Dusseldorf Shortly before the midterms on November 8th, US President Joe Biden announced the prospect of an abortion right by law. Chances of success: rather none. “It’s just an election campaign, it won’t get a majority,” says Johannes Thimm, deputy head of the Americas research group at the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik.
The emotional topic splits the political camps in the USA. In the summer, when the Supreme Court overturned the existing right to abortion, Biden’s Democrats were still able to score points with their pro-abortion stance, in polls they were ahead of the Republicans at the time. But inflation, the energy crisis and, above all, high petrol prices have eaten up the lead.
Democrats or Republicans – the major parties are now so far apart in many positions that fundamentally different rights and realities await US citizens depending on the outcome of the election. But what exactly are the midterms and what is decided? The most important facts at a glance.
US Elections: What Will Be Voted in the Midterms?
The midterm elections on November 8, 2022 – halfway through President Biden’s term – will see the 118th election of the US Congress, the US legislative body based in the Capitol. Congress consists of two chambers, the House of Representatives and the US Senate. The US has a British-style parliamentary system, hence the two chambers. They share important parliamentary tasks, such as voting on laws, supervisory functions vis-à-vis the President, appointing ministers and judges, or controlling the budget.
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There are 50 states in the United States, each represented by two senators.
In addition, the governors and secretaries of state in 36 states and three territories will be elected on November 8th. This election, which tends to receive less attention in this country, could be tough, “because a lot of problematic personalities with a questionable understanding of democracy are running for office there,” says Johannes Thimm.
Midterms in the US: How is Congress elected?
The House of Representatives has 435 seats. All are up for election at the Midterms. The MPs then elected move into the House of Commons for two years. How many seats a US state gets in the House of Representatives depends on the population density of the state in question.
This is different in the Senate: This is not completely re-elected in the coming midterms, but every two years. As a result, only a third of the 100 senators will be re-elected in 2022. Elected state senators serve six years in Congress.
Who gets to vote at the midterms on November 8, 2022?
Citizens entitled to vote directly elect candidates for the House of Representatives, Senate and state offices. All citizens over the age of 18 are eligible to vote in the United States.
What is the current allocation of seats?
In the House of Representatives, the Democrats have a narrow majority with 51.3 percent of the votes. It looks even tighter in the Senate: With the vote of Vice President and Senate President Kamala Harris, the Democrats hold a majority of 50.5 percent.
But a simple majority in the Senate is usually not enough, and that is a special feature of this chamber: every project must be approved by at least 60 percent of the deputies in the Senate – if the approval is less than 60 percent, the opponents of the project can literally ground it and floor talk. This parliamentary tactic is called filibuster, i.e. continuous speeches or their mere threat. With the current distribution of seats, this means that the Democrats always need Republican votes to reach 60 percent, despite a narrow majority.
Despite this peculiarity, President Biden has managed several times during his tenure to pass larger laws such as the Infrastructure Act. But depending on how the midterms turn out, that might become more difficult in the remaining two years of his tenure.
What is the meaning of the midterms?
Whoever wins the majorities has a great deal of influence on legislation. Both chambers of Congress can introduce legislation and must approve the President’s legislative proposals, in the Senate with said 60 percent majority. And there is great potential for conflict: Republicans would also have to vote for a legislative proposal from the Democratic camp – at least for Joe Biden’s abortion law, this is probably too great a challenge.
The symbolic effect of the midterms is not to be despised. As a turning point, exactly halfway through a president’s term of office, the incumbent government is issued a certificate. However, the bad report has a long tradition: since George W. Bush, no president in his first term in office has seen his own party emerge as a winner from the midterms.
Which majorities can currently be expected according to forecasts, and how is the election campaign going?
Most forecasts for the House of Representatives are quite clear, they see a majority for the Republicans. Forecasts for the Senate, on the other hand, paint a tight picture – most recently with a wafer-thin majority for the Republicans, such as e.g. B. can be tracked on the barometers of the forecast platform FiveThirtyEight.
The atmosphere in the election campaign is heated. Republicans hold President Biden responsible for the effects of the current major crises, such as energy supply and inflation. And that, too, has a long tradition: the president is responsible for the economy, one could say as a principle. The popularity of a president correlates surprisingly strongly with the development of gas prices.
>> Read also: Midterms could throw America into chaos: Journey through a country on the brink of losing control
Approval for Joe Biden recently fell to a comparatively low value of 41.9 percent. For Biden, it’s not just about the next two years, with ex-President Donald Trump breathing down his neck, it’s about much more.
The US is not in such a bad position economically. Unemployment is around 3.5 percent below the pre-corona level, and gross domestic product increased by 2.6 percent in the third quarter, the Department of Commerce announced in a first estimate at the end of October.
What would be the consequences of a Republican majority for cooperation in Congress?
“It can be assumed that the Republicans will block a large part of Biden’s legislative projects or proposals for important judicial offices in the event of a majority in the chambers,” suspects expert Johannes Thimm. There used to be a greater degree of bipartisan cooperation, Democrats and Republicans could vote for the same cause depending on the issue. “But we are seeing a tightening of party discipline.”
According to Thimm, however, a consensus can still be assumed on foreign policy issues such as dealing with China, even if there is a Republican majority in Congress. On the other hand, it is questionable whether the Republicans will continue to support Ukraine – there have already been irritating statements from the Republican ranks.
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Blocking the opponent at the price of democracy – the new pace in the Senate?
A constructive mood in the Senate is unlikely – the rules of the game have changed. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has vehemently blocked initiatives by the Obama administration in the past. McConnell then broke the big taboo in 2016: He prevented the hearing and thus the appointment of Merrick Garland, proposed by Barack Obama, to the Supreme Court for several months. A procedure that was new in this form and certainly unfair, but hardly contestable.
McConnel’s argument: Obama has only six months left in office and should no longer be allowed to decide on important offices. Four years later, shortly before the end of Donald Trump’s term in office, McConnel turned his argument inside out. He secured a Conservative candidate for a key Supreme Court justice position six weeks before the 2020 presidential election.
This shifting of the rules of the game is dangerous. “The presidential system in the USA is based on the consensus of non-partisan cooperation,” explains Thimm. Without it, democracy in the United States would be in a bad way. If the Republicans win a Senate majority in the midterms, McConnell will once again become his party’s majority leader.
And why is the election of governors and secretaries of state in the individual states so important?
A look back at the last presidential election: Confronted with his impending vote-out, President Trump calls Brad Raffensperger, Secretary of State for Georgia, and demands that 12,000 votes be found, or rather invented. Because these were missing for Trump to win. Raffensperger, however, refuses. Trump may soon have to answer to the court for the procedure, and appropriate proceedings are being prepared.
There’s a problem: Two-thirds of Republicans running for governor and secretary of state now believe Trump’s story that the Democrats stole the last presidential election. “Imagine these are the people who will be called at the next election with a similar desire from someone like Trump. We cannot be sure whether they will then decide in the spirit of democracy or in the spirit of their ideology,” says Johannes Thimm.
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