R Krishna Das
Americans will vote on Tuesday to elect all 435 representatives of the House and 35 of the 100-seat Senate; the outcome will opt President Joe Biden’s political fate.
The midterm elections are held near the midpoint of a president’s four-year term in office in America. The results determine if the incumbent remains effective in the remaining two years of his tenure or becomes a lame-duck occupant of the White House.
The Senate race is currently seen as a toss-up with both Republican and Democratic candidates reportedly enjoying equal support among voters. But recent polls indicate that Republicans may regain control of the House that they lost to Democrats in 2018.
An opinion polls agency FiveThirtyEight envisaged 80 per cent chance of the Republicans occupying between 215-248 seats in the next House. The fate of the House lies in Iowa’s 3rd District, North Carolina’s 13th District and Colorado’s 8th District, the agency said, adding that the three districts along the Texas-Mexico border will also be key. Within the Senate, the focus is on the Georgia, Nevada, and Pennsylvania races, with Republicans trying to take Georgia and Nevada, while Democrats are looking to capture Pennsylvania.
According to experts, if Democrats retain the Senate, and the House becomes Republican, it will be difficult to pass legislation over the coming two years, where any House-passed measures would likely be dead on arrival in the Senate, and vice-versa. But control over the House will give Republicans a major advantage. They can use the debt and funding limits to leverage the administration and to force the Democrats to negotiate.
The voters will also elect governors for 36 of the 50 states, 20 of which are currently occupied by republicans and 16 by Democrats. The Governor races will influence the 2024 US presidential election.
According to Pew Research Center, Washington, report, “the economy has consistently been the top issue for voters this year.”
