Outgoing Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer praised Vice President Kamala Harris and her platform despite her historic loss to President-elect Donald Trump, who not only won massively in the Electoral College but also a national majority.
Schumer, who quickly backed Harris, a former Senate colleague, following President Joe Biden’s decision to drop his reelection bid in early July, said her platform will have “strong impacts” on the Democratic Party moving forward.
“Schumer is facing a Republican majority of at least 52 seats in the Senate. As of Wednesday night, Democrats were still hoping to hold onto some key undecided races,” Axios reported, adding: “If Republicans pick up more than 52 seats, the majority moves further and further away from Schumer in the 2026 midterms. Democrats have limited pick up options in two years.”
Noting that he won’t be majority leader after the Senate convenes for its new session in January, Schumer called for the kind of bipartisanship with Republicans he seldom showed them over the past four years.
“As I’ve said time and again, in both the majority and the minority, the only way to get things done in the Senate is through bipartisan legislation while maintaining our principles — and the next two years will be no different,” he said in a statement.
As of Wednesday evening, Senate races in Arizona, Nevada, and Pennsylvania have yet to be called.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump won the White House again and after the GOP won back the Senate, now all eyes are on the House.
As the election results unfolded on Tuesday night and into Wednesday, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.)—who was once seen as a temporary leader—said he was sure that House Republicans would keep their majority and choose him to stay as speaker.
“We’ve been working for a year … preparing this playbook that we’ll talk about all the time for the next Congress. So if we’re going to … run those plays and execute them with precision, you got to keep the quarterback on the field and keep the same team,” Johnson said in an exclusive interview from his campaign headquarters.
Johnson told his campaign team in his war room that he didn’t see a way that former President Trump could win the White House and the GOP could lose the House.
“New York and California were always the road to the majority, and there’s still a giant question mark over California. So I just hope that what I saw there on the ground translates to the ballot,” Johnson said.
As of Thursday, Republicans have won 206 seats to Democrats’ 191; it takes 218 for a majority.
Exclusive: Mike Johnson’s bullish on keeping House https://t.co/mTa0hOWeio
— Axios (@axios) November 6, 2024
Trump said “God spared [his] life for a reason” during his victory speech at Trump Headquarters early Wednesday morning.
Trump, who has been the target of two assassination attempts since July, shared his appreciation for a second presidency during his 25-minute speech from West Palm Beach, Florida.
“This is a magnificent victory for the American people that will allow us to make America great again. And in addition to having won the battleground states of North Carolina — I love these places — Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, we are now winning in Michigan, Arizona, Nevada, and Alaska, which would result in us carrying at least 315 electoral votes. But it’s much easier doing what the networks did, or whoever called it, because there was no other path. There was no other path to victory. We also have won the popular vote. That was great. That was great,” Trump said as the crowd cheered and chanted “USA! USA!”
