The midterm elections in the US take place this year on 8th November. Down the ballot, there are a number of key positions up for grabs in every state, including the entirety of the House of Representatives and more than a third of seats in the Senate, the lower and upper houses of Congress, respectively. Many state-level elections are also taking place, some of which will have a more direct impact on ordinary people than what goes on at the federal level. These elections will determine the governorships of 36 states (the highest elected official in a state), which party controls state legislatures, and even who gets to set the rules of how elections will be run in the future. And that’s to say nothing of individual ballot initiatives (essentially referenda on local issues) that voters in each district will vote on directly.
This year in particular is set to mark a break from politics as usual: it is the first election year following the attempted insurrection that occurred on 6th January 2021; the policy landscape this election features several unique developments that are likely to impact voter turnout; and the right-wing Republican Party is in the midst of a radical transformation, if not a civil war in the aftermath of Trump’s four years in the White House. With so many things to watch out for, this explainer offers an introduction to what is sure to be an explosive midterm season.
Which issues will dominate the midterms?
Midterms are typically seen as a referendum on the party that holds the presidency. Historically, they have almost always shown discontent with the status quo. Since 1946, the ruling party has lost seats in the House of Representatives 17 out of 19 times in midterm elections. If that puts a damper on Joe Biden and the Democrats’ hopes for a strong performance, then the national economic situation is a full-force thunderstorm. With inflation floating above 8% year-on-year, polling conducted by Pew indicates that the economy is the most important issue for most registered voters. In this kind of climate, a backlash against the Democrats, who currently hold both chambers of Congress and the presidency, seems likely.
However, it is not all rain and gloom for Biden’s party. It’s not often that a party manages to enact one of its key policy proposals while out of power. Yet, that is effectively what happened for the Republican Party when the Supreme Court repealed Roe v. Wade back in June, eliminating federal-level protections of the right to abortion. In the American system, their ruling means that the states now get to determine abortion rights for themselves. In other words, abortion is now a live voting issue this November, and the same Pew polling finds that 75% of Democrats say it is very important to their vote. Indeed, the unpopular Supreme Court ruling led to an upset defeat for anti-abortion campaigners in Kansas, a safely Republican state. Part of what fuelled that defeat was a large turnout of pro-choice voters that defied expectations. If abortion remains a salient issue in the minds of voters and the same turnout boost occurs in the midterms, then Democrats may be able to retain control of Congress.
Unfortunately for the Democrats, the relative importance of the issues has shifted away from abortion since the summer, with the economy and inflation now occupying more space in the national conversation. Overall, election simulations run by polling aggregators paint a picture for the Democrats that is mixed at best. The Senate appears to be a toss-up, while the House seems very likely to switch hands in favour of Republicans. FiveThirtyEight estimates a 47% chance that Republicans win both chambers, but only an 18% chance for Democrats to do the same, as of 28th October.
Still, there is a tremendous amount of uncertainty in these estimates, and we should be careful not to infer too much from polling data and simulations, especially considering the recent history of polling performance in the US. But perhaps more importantly, the certainty of the polls and models is weakened by the unique circumstances of generationally high inflation, a radical and sudden shift in federal abortion policy, and the emergence of a post-January 6th political climate. America is not experiencing politics as usual this time around, and how that will affect the outcome by the morning of November 9th remains unclear.
What is the future of the Republican Party (and the Republic)?
The elephant in the voting booth this year is undoubtedly the degree to which the legitimacy of American democracy itself has been questioned. The Republican Party has essentially put confidence and trust in the country’s electoral system on the ballot by putting forward a slate of candidates that can be considered “election deniers.” Out of 552 Republican candidates nationwide, 199 (36%) fully deny that Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election was legitimate, either by explicitly stating so or by taking legal action to overturn the results.
An additional 61 (11%) Republican candidates have questioned the 2020 results on the unfounded basis that there was rampant voting fraud. While there is always some amount of fraud in elections, there is no evidence that there was anywhere near enough to overturn the 2020 results in any meaningful way. The Brennan Center for Justice has put out a thorough series covering election fraud in the US. Claims against the legitimacy of the 2020 election are diverse, but Philip Bump at the Washington Post has an excellent primer that runs through and criticises them. Additionally, it is noteworthy that many Republicans wrote for National Review, a right-wing outlet for American conservatives, to argue vehemently against the claim that the 2020 election results were illegitimate.
Despite this, there are only 77 (14%) Republican candidates on the ballot this year who fully accept the 2020 results, and an additional 93 (17%) who accept the results while still questioning the election’s integrity. These numbers come from FiveThirtyEight. Other research from the Brookings Institution identifies 345 Republican candidates “who have expressed election denial beliefs–false claims that the presidential election in 2020 was flawed.” The Washington Post identified 51% of all Republican candidates who either denied or questioned the results of the 2020 election.
And it’s not just the candidates who engage in election denialism. A clear and large majority of ordinary Republicans believe that Biden’s win was not legitimate. The fact that less than a third of the Republican Party’s candidates–and possibly even fewer of its supporters–are willing to publicly accept that Trump lost in 2020 is indicative of a cataclysmic paradigm shift in American politics. If election denialism proves to be a winning strategy on November 8th, it is likely that it will be replicated in future elections. Worse, election denialism may be merely the beginning of a darker turn away from democratic principles altogether.
Of course, we won’t know until election night (and possibly even later) whether it is a winning strategy. But it is already safe to say that this election represents a turning point for Trumpism and the Republican Party. Will the Trump-endorsed candidates and election deniers win key races, cementing their presence in the American right? Or will they underperform, losing the majorities that might have been more safely secured with a traditional Republican line-up?
In addition to the implications these midterms will have for the Republican Party’s future, there are immediately practical consequences that will emerge from a victory for election deniers, especially in races for governors, attorneys general, and secretaries of state. These are generally the positions with the most direct influence on the way elections are administered and legitimised in each state. Some tangible policies at stake include the number of voting locations states allow, the ease of early and absentee voting, and even whether election results get certified.
Thus, the biggest story to watch in America at the moment is whether election deniers manage to win their races, as many of them are predicted to do. The coming days may be a decisive chapter in the fall of American democracy.
