Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell get heat from colleagues after the Democrats keep control of the Senate.
Image source, Getty ImagesNews that Democrats have held the US Senate after midterm elections this week has sparked recriminations within the Republican Party.
Critics of former President Donald Trump blamed him for the poor showing while other Republicans faulted Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell.
The White House, meanwhile, made its strongest indication yet that President Joe Biden will run for re-election.
The race for the US House of Representatives remains uncalled.
Republicans are still favoured to win the lower chamber of Congress, but their likely majority is shrinking as votes continue to be counted.
Over the weekend, US networks projected that Democrats had held two Senate seats in Arizona and Nevada, retaining control of the upper chamber.
“This is the third election in a row that Trump has cost us the result,” Maryland’s Republican Governor Larry Hogan, a long-time critic of the ex-president, told CNN on Sunday.
“He said we would be tired of winning. Well I’m tired of losing.”
History suggests the party controlling the White House usually loses seats in a midterm, and Democrats’ performance this year is the best for a sitting party in at least 20 years.
“The pundits in Washington said we couldn’t win because history, history, history,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told ABC’s This Week programme.
But Democrats “never accepted the punditry” and focused on “the contrast between themselves and their opponents”, the senior California Democrat said.
