Republicans served the next president a Congress near certain locked in GOP control with Democratic losses in Florida, Pennsylvania and Indiana

The Democratic party failed to retake the US Senate on Tuesday night, following losses in Florida, Pennsylvania and Indiana, as Republicans delivered Donald Trump a Congress firmly in conservative control.

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On a night of dashed hopes in the presidential election, Democratic morale was buoyed slightly by a Senate victory in Illinois, where congresswoman Tammy Duckworth beat the Republican incumbent, Mark Kirk. Kirk ran a poor race against Duckworth, a veteran who lost both legs when her helicopter went down in Iraq, and was forced to apologize last week for mocking her family’s Thai background.



But other key Senate contests were far closer, with Republican Senate contenders outperforming expectations on the coattails of Trump’s surprisingly strong showing around the country.

Even before election night, the Democrats had given up on hopes of recapturing the House of Representatives, after Hillary Clinton’s strong lead in October eroded in the final two weeks of the campaign. Only a few hours into counting polls on Tuesday night, the chamber was secured for the conservative party.

Trump stands poised to make radical changes, especially in his first years in office. Republicans held the House and Senate, and will almost certainly be able to select a conservative judge for the supreme court, defying Barack Obama’s months-long nomination of centrist Merrick Garland for the court’s ninth seat, vacant since Antonin Scalia’s death in February.

In the outgoing Congress, Democrats have 44 seats in the Senate and are usually supported by two independents, while the Republicans hold 54 seats. Clinton would have needed four seats and a presidential victory to regain control of the chamber, with the vice-president casting a deciding vote in a deadlocked Senate. Clinton lost the presidency and Democrats lost those seats, as Democrats suffered staggering defeats across two branches of government.

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Thirty-four seats were up for grabs, including 24 Republican-held seats that featured several closely contested races. In Florida, incumbent Republican Marco Rubio won re-election, as expected, over Democratic rival Patrick Murphy. The victory kept Rubio’s hopes alive of a possible presidential run in 2020, despite his failure in the 2016 race against Trump, whom he supported despite calling a “con man” during his run for re-election.

Wisconsin also fell away from Democrats, as Senate candidate Russ Feingold failed to unseat Republican Ron Johnson. Around 11pm ET, the Associated Press called the race for Johnson, 52% to 45%, after rural regions came out to vote strongly for Trump and other Republicans.

In Arizona, 80-year-old Republican senator John McCain shrugged off a Democratic challenge from congresswoman Anne Kirkpatrick, who only a few weeks earlier had seemed to be strong contender. Late in the election McCain rescinded his endorsement of Trump, following the release of a video in which the businessman bragged about groping women, setting the party’s 2008 Republican nominee to be a stubborn opponent against Trump within Senate ranks.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Democratic morale was buoyed slightly by a Senate victory in Illinois, where congresswoman Tammy Duckworth beat the Republican incumbent. Photograph: Charles Rex Arbogast/AP

Duckworth’s win was a rare moment of celebration on an otherwise nerve-jangling evening. It was a personal triumph for a woman almost killed in the Iraq war. “Just as I try every day to live up to the sacrifice my buddies made to carry me off that battlefield,” she told supporters after her win, “I will go to work in the Senate looking to honour the sacrifice and quiet dignity of all those Illinoisans who are facing challenges of their own.

“After all, this nation didn’t give up on me when I was at my most vulnerable, needing the most help. I believe in an America that doesn’t give up on anyone who hasn’t given up on themselves.”



But Democrats suffered one defeat after another in states they had hoped to recapture. Former Indiana senator Evan Bayh failed to make a comeback against the Republican incumbent, Todd Young, after a race defined by Bayh’s lobbying work in Washington while he was out of office.

And in North Carolina, Senator Richard Burr fought off Democratic challenger Deborah Ross, a former state director of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Of the remaining tossup states, the Democrats were playing defense in only one, Nevada, on Wednesday night. Just after midnight, the AP called the race in Democrats’ favor as Catherine Cortez Masto won re-election.

But to win the Senate, they needed to defend Nevada and win three remaining Republican seats, in Pennsylvania, Missouri and New Hampshire, and have Clinton win the White House.

In Pennsylvania, Pat Toomey survived a strong challenge from Democrat Kate McGinty in what became the most expensive Senate race in American history. Toomey left it to after 7pm to reveal who he would support in the presidential race. He only admitted to voting for Trump an hour before the polls closed, saying it was “a tough call”. He won the race shortly after 1am local time, with a tentative victory of 49% to 47%.

In another close race, New Hampshire’s Democratic governor, Maggie Hassan, is taking on Republican senator Kelly Ayotte, who has tried to play down her ties to Donald Trump.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Marco Rubio won re-election to his Florida Senate seat. Photograph: Wilfredo Lee/AP

The election still left question marks over the future of the Republican party, largely over whether it continues along his path of appealing to working-class whites or tries to widen its appeal to include other demographic groups. House leader Paul Ryan, currently the highest elected Republican in Washington, now faces a possible revolt from the right wing of his party. Trump spent much of the election sniping at Republican leadership – especially Ryan – for not supporting him vocally enough, and even in success he appears likely to swing the party in whatever direction he sees fit.

Republicans also now have the power to alter the composure of the supreme court, where they have blocked Obama’s nomination for months. With a Senate majority and a Republican president, the party can now confirm a conservative of its choosing, shifting the court to a conservative tilt potentially for decades.

A slim majority will not be enough to overcome a Democratic filibuster; that would take 60 votes. However, the a Republican majority could seek to change the rules, ruling out filibusters for supreme court nominations. That would be a hard battle, but Republican success – which Democrats had so recently threatened – would further strip the Senate of evpaorating spirit of cooperation.