November 3
A disenchanted American electorate in a snub to President Barack Obama handed a bruising defeat to his Democratic Party and put the Republican Party back in control of the US House of Representatives in mid-term elections on Tuesday.

Republicans needed 39 seats to win the House. With results still coming in early on Wednesday, they had picked up at least 57 seats. However, Republicans failed to pick up enough seats to take control of the Senate.

Obama called John Boehner, the presumptive speaker of the House, on Tuesday night and said he was “looking forward to working with him and the Republicans to find common ground, move the country forward and get things done for the American people,” the White House said in a statement.Speaking after his own re-election, Boehner said the voters had a clear message for Obama: “Change course.”

“Across the country right now we are witnessing a repudiation of Washington, a repudiation of big government and a repudiation of politicians who refuse to listen to the American people,” Boehner said.

The loss of Democratic control of the House will be an obstacle to Obama’s ability to push through his agenda over the next two years. However, it is by no means an indicator of the President's own fate. In 1994, the Republicans took control of Congress under Bill Clinton’s presidency. Clinton, a Democrat, went on to serve for a second term. Besides Clinton, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower both lost control of at least one house of Congress in the midterms. No President in the past century has lost his bid for a second term in office after losing the majority in the midterm elections.

The Republican victory toppled Nancy Pelosi from her perch as speaker of the House. Pelosi issued a statement saying, "We must all strive to find common ground to support the middle class, create jobs, reduce the deficit and move our nation forward."

However, Republicans are in no mood to work with the Democrats and the party’s leaders have vowed to do everything possible to ensure that Obama is only a one-term President.

"Republicans will continue to stand up for the American people and for the priorities they voted for today, and we are hopeful that the administration and Democrat leaders will change course," Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell said in a written statement.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, won his election in Nevada defeating tea party favourite Sharon Angle whose campaign sought to stir up anti-immigrant sentiment through ads that portrayed Hispanics in a negative light.

Tea Party favourites propelled Republican gains in Congress, but not all agree with the Republican Party. Rand Paul, who won in Kentucky, told CNN he planned to challenge McConnell “from day to day.”

Another tea party-backed candidate, Christine O'Donnell, who was catapulted from anonymity to fodder for late-night comedians with her outlandish comments, including a claim that she used to “dabble in witchcraft,” was trounced by Democrat Chris Coons in Delaware.

Ed Royce, California Republican member of the House of Representatives, provided a peek at the implications of Republican control on future foreign policy in a blog post. Royce, who is the top Republican on the terrorism, nonproliferation and trade subcommittee, said on Afghanistan and Pakistan “just as the new Congress is seated, key dates on Afghanistan will hit. Pakistan is ‘Jekyll and Hyde.’ Before, the administration could largely duck the tough questions. Not now.”

On China, Royce said the next Congress will know that a “responsible China” is wishful thinking. He listed China’s “outright stealing of US intellectual property, espionage, propping-up N Korea, assisting Iran, assertiveness in Asia, trade policy, etc.”

Nikki Haley, the daughter of Sikh immigrants from Amritsar, made history on Tuesday night by becoming only the second Indian-American Governor in the US history.From a state legislature to Governor of South Carolina in just a short span of six years in politics, she is being hailed as a new rising star on the American political horizon.

Bobby Jindal, also a Republican, became the first Indian-American Governor of a US state when he was elected to lead Louisiana in 2007.

Haley, a 38-year-old Republican, comfortably defeated her Democratic Party opponent, Vincent Sheheen. With most of the ballots counted, Haley had won 52 per cent of the vote.

Haley picked up an important endorsement from the Post and Courier newspaper in Charleston, South Carolina, earlier this week.

In an editorial, the paper acknowledged that the gubernatorial campaign had been a “dirty” one and reasoned that “much of the mud-slinging reflects a failure of the opposition to engage Haley’s campaign on the merits of her ideas.”

Haley was the target of racial slurs from a Republican opponent in the primaries who called her a “raghead” and accusations of infidelity from a blogger and a lobbyist.

“Only an optimist would have undertaken Haley’s run for the governor’s seat, yet she was able to soundly defeat three well-known, well-financed opponents in the primary. Haley has been overcoming odds all her life, as the daughter of Indian immigrants in small-town South Carolina, and as a virtually unknown challenger for the House seat held by the then-longest-serving member of the legislature,” the paper noted.

Haley, whose parents Ajit and Raj Randhawa moved to the US from Amritsar in the 70s, grew up in Bamberg, South Carolina, and belonged to the only Indian-American family in the small town with a population of a little more than 3,000.

Critics in the Indian-American community picked on Haley’s perceived discomfiture with her Indian roots. When she ran for the state legislature in 2004, one of Haley’s campaign brochures said she was “proudly raised with her Indian traditions.”