WASHINGTON: The US Congress is now Republican as the Grand Old Party captured both chambers of the US legislature on Tuesday, helped primarily by President Barack Obama’s growing unpopularity.

Republicans already had a majority in the 435-seat House of Representatives. On Tuesday, they captured 12 more seats, increasing their total to 243. Democrats now have 175 seats, 12 less than in the present House.

Democrats, who hoped to do better in the gubernatorial race, were also humiliated in most of the states. They now have only 15 governors while Republicans have 31.

Elections were held for the governorships of 36 of the 50 US states and three US territories.

But the defeat will hurt President Obama the most as the Democrats losing the Senate where they had 55 of the 100 seats. Now they have 45 while the Republicans have 52 and can win two more while the third may go to Democrats.

Losing the Senate means that President Obama will spend the last two years of his presidency dealing with a hostile Congress that intends to challenge him on major legislation and seeks to reopen some settled issues as well. “We should do everything humanly possible to repeal ObamaCare,” the president’s signature health care reforms, said a senior Republican leader, Senator Ted Cruz. The Republican Party went to the elections with a pledge to undo ObamaCare, implemented four years ago.

Senator Cruz also announced a laundry list of Republican goals for the next Congress: tax and regulatory reform, an end to ‘amnesty’ for illegal immigrants and protection for religious liberty and gun rights.

“The era of Obama lawlessness is over,” said the senator hours after elections results were announced. “The American people have risen up,” he said while urging Republican lawmakers to “turn this country around”.

The House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (a California Republican) declared the first item on his agenda next year is to produce a budget. Even without a majority in the Senate, Republicans forced the Obama administration to its knees last year by tightening their control over government. And on Wednesday, National Re­p­ublican Congressional Committee chairman Greg Walden reminded President Obama that his effort to regain Congress had failed and he should now be ready to deal with “the strongest House majority in decades”. Democrats too joined the blame game, calling Mr Obama a bad messenger. “The president’s approval rating is barely 40 per cent.

What else more is there to say?” said David Krone, chief of staff of the outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. “It doesn’t mean that the message was bad, but sometimes the messenger isn’t good.”

Observers noted that three of the four Senate contests Democrats lost took place in presidential battleground states of Colorado, Iowa and North Carolina.

Democrats also lost the governorship of Maryland, one of their strongest bases in the country, to a Republican.

Republicans also won in states like Florida, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan and Wisconsin, where they had an equal chance of winning.

Republicans claimed this was also a bad news former former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a possible 2016 presidential candidate of the Democratic Party.

Senator Rand Paul, a possible Republican candidate for the 2016 election, said Senate results were also a repudiation of Hillary Clinton.

As President Obama stayed away from the Senate campaign trail because of his unpopularity, both Hillary and former President Bill Clinton campaigned for Democratic candidates.

“Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton have been all over the place. They’re trying to make out as if they’re somehow better for Democrats, but … they were soundly rejected,” Senator Paul said. President Obama, however, extended an olive branch to the new lawmakers, urging them to work with him for the next two years.

Published in Dawn, November 6th , 2014