WASHINGTON — Republican Sen. Susan Collins won reelection in Maine, further bolstering Republicans' hopes of narrowly holding onto their Senate majority and standing as a formidable wall against a potential Joe Biden administration.
In Maine, Democrat Sara Gideon conceded the race at midday Wednesday as Collins pulled off a stunning comeback in a race in which she had been hobbled by the unpopularity of her support for President Donald Trump, and outspent by unprecedented Democratic donations to defeat her.
The Senate map stood at 48 Republicans and 47 Democrats, with five races yet to be called but most of them leaning toward Republicans. GOP senators were ahead in North Carolina and Alaska, while the race for a Michigan seat held by Democrats was tied.
One of two Senate races in Georgia was already heading to a runoff on Jan. 5. In the other, Republican Sen. David Perdue is hoping to hang onto his slight advantage. If both go to runoffs, each party is likely to spend unprecedented amounts to prevail.
In addition to Maine, Republican incumbent Sens. Joni Ernst of Iowa, Steve Daines of Montana and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina were able to withstand remarkably well-funded Democratic challenges. Democrats managed to pick up two seats, in Colorado and Arizona, and lost one in Alabama. The best they can hope for at this point is to keep the Michigan seat and push both of the Georgia races into runoffs to decide control of the chamber, unless the counts in North Carolina or Alaska turn in Democrats' favor.
"I don't know whether I'm going to be the defensive coordinator or the offensive coordinator, as we speak," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who survived his own reelection race, told reporters in Kentucky before Maine's contest was called.
Democrats were downright mournful, cognizant of the power Republicans will hold if they are able to keep control of the Senate. Although Democrats are expected to retain power in the House, hopes of padding their majority there were dashed as several of their party's most conservative members lost their seats.
"I was hoping that we would sweep to victory with a number of Senate wins," Democratic Sen.-elect John Hickenlooper, who unseated Republican Sen. Cory Gardner in Colorado, said on MSNBC. "We're still cautiously optimistic, but it's not the level of excitement I was hoping to wake up to."
If elected, Biden would be the first Democratic president since Grover Cleveland in 1885 to begin his presidency without Democratic control of both the House and Senate. In that case, a Senate Republican majority — even one held perilously together by a vote or two — would make McConnell the senior-most Republican in Washington and give him extraordinary power to determine the success of the Biden administration.
Democrats' ambitious hopes for a climate plan, health care bill, a new COVID-19 economic relief measure and more would need approval from Senate Republicans. Approval of Cabinet appointees, federal judges and Supreme Court justices would rest on getting McConnell to agree to bring them up for a vote, and persuading some Republicans to vote to confirm them.
In all likelihood, a Democratic White House would have to scale back any proposals to get buy-in from Republicans. Progressives once under consideration to be Cabinet appointees could well be passed over for more moderate nominees.
Whether the next two years of such divided government would be gridlock would likely rest on the relationship between Biden and McConnell, two longtime Senate colleagues who together brokered compromises between Congress and the White House during the Obama administration. Dealing with a Republican-controlled Senate would daily test Biden's campaign boasts about his ability to work across the aisle and cut deals.
McConnell would have significant leverage. With a midterm election just two years away, however, Republicans might well see little reason to compromise. A Republican majority also would keep its power to investigate and to subpoena documents and officials.
