Midterm Elections and Immigration Reform 2014: Republicans Win Control of U.S. Senate, Democrats Suffer Huge Losses

For the first time since 2006, the U.S. Senate is in Republican hands.

The GOP, riding a wave of dissatisfaction against President Obama and the Democratic party, took the six seats necessary to retake the Senate Tuesday night as midterm election results poured in throughout the night. Major networks began calling the election at 11 p.m. EDT.

This news spells disaster for President Obama as he enters his final two years in office attempting to pass his policies with both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate controlled by a Republican majority.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is now poised to take the helm at the Senate as majority leader after easily taking the senate election in Kentucky Tuesday over Democrat opponent Alison Lundergan Grimes, Kentucky's Secretary of State.

"Tomorrow papers will say I won this race. But the truth is, tonight we begin another one, one that is far more important than mine. And that is the race to turn this country around," McConnell told supporters at his Tuesday victory speech.

Perhaps hinting at a sign of things to come regarding the strained relationship between President Obama and Congressional Republicans, McConnell said, "I don't expect the president to wake up tomorrow and view the world any differently than he did this morning. He knows I won't either."

As of 12 a.m. EST Wednesday, Republicans were projected to have taken new Senate seats in Arkansas, Colorado, Montana, West Virginia, Iowa, North Carolina and South Dakota, states previously held by Democrats in the Senate.

Senate Democrats campaigning this year were distancing themselves from President Obama in light of the president's growing unpopularity with voters amid concerns over the economy, the rise of ISIS in the Middle East, Obamacare and other issues plaguing the Obama administration.

New polls show President Obama's popularity at an all-time low, with only 44 percent of Americans confident in the job he is doing in office. In addition, a recent ABC poll illustrated that President Obama's popularity among Hispanics--a group central to his re-election win in 2012--fell by 19 percent. This drop may have reflected Latinos being disenfranchised with Obama's decision to hold off on taking executive action on immigration reform.