435 seats are renewed.
USA elections will be held next Tuesday to renew Congresswith the opposition Republican Party and its main referent, former president Donald Trump, confident of being able to exploit widespread discontent with the economic management of President Joe Biden.
The elections, halfway through the term of the Democrat Biden, will be key to his room for maneuver in the remaining two years of his Government, amid reports that he is already preparing a potential candidacy for re-election in 2024 and that his Republican nemesis Trump could announce his as soon as this month.
governance in the United States
The 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 in the Senate, as well as the governorships of 36 of the 50 states, will be contested in the elections, which coincide with a thick social climate that combines escalating inflation, misinformation, violence politics and distrust in the electoral process.
Joe Biden. Photo: AFP
Hundreds of Republican candidates, in an unprecedented event, refuse to commit to accepting the results of the electionswhich will be the first in the country since Trump supporters attacked Congress in 2021 convinced that Biden had won the elections at the end of the previous year with fraud.
In a speech this week in Washington on the occasion of the approaching elections, the president said that American democracy was “at risk” and called for people to go to the polls to defend it from the violence and lies of the “ultra” Trumpists who cast doubt on electoral transparency.
The reaction of the Republicans
Though in the minority among Republicans, “this driving force is trying to succeed now where it failed in 2020, in trying to suppress voter rights and subvert the electoral system,” Biden said near Capitol Hill, referring to candidates threatening with not knowing the results of Tuesday if they do not win.
He cited in particular a recent attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband inside his home by a hammer-wielding intruder, saying Trump’s lies that he stole the 2020 election “fueled a dangerous increase in political violence” The last two years.
For his part, Trump redoubles his insinuations that he will aspire to the Presidency again, and the main media affirm that his entourage is preparing a launch shortly after the legislative elections to capitalize on a Republican victory in elections that are historically favorable to the party that is in opposition.
“I ran twice. I won twice … Now, to make our country successful, safe and glorious again, I will probably have to run again,” the 76-year-old former president said in a speech. in Texas in October.
Donald Trump. Photo: AFP
“Get ready, that’s all I’m telling you. Very soon,” he insisted Thursday at a rally in Iowa.
Biden, 79, has also indicated in public that he intends to run for re-election and that he would do so even more eagerly if Trump were to run, and CNN and The Washington Post reported this week that he already studies a possible candidacy in 2024 together with a select group of advisers.
The position of the Democratic Party
Biden’s Democratic Party He comes into the election with tight control of both houses of Congress, but polls predict that Republicans will win far more seats than the barely five they need to win the House of Representatives.
The outlook is uncertain for the Senate, where Republicans need to flip just one seat to take control. Each party has 50 votes there today, but Vice President Kamala Harris, in her capacity as speaker of the chamber, breaks the tie in case of parity in the voting.
Surveys have shown that high inflation and abortion are the issues that most concern voters ahead of the legislative elections.
The trends have varied throughout an election year that began and ends with favorable winds for the Republicans.
Disapproval of Biden’s overall management, which grew from January to highs of 62% in June and July mainly due to high inflation, fell to 56% in October, according to a poll by the consulting firm SSRS for CNN.
The tension over abortion
The rebound coincided with two extraordinary events that boosted the Democratic chances: the proliferation of Republican candidates who do not believe in the reliability of the elections and the June Supreme Court decision to overturn a 1973 ruling that defined abortion as a fundamental right to be protected throughout the countrystrongly questioned by the president’s party.
In August, Biden managed to cap off a summer of good news by enacting a law to improve the purchasing power of families, lower health costs, curb price increases and combat climate change, a package that was the main achievement of his management, and of the last decades for the Democrats.
“If we lose the House and the Senate it’s going to be two horrible years” Joe Biden
At the end of July, inflation, which at 9.1% had reached its highest level in 40 years, took a breather, and the economy also continued to add jobs. Biden scored another point with the assassination of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan, following the fateful military retreat in defeat to the Afghan Taliban that marked his first year in power.
The polls
However, polls published last week again showed the Republican Party on the road to victory, including improvements in the voting intentions of candidates for key seats who reversed their support for abortion bans in their states, something strongly rejected by the voters.
The polls showed that Republican bases are much more enthusiastic about voting than Democrats in a country where voting is not mandatory. They also reflected persistent concern about the state of the economy, especially the cost of living.
In case of winning the Lower House, Republicans have vowed to block Biden’s agendaretaliate against Democrats for investigating the attack on Capitol Hill and launch their own investigations into business deals in Ukraine and China by Biden’s son Hunter that they say threaten American national security.
If he wins the Senate, the opposition could block Biden’s political and judicial appointments, including in the event of an unexpected vacancy on the Supreme Court.
“If we lose the House and the Senate, it’s going to be two horrible years,” Biden said yesterday in Chicago, although he added: “I think we’re going to win. I really do.”
The president has promised a federal law that protects the right to abortion in case he expands his party’s majority in the Senate.
