Americans elect this Tuesday all of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives, 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate and 39 governors, in highly polarized midterm elections.
For many analysts, these elections are a kind of referendum on the government of Democratic President Joe Biden, but they are also a test of the popularity of former Republican President Donald Trump, who supports several candidates on the ballot, which makes the process be highly participatory and polarized.
The latest polls indicate that Republicans are likely to wrest control of the House and Senate from Democrats, in an outcome that could create additional difficulties for the Joe Biden administration to pass measures in Congress.
The defeat of the Democrats will not be a surprise, not only because of the low popularity of Biden, but also because, in the last 25 midterm elections, only three times has the party that controls the White House managed to win.
Four “swing states”, division of Democrats and “trumpization” of Republicans
Diana Soler, an IPRI researcher, says that in these midterm elections in the United States there are four states to take into account.
“Our attention has to be absolutely focused on the four swing states, which are the ones that really make the difference in the elections. And in these elections are the states of Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Nevada and Pennsylvania are often swing states. , Arizona and Georgia are new, they were states that were leaning Republican and it seems that this time only Georgia is leaning Republican, they are states that have had very large demographic changes in recent years and that the accounts are getting a little complicated of the candidates on one side and the other”, he explains to TSF Diana Solar.
In addition to the “oscillating states”, Diana Soler also points out other factors that can be determining factors.
“We need to pay attention essentially to a set of more significant structural changes, in addition to the swing states. Among them, the big divisive issues for the Democrats that will become very visible in this election, namely the type of electorate that the Democrats used. attract and now do not attract so easily, which can lead to a coalition change. And also to the trumpization of the Republican party that is presented in these elections completely different from the party that existed in the first half of the 2010s”, stresses the IPRI researcher.
The campaign agenda of the two parties was substantially different, the Republicans betting on the criticism of Biden’s immigration policy, as well as the difficulty of managing the increase in inflation (which exceeds 8%) or the increase in violence urban; and with Democratic candidates betting on the social agenda, that is, protecting the right to abortion or increasing the number of jobs in the economy.
One of the novelties of this campaign was the issue of democratic transparency, with a high number of Republican candidates (considered ‘deniers’) assuming that they believe that the electoral result of the 2020 presidential election (which gave victory to Biden) was the result of “political theft” and fuel the possibility of not accepting the result of today’s by-elections, on suspicion of more fraud.
In the final stretch of the campaign, the Democrats brought Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama to the stage of several rallies, who took the opportunity to appeal to the mobilization of his party, alleging that it is the very survival of American democracy that is at stake. play. at stake in these elections.
Biden and Obama campaigned this weekend in the state of Pennsylvania, considered one of the turning points in the attempt to maintain control of Congress.
Donald Trump also passed through Pennsylvania on Saturday before heading to Florida – another state traditionally relevant for election night – with a message that heralded his entry into the 2024 presidential campaign, capitalizing on his strong popularity among Republican voters (more than 70% of these consider him the best placed figure to put the party back in the White House).
The strong polarization in this campaign leads analysts to believe that voter turnout will be high (as happened in the 2020 presidential elections) and early voting (which began several weeks ago, in person and by mail) has already given indications about.
* News updated at 08:52
Source: TSF
