Illinois Senator Barack Obama won the presidency in last Tuesday’s election. The Democratic Party captured the majority in both the House and Senate.
Final tallies gave Senator Obama 364 electoral votes and his opponent, Senator McCain, 163 votes.
While Missouri is still “too close to call” McCain is expected to win the state’s 11 electoral votes, as he has been leading the polls for the better part of the last few months. This would give him a final tally of 174 electoral votes.
“All signs going into the fall campaigns pointed to a Democratic win,” said Dr. Hal Bass, dean of the school of social sciences.
The Democrats also picked up 20 seats in the House and six seats in the Senate.
The House now consists of 255 Democrat seats and 174 Republican seats. The Senate has 57 Democratic Seats and 40 Republican Seats.
Andrew Ford, treasurer of Young Democrats, said that with a shift to an all-Democratic government, “Change will come to Washington.”
“The Democrats are going to have to be responsible with their new power,” Ford said, “and be bi-partisan, and work with Republicans. Because that is how we are going to get things done.”
“Having control of both the executive and legislative branches of government will make it easier for president-elect Obama to pass his proposed budget and other policies,” said Philip Williamson, chairman of College Republicans.
“With a 55-seat majority, he [Obama] has a lot more maneuverability to work with,” Williamson said.
President-elect Obama is also expected to make two to three Supreme Court appointments during his term in office.
Based on what Obama has said, America can expect to see justices more along the lines of Stevens and Ginsberg.
Williamson described this as “the living document wing of the court.”
Bass said that there will be little to no change in the balance of the court, unless Justice Kennedy — considered the swingvote — steps down.
“[However,] nominees don’t always turn out as anticipated; many a president has been unpleasantly surprised by how his picks turned out,” Bass said.
People all over the world celebrated the results of the United States election.
“People [in other countries] are just excited about it,” Ford said.
Williamson said that Obama’s “relationship with Europe will be pretty strong.”
However, while initially the world is excited about an Obama win, Bass said that in the end “Nation-states have disproportionate national interests [that will determine how they act with other nation-states].”
