Democrats Retain Control of US Senate after Win in Nevada
T Schumer welcomes Democratic newcomers
he Democratic Party will retain majority control of the US Senate after winning a pivotal race in Nevada.
, who is the Senate majority leader and a senator for New York, also welcomed the Democratic newcomers who will soon be joining the chamber’s ranks.
“Thank you to our senators who ran great campaigns and welcome to Peter Welch and John Fetterman, who will be our new senators. I know I’m confident in Georgia that Reverend Warnock will be reelected and back in the Senate. He’s done so many good things already.”
Georgia will hold a run-off race on 6 December as neither candidate in the Senate race there reached the necessary 50% of the vote.
Who is Catherine Cortez Masto?
Senator Catherine Cortez Masto has won re-election in Nevada in a victory that guarantees the Senate will be controlled by Democrats in 2023.
Cortez Masto, 58, cuts a reserved figure on the campaign trail and on the job.
Even her backers admit that some voters don’t know her full name and just call her “la senadora” instead.
Her father Manny was a back-slapping Nevada politician who worked his way up from parking valet, to lawyer, to president of the powerful government agency that promotes the state’s all-important tourism industry.
He was friends with the long-serving Nevada Democratic senator
Harry Reid, who hand-picked Cortez Masto, a former prosecutor and two-term state attorney general, as his replacement.
Reid spent years building Democratic strength in the state, and his backing is widely credited with delivering victories like her 2016 win.
She lost 16 of Nevada’s
17 counties but dominated in Clark County, where more than 70% of the state’s population lives, including the service workers who keep the lights running in Las Vegas.
She has been outspoken in support of legalised abortion and gun control. She voted to convict Trump of incitement of insurrection in the wake of the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.
Latinos are historically a Democratic-leaning bloc and were particularly energised to vote against Republicans by Donald Trump’s immigration platform in that election.
This time around, Cortez Masto was neck-and-neck with her challenger Adam Laxalt throughout.
The Republican gained notoriety two years ago for championing defeated President Trump’s false claims of election fraud. One recent poll had him inching ahead with Latinos, who make up one in five eligible voters in Nevada.
But she managed to secure victory, and the Democrats now control 50 Senate seats.