Democrats Flip Seven Senate Seats to Reach 54, Slate Reports

Democrats have flipped seven seats so far to total 54 in the U.S. Senate, while maintaining a House majority of 255 seats, according to Slate Magazine. Several tight races remain uncalled as provisional and rural ballots continue to trickle in across the country.

Why are some races still uncalled?

Forget Election Day; in America, it’s more like Election Week. Just as the 2020 presidential election famously took nearly four days to call, slow vote counting across rural districts has left control of a few specific seats hanging in the balance, Slate Magazine reported.

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In Alaska, Democratic former Rep. Mary Peltola leads Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan by about 2,500 votes with nearly a quarter of expected ballots still outstanding, according to the Associated Press. Alaska takes so long to count in part because of how rural it is, but those remaining ballots appear to be coming from Democrat-friendly areas.

As provisional ballots are tallied across Mississippi, Democratic District Attorney Scott Colom has gradually built a nearly identical advantage over Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, mirroring developments elsewhere. If both Colom and Peltola win as expected, Democrats will claim 56 seats this year, marking the biggest majority either party has held since Barack Obama was president.

Democrats Flip Seven Senate Seats — Erie News Now

What is happening with the House and Lauren Boebert?

The House Democrats’ majority in the lower chamber stands at 255 seats. Slate Magazine notes that the political group is on course to secure its largest majority since 1993, driven by a net gain of seats unmatched by Democrats in any single year following Richard Nixon’s departure from office.

Democratic candidates lead in four races the AP has yet to call. In Colorado, things are not looking good for Lauren Boebert. CNN has awarded the race to Eileen Laubacher, Boebert’s Democratic opponent, although the Associated Press continues to list the contest as uncalled.

Democrats Flip Seven Senate Seats to Reach 54, Slate Reports

Another endangered Republican is North Carolina Rep. Virginia Foxx, who chairs the House Rules Committee. Best known for a different controversy, Foxx previously sent a correspondence to a local 10-year-old student claiming his educator was subjecting him to political indoctrination after the child expressed support for electric vehicle tax credits for a school assignment.

Why did voters reject tax increases during a blue wave?

Voters also weighed in on a host of ballot initiatives around the country last week. According to Slate Magazine’s analysis of the most recent outcomes, an unexpected trend emerged: despite sweeping victories for Democrats, the electorate pushed back against fiscal measures involving higher taxes that are typically required to fund progressive policy agendas.

Midterm results: Democrats take both chambers, flip at least 7 Senate seats — FOX 5 New York

Californians voted down Proposition 40, which would have greenlit a 5 percent wealth tax on billionaires. North Carolinians made it harder to raise property taxes and capped the state’s income tax. Residents of Iowa simultaneously created tougher hurdles for increasing personal income taxes, even as they favored a Democratic gubernatorial and senatorial ticket for the first time in many years.

Realizing many core Democratic objectives—such as broadening healthcare access and establishing universal pre-K and childcare initiatives—would necessitate either steeper levies or substantial expansions of the national deficit, voters feeling squeezed by inflation expressed hesitation toward such fiscal strategies.