In parallel with the presidential election, the entire House of Representatives and a third of the Senate are renewed in the United States.
Polls with less media coverage than the presidential election but just as decisive. At the same time as they were electing the next tenant of the White House, American voters were called to the polls to renew the House of Representatives, Tuesday, November 5, in the United States. Many of them also voted for their senator, alongside other local ballots and referendums. The fate of the House of Representatives is not yet sealed, but the Senate is already dominated by the Republicans, with at least 51 Republican elected officials.
The Senate dominated by Republicans
With the Senate elections on Tuesday, Democrats are losing their fragile majority in the upper house of the US Congress. Until now, they barely dominated the Republican bloc, with 47 elected officials and four independents compared to 49 for the conservatives. A third of the seats were at stake on Tuesday, or 34 out of the 100 in the hemicycle. The institution is renewed by thirds every two years, during mid-term elections or presidential elections. Senators are therefore elected for six years.
The switch was made possible thanks to two electoral successes for the Republicans, in West Virginia and Ohio. In the first state, Governor Jim Justice, supported by Donald Trump, came first against Democrat Glenn Elliott. In the second, Republican Bernie Moreno won on the wire against Democrat Sherrod Brown, in office since 2007.
Within the upper house of Congress, each state is represented by two elected officials. The institution, according to its majority, can significantly limit the power of the tenant of the White House. It has the power to approve presidential appointments, as does the ratification of treaties. It can also judge federal officials implicated by the House of Representatives, underlines the Capitol.
The House of Representatives still pending
Until then, the Republicans had a narrow majority in the House of Representatives: their camp had 220 elected officials against 212 for the Democrats, with three vacant seats. This red majority emerged after the mid-term elections in November 2022.
The entire lower house of the American Congress is renewed every two years, on the occasion of midterms or the presidential election. On Tuesday, its 435 seats were therefore at stake. The outcome of these parliamentary elections is however being decided in 43 decisive constituencies, including around twenty very uncertain, specifies the New York Times.
Elected officials represent the 50 American states proportionally. As an institution of legislative power, the House of Representatives has significant power over the executive: it develops and adopts laws in the United States. She can also initiate budget bills, launch impeachment proceedings (impeachment) of federal officials, or even decide the outcome of the presidential election – if the vote of the electors does not lead to a clear result.
A Congress shared in recent years
The legislative elections on Tuesday reshuffled the cards within Congress. Before the midterm elections in 2022, the House of Representatives remained with a Democratic majority for four years, after eight years of Republican domination. The Senate has been blue since the election of Joe Biden in 2020, after six years of a conservative majority.
