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Washington: The U.S. will hold its midterm elections on Tuesday after an intense weekend of campaigning on both sides and, more broadly, a final lap of the election for Republicans.
In addition to other state and local elections, voters will elect all 435 members of the House of Representatives, 35 members of the Senate, 36 governors, 30 attorney generals and 27 secretaries of state, which will determine the future of America. Joe Biden as president and ready for 2024.
Senate Landscape
Republicans have seen their prospects take a leap in recent weeks, with polls suggesting they are close to winning control of the House of Representatives. They have also gained momentum in the Senate battle.
The Senate is now tied 50-50, with Vice President Kamala Harris’ vote giving Democrats a majority, but a flip of one seat would put that majority at risk.
In Pennsylvania, a Republican senator retired — opening room for Democrats to fight for the seat. But while party candidate John Feltman had an advantage at first, the stroke raised doubts about his health. Republican nominee Mohamed Oz’s slamming of Democrats on crime also gave Republicans vote momentum. On Saturday, a rare confluence of three presidents — Biden and Obama for Democrats, Trump for Republicans — campaigned in the key battleground state.
In Georgia, Democratic Sen. Rafael Warnock is defending his seat against a challenge from Republican Herschel Walker, a former football star and Trump aide who embroiled in a series of personal scandals. In Nevada, Arizona and New Hampshire, Republicans have attacked incumbent Democrats, while in Wisconsin, Democrats want to make progress and take Republican seats.
How Races Evolved
The Republican momentum in the Senate race more broadly reflects how the midterm fight has evolved over the course of the year.
Earlier in the summer, Republicans started to have a clear advantage. The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 has given the Grand Old Party momentum on national security issues, as reflected in the party’s victory in Virginia’s gubernatorial race last year. The fight between progressives and Democrats has held legislation in the U.S. Congress hostage. Inflation is starting to become a major concern for voters amid an injection of liquidity into the economy as pandemic-induced supply chain disruptions continue.
Republicans have also picked on key culture war issues, particularly their view of education as “parental control,” and launched a campaign against race and sex pedagogy in schools. The perception that Biden is too old for the job and seemingly out of control of his own party has added to the Republican push.
At the end of the summer, the momentum seemed to turn to the Democrats again.
On the national security front, Biden and his team began campaigning around the transatlantic coalition they built against Russia’s war in Ukraine. In addition to the infrastructure investment bill he pushed, the president has managed to pass a slew of legislation in Congress — on climate, domestic manufacturing, especially semiconductors, as well as lowering prescription drug prices and other social benefits. Congress last year.
But for Democrats, the glimmer of political hope came from the Supreme Court’s decision on abortion, which overturned Roe v. Wade and made abortion a state theme. With polls repeatedly showing that a majority of voters oppose a ban on abortion, Democrats hope to capitalize on the anger at the extremism that led Trump’s judicial nominee to overturn the nation’s abortion right. Democrats are also encouraged by the fact that many Republican Senate candidates are Trump-backed candidates who are seen as extreme and potentially alienating suburban voters. A string of high-profile cases of gun violence also appears to have shifted public sentiment in favor of tougher gun control measures, a theme that has resonated with Democratic platforms.
But as the election looms, Republicans are once again on their feet.
One of the most important issues for voters is the overall economy, especially the cost of living and inflation. Voters are increasingly telling pollsters they think Republicans are better equipped to handle these issues than Democrats, even as Biden deploys policy tools, including releasing the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve to lower natural gas prices. The government’s efforts to blame Vladimir Putin for inflation don’t appear to have enough buyers, and its efforts to forgo student loans have not partly won the extra support it hoped. It appears that abortion may not be as much a mobilization issue as the party had hoped.
Republicans are also focusing on crime and immigration — widely seen as an increase in crime and illegal immigration, which voters blame on a Biden administration. They’re back to “parental controls” in education, back to what Republicans call teaching around “critical race theory” and their claims to encourage kids to explore their sexuality. While critical race theory isn’t taught as Republicans suggest, Democrats have struggled to disprove the narrative about race education.
Republican push
The momentum has allowed Republicans to push in two unexpected ways.
First, the party is pouring resources into areas that have traditionally served as Democratic bastions — most evident in the gubernatorial race in New York, a traditionally blue state that is seeing Republican candidates shrink with Democratic incumbent Kathy Howe. Hull’s Gap. Biden campaigned for Hull in New York on Sunday, while state resident Bill Clinton ran for her on Saturday.
Second, Republicans are also seeking to win districts traditionally seen as aligned with Democrats, especially Hispanics. Since Trump’s 2016 election, the nature of both parties’ voting bases has shifted dramatically, with Republicans continuing to build on substantial encroachment among white working-class voters, another voter more aligned with Democrats among Democrats Voters go.
All of this also comes against a backdrop of plummeting Biden approval ratings and anger at the incumbent president. Despite the president’s repeated attempts to cast elections not as referendums but as the democratic options Americans want, midterm elections are often seen as referendums on the incumbents of the White House — traditionally, the president’s party has struggled to keep the House and Senate. That could lead to less activism among Democratic voters than Republican voters, which in turn could be reflected in voter turnout on Tuesday.
As Americans vote Tuesday, their decisions will shape the next chapter in American politics, from who controls Congress to the nature of the 2024 presidential election. For Joe Biden and Donald Trump, the stakes couldn’t be higher.
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