Democrat Gallego wins the Arizona Senate race, explaining the Republican majority | 2024 US Election News

The last pending Senate race in the 2024 election has been called, meaning Republicans will hold a three-seat majority.

Democrat Reuben Gallego will return to Washington, albeit in a new capacity, after his Senate race against Republican Kari Lake was called.

The Associated Press determined that Gallego, who once held a seat in the House of Representatives, was the winner after a review of the vote count on Monday closed any remaining options for victory in Lake.

With the closing of the Arizona Senate race, the last prominent one, the majority of Republicans in the body is finally defined in 53 seats, while the remaining 47 are divided between 43 Democrats and four independents.

It’s the first time in four years that Republicans have taken control of the Senate, potentially sweeping the 2024 election. Former Republican president Donald Trump is the new president-elect after defeating Vice President Kamala Harris. Republicans are also expected to continue to control the House of Representatives.

Democrats gained control of the upper house of the US legislature after the 2021 special election in Georgia with a slim majority of 51 seats including four independent senators. They would have to secure every possible seat to keep it that way.

Gallego is a five-term House member and Iraq War veteran who will replace Kyrsten Sinema, a former Democrat who left the party and decided not to run as an independent.

Lake, a former news anchor and staunch ally of Trump who still refuses to admit that he lost the 2022 gubernatorial race, lost in a state that Trump won this year, and emphasized the practice of split-ticket voting in the 2024 election, there. Democrats did better in the down-ballot than they did in the presidential race.

Control of the Senate, where the Republicans changed four seats from blue to red, will give them a strong influence on presidential appointments, from ambassadorships and cabinet positions, to Supreme Court justices.

Republicans can now focus on more than a dozen House races that have yet to be decided.

If they succeed in taking the House, it will give them firm control over the US legislative agenda until at least 2026, when the next midterm congressional elections are scheduled.