[Politics] ‘A new political hellscape’: sweeping gains for Republicans could stifle Biden’s presidency

[FazzNoth]

Momentum appears to be with Republicans capitalising on economic frustration as experts say party peaking at right time

 

Joe Biden is fighting a rearguard action to stave off defeat in Tuesday’s midterm elections as Republicans look poised to make sweeping gains in the US Congress, setting up two years of political trench warfare.

The president, along with former president Barack Obama, has been crisscrossing America in a last-ditch bid to persuade voters that a Democratic victory is critical not only to Biden’s legislative agenda but the preservation of American democracy.

But momentum appears to be with Republicans capitalising on frustration over inflation and fears of crime and illegal immigration.

 

Election forecasters and polls say it is highly likely that the party of ex-president Donald Trump will win a majority in the House of Representatives and also have a shot of taking control of the Senate.

“Republicans are peaking at the right time,” said Brendan Buck, a former aide to Republican House speakers Paul Ryan and John Boehner. “Democrats did a good job defying political gravity for a long time but it’s finally catching up to them. It feels like a healthy Republican majority in the House and, if I were a betting man, I would guess that Republicans pick up the one Senate seat that they need.”

Midterms are held every four years but in 2022 they are far from routine and have seen a huge increase in early voting turnout. Tuesday’s election represents the first nationwide test of democracy since Trump’s followers staged a deadly insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6 last year.

At stake are all 435 seats in the House, 35 seats in the 100-member Senate, 36 state governorships, three US territory governorships and numerous city mayorships and local offices. Some 129 ballot measures in 36 states include laws on abortion in California, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana and Vermont.

 

A surprise Democratic victory in the House and Senate would give Biden a mandate to pursue a sweeping legislative agenda on issues such as abortion rights, police reform and voting rights during his two remaining years in the Oval Office.

But Republican control of either chamber would be enough to derail such ambitions and raise questions over the US’s open-ended support for Ukraine’s war against Russia. Biden might face congressional investigations into everything from the withdrawal from Afghanistan to his son Hunter’s foreign business dealings.

Michael Steele, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, said: “At the end of the day it doesn’t matter: one chamber, two chambers, if Republicans have control, the next 18 to 24 months in this country are going to be a new political hellscape unlike anything we’ve seen ever.”

As a long campaign enters the home straight, both major parties are pouring millions of dollars into TV adverts, blitzing social media, knocking on thousands of doors and staging rallies with their biggest stars. Biden’s final swing implies a defensive posture in states that Democrats already hold – California, Illinois and New Mexico – along with battleground Pennsylvania.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/07/midterms-2022-biden-democrats-republicans-trump