Democrats have a plausible path to a House majority in 2018, but the midterm map was widely expected to favor Republicans in the Senate. Democrats must defend 10 seats in states where Trump won while, until Alabama shifted the ground, only two Republican seats were seen as vulnerable. Senate majority cutRepublican control of the Senate now rests precariously on the narrowest 51 to 49 seat margin. Yet Republicans downplayed the significance of the result, insisting that it did not signal a Democratic wave in 2018. “This isn’t a rebuke of conservative values or agendas,” Republican senator Cory Gardner, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told reporters.

Source: The Guardian December 13, 2017 18:12 UTC