4 keys to how Congress looks after Election Day

QAnon and “Black Lives Matter” enter the United States Congress for the first time

WASHINGTON – The United States elections have served to weaken the position of Democrats in the House of Representatives , where they reduce their lead, and have left open until January the question of who will dominate the Senate , currently in the hands of the Republicans, while it continues the counting of the ballots.

In the absence of the scrutiny, the provisional results offer these four clues about the future of Congress :

Unknown in the Senate until January

The balance of power in the Senate will not be decided until January 5, when the second round will be held for the two seats that correspond to the state of Georgia , since none of the candidates reached 50% of the votes, according to projections of the big media.

Georgia, traditionally conservative, has taken an unexpected role in these elections because it will probably decide which party will dominate the Senate and, in addition, it has given a boost to the Democratic presidential candidate, Joe Biden , who leads the count in that state awaiting final results .

Currently, the scrutiny shows a technical tie with 48 of the 100 Senate seats for Democrats and another 48 for Republicans , although the latter are expected to score a victory in North Carolina and another in Alaska , which would allow them to get with 50 seats.

So it all depends on those two January elections in Georgia, which is still a conservative state and where Republicans hope to win.

However, if Democrats win both Georgia seats, they would be tied at 50 with Republicans.

And if Biden wins the election, Kamala Harris would become vice president and have the power to vote with the Democrats to break the tie with the Republicans, since the vice president of the country presides over the Upper House.

Democratic force weakened

Polls predicted that Democrats would expand their majority in the House of Representatives, and even ventured that they could wrest the Senate from Republicans.

The results are worse than expected and, in fact, the projections of the main media show that Republicans have managed to snatch eight seats from progressives, while Democrats have only removed three from their opponents.

At the moment, the tally gives 213 seats to Democrats and 194 to Republicans, while 28 are still up for grabs.

The House of Representatives is made up of 435 legislators and 218 are needed to be the party with the majority and the most power, a position that progressives seem to retain.

Moderate vs. Progressives

The more moderate Democrats blame the sector of the party further to the left for the loss of seats, because they claim that the conservatives have managed to label them “socialists”, even if that claim is false.

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi , has tried to calm the spirits; And, in statements to the press, today attributed the loss of seats to the popularity of US President Donald Trump , who has received five million more votes than in 2016, despite the fact that Democrat Joe Biden leads him to achieve the Presidency.

“We did not win every battle in the House of Representatives, but we did win the war,” said Pelosi, who referred to Biden as “president-elect.”

The results have also caused some members of the Democratic Party to question the leadership of Pelosi, who has presided over the House of Representatives since 2019, when the Democrats regained the majority, and has done so before, between 2007 and 2011.

QAnon and “Black Lives Matter”

In addition, the House of Representatives will have the presence of Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, the first congresswoman to openly adhere to the QAnon movement, which promotes conspiracy theories and has been labeled by the FBI as a potential threat of domestic terrorism.

Faced with this , the Democrat Cori Bush became the first activist of the movement “Black Lives Matter” (“Black lives matter”) to reach the federal Congress, after a year marked by protests led by that group against racism and police brutality.