Will Biden Survive the Midterm Elections?

On November 8, 2022, Americans will choose their candidates in the midterm congressional elections, which include all members of the House of Representatives and one-third of the members of the Senate.

The midterm elections will have repercussions on the presidential elections that follow in 2024 because they will determine which of the two parties is more popular and who will control the House and Senate.

The midterm elections, which usually take place two years after the presidential elections, are akin to a referendum for President Joe Biden. For more than 160 years, the president's party has rarely been able to escape the punitive vote in these elections.

These historic backgrounds, in addition to the developments of events in the United States and the world, raise a number of questions about Biden's ability to maintain a slim majority in Congress and the possibility of controlling the Senate and House of Representatives for Republicans who will try to obstruct his policies.

 

Conflicting Indications

Observers believe that Biden's recent decisions, such as the "pardon for marijuana," may have positive results in favor of the Democrats, but the rise in gasoline prices after the recent decision of the OPEC+ alliance, which the Republicans see as a Saudi "slap" in the face of Biden, may tip the Republican side.

There are conflicting indications of victory between the Republican and Democratic parties in the mid-term elections for both chambers of Congress (Representatives and Senate), while polls indicate a possible victory for Republicans in the Senate, at least.

Other polls indicate that the Democrats continue to control Congress, and thus the continued support provided to Biden for the next two years of his rule and the end of the Trumpism phenomenon, considering that the defeat of the Republicans will be inflicted on former President Donald Trump and his mistakes.

Trump is still seen as strong, especially after a number of the candidates he supported won the primaries, but there are doubts that Trump's strength is no longer the same as before, despite his plans to run for the 2024 presidency.

Trump faces lawsuits centered on charges of tax evasion, interfering to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, and a possible role in the violent attack by his supporters on Congress, in addition to his possession of confidential documents from the presidential archive.

Axios website confirmed in early October 2022 that Trump-backed Republican candidates lag behind their Democratic rivals in opinion polls and fundraising.

In the midterm elections, voters will choose all of the House of Representatives (435) seats, more than a third of the Senate (100), as well as the governors of 36 of the 50 states.

An opinion poll reported by the FiveThirtyEight website on September 30, 2022, showed that the Republicans advanced by 5 points in the congressional elections, a result that would guarantee the Republican Party victory in the House of Representatives and make the Senate an uphill battle for the Democrats.

In contrast, the highly-rated polling company, Selzer Co., published a poll in late September also showing Democrats leading by 4 points in the general ballot among likely voters.

Another opinion poll conducted by the US National Radio (NPR) on September 30 indicated that both parties face many challenges in the elections, and 48 percent of respondents said they would elect Democrats, compared to 44 percent of Republicans.

The Fox website said on September 25 that expectations indicate that the chances of Democrats obtaining a majority in the Senate are still good.

It explained that the Democrats have a slight advantage, as two of the Republican seats are located in counties that voted for Biden in the last election, while the Democrats do not have any seats in counties that voted for Trump.

 

The Importance of Elections

These elections are expected to resolve the prospects of Trump's return with his anti-democratic policy and support for Arab dictators, according to the Axios website in early October 2022.

The US Brookings Institution described it in an August 18, 2022 analysis as an existential test for Trump and his power, the results of which will determine his future strength in the Republican Party.

The elections will show the extent of support for the former president and whether he was strong enough to reshape the Republican Party if his Republican supporters swept the elections and vice versa.

But this election is also a challenge for the Democratic Party, which controls the two houses in a fragile way, and for President Biden, who faces unprecedented challenges.

Throughout history, midterm elections did not bring good news to the political party that controls the White House, and their results often came to the detriment of the president's party in the White House, according to American reports.

Democrats have 48 seats out of 100 in the Senate, compared to 50 for Republicans and two for independents (they usually vote with Democrats), and in the event of a tie vote, the Vice President (Democrat) is used to decide the vote.

In contrast, the Democratic Party has 223 members in the US House of Representatives, while the Republicans have 212 members out of the 435 members that make up the House.

Republicans need to win only one seat in the Senate and 15 seats in the House of Representatives to obtain a majority.

If the Republicans win majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, this will place many restrictions on Biden's administration during the next two years remaining in his term.

In case the Republicans dominate the House of Representatives, it will be enough to block most of the legislation that Biden and Democrats want to pass and will encourage the opening of investigations into the administration, according to American analysts.

But if the Democrats maintain control of both houses of Congress, this will make it easier for Biden to complete his legislative agenda, even though he has achieved a large part of it, and this may encourage him to run again for the presidency and lead to an intensification of the investigation with Trump and perhaps its political termination.

The Brookings Institution asserts that any US president loses an average of 26 seats in the House of Representatives and an average of four seats in the Senate in any election that takes place while he is in office.

This is what happened with Trump in 2020, Barack Obama in 2010, George Bush in 2006, Bill Clinton in 1994, and Ronald Reagan in 1986.

On September 28, political analyst Tom Harb said that the chances of the Republicans in the elections will be stronger for several reasons, most notably the inflation reaching record rates that it has not reached in 40 years, the increase in irregular immigration, and Biden's weak dealings with the files of Russia, the Middle East, and China.

By contrast, Democratic Party strategist Robert Patillo expects Democrats to do well in the elections, despite this historical rule.

He added that the midterm elections will be different this time, and there is a strong chance that the Democrats will maintain a majority in the House of Representatives and also a marginal majority in the Senate.

 

Big Fears

This fluctuation between the strength of the two parties made a group of Americans worried that the elections would lead to a divided government or political stalemate in Congress and state affairs, according to a poll conducted by Ipsos and Axios in early October 2022.

The poll revealed that 53 percent of Americans are concerned about a government split if one party controls the Senate and the other controls the House of Representatives, which will hinder the work of the government and Congress as a unified ratification body.

More than two in five Americans said they are concerned about the economy and rising inflation if the Democratic Party remains in control of both houses of Congress.

About 18 percent of Americans surveyed expressed concern about Democrats spending more time investigating Trump-related cases.

These fears about the division of American institutions against the backdrop of the division of the two-party control over them were expressed by The Economist in early September 2022 in the Disunited States of America.

The magazine attached the article to a picture of the Statue of Liberty in New York, split in two on one of the city's towers, in reference to the extent of the disintegration and divisions between states and institutions due to the ambiguous results of the midterm elections.

It said that officials from the Democratic or Republican Party assuming different states and their control of the Senate or the House of Representatives as a result of the elections, leads to conflict and division in the laws adopted by each party in the state it governs.

California bans the sale of gasoline cars starting in 2035, other states refuse, Texas law bans abortion from the moment of conception and imposes a sentence of up to 99 years in prison, and other states legalize abortion.

The British magazine indicated that 37 states out of 50, where three-quarters of Americans live, are governed by one party (the Democrat) and in which it controls both legislative houses, which pushes Republican-controlled states to impose decisions that are different from the rest of the states, stressing that "the biggest worry is that partisanship could undermine American democracy itself."