victorious in the midterm elections.

The Democrats’ advantage is a political treasure for President Biden in the second half of his term, in which he may decide to run for another four years in the White House. Even if the Republicans gain a majority in the House and have a considerable influence on decisions made in Washington, with the Democratic seats in the Senate, the president will be able to nominate his judicial candidates, and it will be easier for him to pursue his legislative agenda. He will also have more control over filling government positions. Democrats will have more of a say in the Senate when Congress approves government funding bills and raises the federal debt ceiling. “I feel good, and I’m looking forward to the next couple of years,” said Biden, who was visiting Cambodia last weekend.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called the victory “vindication” for Democrats and their agenda. “The American people rejected — soundly rejected — the anti-democratic, authoritarian, nasty, and divisive direction [of the] MAGA Republicans,” he said. He added that Democrats in the Senate will provide “a bulwark against the threat posed by the politics of the MAGA movement, including Republican announcements of a nationwide ban on abortion and cuts to medical and welfare programs.”**

MAGA, the faction of the Republican Party that follows Trump’s ideology, is considered one of the biggest losers of this year’s election. Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming, one of Trump’s most prominent Republican critics, who lost her bid for this year’s House race in the primary election, called the far-right candidates’ defeat “a clear victory for Team Normal. … “But I think that you saw in really important races around the country people coming together to say we believe in democracy. We believe in standing up for the Constitution, and for the Republic,” Cheney said in a speech Thursday at the Anti-Defamation League.

The defeat of Republican candidates in this year’s midterm elections reflects criticism of Trump. Although he has not held any office for two years, Trump has played an active role in the Republican Party. His opinion mattered, and his support was crucial in the party’s nominations in the primaries. The former president supported about 300 candidates running for various positions who parroted his rhetoric and promoted theories about a rigged election. Their Democratic rivals ran ads in the primaries supporting these candidacies, only to make it easier to defeat them in the November elections. In this way, Democratic candidates for the Senate scored victories in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Arizona and Nevada.

Liability

Now, after a wave of defeats, Republicans are beginning to question Trump’s influence on their party. It turns out those he didn’t support did better than his protégés. This suggests that voters want something else. “And a true leader knows when they have become a liability to the mission,” said Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, a Republican who supported Trump and now suggests the former president should step aside.

The growing criticism of Trump is, of course, a bad sign for his presidential ambitions because it undermines his chances of getting the Republican nomination — if voters decide to turn away from his ideology. Although — as some commentators suggest — in the case of the former president, anything is possible, and he is able to survive even the worst scandals, turning them to his favor. “We’ve heard this song before. The question is: Will this time be different?” Doug Heye, a former spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said in an interview with The Washington Post.

*Editor’s Note: As of Wednesday, Nov. 18, the Republicans had taken the majority in the House, with 218 confirmed seats.

**Editor’s Note: Although this quote has been accurately translated, it could not be independently verified.