Here are some questions and answers about the 2022 midterm elections.
What are midterm elections in the United States?
Known by the phrase “midterms” (“midterm”), they take place two years after the presidential election, in the middle of the four-year term.
In general, about a third of the 100 seats in the Senate (this year will be 35 seats) and all 435 seats in the House of Representatives are elected in these elections.
Senators are elected for a six-year term.
Each state is entitled to two senators (regardless of size or number of inhabitants), but for the Chamber of Representatives, the seats are divided according to the size of each state.
Elections also serve, in various states and cities, to elect governors, city councils, and even public school boards.
39 governors will be elected this year (36 from states and three from territories).
This year’s elections also included 129 ballots (in 36 states) with referendum questions on issues related to abortion rights.
When do midterm elections take place?
Elections must be held on the first Tuesday of November, unless that Tuesday falls on the first of the month.
This year’s elections will take place on November 8.
The electoral process usually begins in September, with early and postal votes.
Is the president’s name on ballots?
Not. In these elections, the president is not elected, although they are generally considered a “referendum” for his administration in the first two years of the term in office.
Who defines constituencies?
The constituencies are determined by the state governments, which often take the opportunity to change the borders, to try to favor the results of the party that dominates them.
The threat looms during the first campaign after the attack on the Capitol
Tuesday’s midterm campaign in the US is the first since the Capitol storming in 2021, and security measures surrounding the candidates have been tighter than usual.
On October 28, the same day Chairman Nancy Pelosi’s octogenarian husband was violently assaulted by a man breaking into the couple’s San Francisco home, U.S. intelligence warned of episodes of “violent internal extremism” (DVE).
“Potential targets for DVE violence include candidates for public office, elected officials, election officials, political rallies, representatives of political parties, racial and religious minorities, or alleged ideological opponents,” the alarm was warned by some US media outlets. Americans had access.
The alert was sent to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), and the Capitol Police (USCP), expecting that “the violence will largely depend on motivations such as grievances and the accessibility of potential targets throughout the election cycle” and that the “most plausible” threat ahead of Election Day comes from “lone offenders who use election-related problems to justify violence”, with many individuals still reinforcing false accounts of fraud dating back to the 2020 presidential election and in particular the defeat of Republican Donald Trump.
The alarm went off almost unnoticed, with attention focused on the attack on the Pelosi residence, by a conspiracy theorist with handcuffs and a hammer asking, “Where’s Nancy? Where’s Nancy?”. The robbery resulted in the hospitalization of the Democratic leader’s husband, who was home alone at the time.
Election campaigns in the US consist of rallies, door-to-door contact with voters, party fundraising — often in the homes of Republican or Democrat supporters — and other in-person events. But in these interims, it was possible to observe a tightening of security measures around the candidates.
In New York, the election agenda of Democratic and Republican candidates remains hidden.
To Lusa, campaign teams of different candidates said that the rallies will be scheduled on the same day and that in many cases there will be no public event on the November 8 election night.
On the campaign ‘sites’ and on the candidates’ social networks, the date and place of rallies are also rare. Fragments of what happened during these rallies are only released at the end of the events.
For example, on Democratic candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s social media, it’s possible to find dates and locations of campaign events taking place in the coming days, such as handing out flyers in residential areas, but none of them will be the deputy herself.
By email, the Democrat team said it “will not hold any public events on election night,” without justifying the reason.
Republican nominee Nicole Malliotakis’s team told Lusa that their campaign events will be scheduled on the same day, and Democrat Max Rose’s team indicated they had no events scheduled for the night of Nov. 8.
While it was unclear whether the lack of prior information about campaign events in New York was related to security issues, the New York Police Department (NYPD) indicated that with the current national climate of tension and domestic, racial and political violence, officers should be on alert. during the election period.
An NYPD bulletin that CNN has access to describes that “malicious actors — violent extremists motivated by race and ethnicity and violent anti-government and anti-authoritarian extremists — will continue to prioritize political rallies, polling stations and election officials,” and thus demand extra caution on the part of the authorities as the elections approach.
In Los Angeles, several events planned to promote Democratic candidates have been omitted in the latter part of the campaign. In the case of a ‘telephone bank’ aimed at young people, with the aim of calling on potential voters to convince them to vote, the location would only be announced after registration and telephone confirmation.
The same goes for the various “knock on doors” events to boost the vote for Democratic Los Angeles mayoral candidate Karen Bass over the weekend, and Democratic Congresswoman Katie Porter’s “Day of Action” on Monday, who are the hosts of the podcast “Pod Save America” (who have worked on the Obama campaign and the White House).
The midterm elections will determine which party will control Congress for the last two years of Biden’s tenure, with 36 state governments and several local referendums on key issues, including abortion and soft drugs, at stake.
Up for grabs are all 435 seats in the House of Representatives (the lower house of Congress), where Democrats currently have a slim majority of five seats, and 35 seats in the Senate, where Democrats have a majority only thanks to a draw. – US President Kamala Harris.
Elections could not only change the face of the US Congress, but also bring Donald Trump-supporting governors and local officials to power.
A very heavy defeat in the upcoming election could further complicate the scenario of a second presidential term for Joe Biden.
Source: DN
