Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Nevada will occupy much of the attention on election night on November 8, when the United States will decide the new composition of the two houses of Congress in a vote that will irrevocably mark the last two years of Joe Biden’s term in office before the 2024 presidential election.
Six states whose electoral races, whether to the Senate, to the houses, to the governorships or even the additional votes that will also be held there on such important issues as abortion or voting rights, capture the electoral reality of an election of great importance from the inside.
For starters, these elections decide 35 seats (roughly one-third) of a Senate in which Democrats need at least 50 seats to maintain control. Republicans need 51 because Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris can impose a decisive tie-breaking vote.
The situation is as follows in the upper chamber: Democrats need 14 seats to maintain their majority. Republicans need 22 to take it away. Of the 35 seats up for grabs, the favored Republicans would win 20 seats to the Democrats’ 12, and three would be up in the air. In other words, both parties are two «unknown» seats away from winning, according to CNN polls.
In the House of Representatives, where all 435 seats are at stake, the Republicans have it easier: for the moment they would win 216 seats, just two seats away from gaining control of the chamber, while the Democrats would win 199 seats. A total of 20 seats remain to be decided. Practically all polls give the Republicans as favorites to wrest control of the lower house from their Democratic rivals.
Although the overall situation seems to be trending Republican red, some races could break the odds and it should not be forgotten that legislative elections serve to draw a tight political map and, at the local level, mark the entire course of a country, because they also elect state governors and state secretaries with great influence on future presidential elections, as they are the ones who ratify the vote count.
ON THE RACE The race in Arizona, Georgia or Pennsylvania will be particularly tough. In Georgia, Raphael Warnock (D) and Herschel Walker (R) are tied in voting intention at 48 percent in their Senate race. If neither exceeds 50 percent, there will be a runoff in December. The same is true in Arizona, where Democrat Mark Kelly holds a one to two percentage point lead over Republican Blake Masters.
In Pennsylvania, one of the most unusual Senate races in terms of the distance from traditional politics shown by its contenders, everything points to the «giant» John Fetterman, a Democrat, obtaining victory over the Republican candidate, surgeon and television presenter Mehmet Oz, but the latter, like Walker, has emerged in the light of Trumpism and could inherit from him the latter’s penchant for last-minute electoral reversals.
Nevada starts as the great «experiment» state to show whether the Republican campaign for this election, based on criticism of Biden for his inability to contain inflation, has had the expected effect. Republican candidate Adam Laxalt is campaigning against incumbent Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, whom he has accused of «complicity in Washington’s inflationary policies».
Wisconsin, on the other hand, represents the Achilles heel of the Republican campaign. There, its Senator Ron Johnson is seeking a third term as the only Republican running for re-election in a state won by Biden in 2020. However, his conspiratorial positions, especially in relation to the pandemic, could alienate the moderate sector of the Republicans and cause his defeat at the hands of a rising star of the Democratic Party such as Lieutenant Governor Mandela Barnes, who could become the first black senator in the history of the state.
The case of Michigan, finally, will be a clear example of local politics and a general assessment of the Biden doctrine since his arrival at the White House. Everything seems to indicate Democratic victories in the House and Senate races, but all eyes will be on the fight for Governor between Democrat Gretchen Whitmer and conservative analyst and Trumpist Tudor Dixon, two diametrically opposed positions on how to govern an American state.
Regarding the impact of local policies, it should be noted in this regard that Wisconsin will also vote on two so-called «ballot measures», amendments on state interpretations of the law, in this case two regulations that are at the center of the attention of the American population.
First, abortion rights — in the wake of the Supreme Court setback. The people of Wisconsin, along with California, Vermont, Kentucky, Michigan and Montana will vote on what form they want to give this right within the state. In a second vote, the state’s citizens will decide on another amendment to define its voting rights policies, amid criticism from Democratic sectors across the country of Republican efforts to make the voting process more difficult for the underprivileged.
