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After a disastrous night for Democrats, the Republican Party will take full control of Congress for the first time since Barack Obama was elected president. The GOP picked up seven Senate seats Tuesday and expanded its majority in the House to its largest margin since Harry Truman was in the White House.
“An election that started as trench warfare, state by state and district by district, crested into a sweeping Republican victory,” The New York Times wrote. “Contests that were expected to be close were not, and races expected to go Democratic broke narrowly for the Republicans.”
Republicans won in Arkansas, Montana, South Dakota, pulled off an upset in North Carolina, came from behind in Colorado and Iowa, and posted their first victory in West Virginia since 1956. (Democrats almost lost in Virginia, too.)
It could get even worse for Democrats: Sen. Mark Begich awaits his fate in Alaska as ballots are tallied; Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana will face a runoff against a Republican on Dec. 6.
Midterm elections under Obama have been horrific for Democrats. Losses in 2014 and 2010 rival those of Richard Nixon in 1974 and Bill Clinton in 1994 as the most destructive to a president’s party since the end of World War II.
Obama will speak to all of this at a 2:50 p.m. press conference in the East Room of the White House.