The Senate’s minority leader, Chuck Schumer, welcomed 11 newly elected Democrats to the Senate at the United States Capitol, following midterm elections in which his party seized control of both chambers of Congress. This, according to the website www.newsfromthestates.com.
“Last week, the American people sent a tough message to Donald Trump and the Republican Party,” said Schumer, a Democrat from New York, on the Senate floor. “Americans shattered the ‘red wall,’ and rightfully so. They want a government that recognizes their needs and responds to them; Democrats are prepared to deliver.”
Schumer had a brief press encounter and was joined by the elected senators Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Chris Pappas (New Hampshire), Roy Cooper (North Carolina), James Talarico (Texas), Juliana Stratton (Illinois), Abdul El-Sayed (Michigan), Peggy Flanagan (Minnesota), Annie Andrews (South Carolina), Josh Turek (Iowa), Adam Hamilton (Kansas) and Troy Jackson (Maine).
Although Schumer is currently the Democrats’ leader in the Senate, he will have to undergo a new vote next month to maintain his leadership post. Several members of the new cohort of senators have also broken barriers.
Pappas will be the first openly gay senator-elect; El-Sayed is the first Muslim senator; and Minnesota voters elected Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan as the first Native American woman to serve in the Senate. She could be joined by Alaska’s Democratic candidate, Mary Peltola, a Native Alaskan.
For the start of the 120th Congress in January, the Democrats will hold 54 seats, a figure that could rise to 56 if Peltola and the Mississippi Democratic candidate, Scott Colom, win their respective races, where vote counting is still underway. Colom could become the state’s first Black senator since Reconstruction, provided he defeats the current Republican senator, Cindy Hyde-Smith.
