Originally Posted by pondering_it_all
The interesting thing with a Republican Senate, is that Biden will not be able to pass any progressive legislation. Just return the nation to normalcy, with the policies and executive orders of the Obama administration. This is actually the political balance of power (Democratic President and divided Congress) that has historically had maximum economic booms. We also have several vaccines coming soon, so the pandemic should be broken.

Pretty much the worst situation for progressives who want immediate change. But obviously what the voters wanted, or they would have given Biden the Senate. Best example is Maine, where Collins won but the state went for Biden hard. The upshot is that Biden won't be able to do anything that promotes a backlash: In a way, not very good for Republicans in 2022. If Biden did get a Democratic Senate in 2022, then maybe he could pass some progressive legislation but I doubt it could get through Congress with such slim majorities.
The senate is still up for grabs, although favored to end up in GOP hands. It's 49-48 GOP at the moment with North Carolina still out. NC has 2% of the votes to be counted with Tillis leading Cunningham by approximately 100,000 votes. I don't see Cunningham overcoming Tillis's lead. Trump leads by around 70,000 votes. What this tells me is you had 30,000 folks who voted for R Tillis in the senate, but for Biden for president.

The two Georgia seats will have a runoff on 5 Jan 2021. So there is still hope for the Democrats to have a 50-50 tie in which VP Harris would be the tie breaker. The Democrats counted on picking up Iowa, Maine and North Carolina which seems they failed in all of them.

The Democrats will still control the house, where they will lose 6-10 seats. Highly unusual for a party to lose house seats when their candidate won the presidency popular vote, it'll be Biden by 5 million votes, perhaps more. The last time a party's candidate won the presidency and lost house seats was in the election of 1884.

Georgia is another state where a lot of folks voted for Biden, but for R Purdue in the senate race. Biden is leading Trump by approximately 7,000 votes, Purdue beat Ossoff by 93,000 votes. But failed to attain the 50% plus one vote to avoid a runoff, he ended up with 49.8% to Ossoff's 47.8%.

Definitely a mixed bag results. The Republicans also picked up one Governorship along with two state legislatures. The GOP under Trump in 2016 also lost seats in the house, but Trump also lost the popular vote.

It's high past time that we start electing Americans to congress and the presidency who put America first instead of their political party. For way too long we have been electing Republicans and Democrats who happen to be Americans instead of Americans who happen to be Republicans and Democrats.