Why Did the Americans Vote Against Trump’s Congressional Candidates?

Americans voted for Biden not because they wanted him, but because they hate his predecessor, Donald Trump, who represents a “danger to American democracy.”

This is how many interpreted the Democratic Party’s survival from a crushing defeat that was highly likely in the midterm elections that began on November 8, 2022.

The midterm elections, which included all seats in the House of Representatives (435), and more than a third of the Senate seats (100), in addition to the governors of 36 out of fifty states, ended with a slight victory for the Republican Party, without the red wave (the party’s slogan) being achieved in reference to the sweep that It was expected.

With a slim majority, the Republicans won the House of Representatives, while the Senate’s results were postponed as counting continued in three states (Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia), while the latter became certain that it would go to a run-off at the end of the year.

Although the results appear to be a victory for the Republicans, the American newspapers do not consider this a real victory, given the previous expectations of a red sweep that did not materialize.

Rather, observers saw that what happened was a defeat for Trump, because he oversaw the selection of most of the defeated candidates in the elections, which indicates the desire of many to block the path of his candidacy for the presidential elections in 2024.

Trump implicitly admitted this as he described the results of the midterm elections as “a bit disappointing,” while Biden expressed his happiness over the expected total defeat, claiming that Americans managed to “preserve democracy.”

 

Disaster for Trump

Before the polls closed, the Democrats’ control of Congress appeared in danger, according to the Associated Press, which said that the Democratic Party is facing a new generation of Republican candidates, including newcomers, deniers of the validity of the 2020 elections, and extremists supporting Trump.

But what many opinion polls expected did not happen, and Democrats have held out relatively because of voters’ fear of Trump supporters destroying democracy.

The pre-election polls showed that many disliked Biden (54 percent to 43 percent approved of his performance), although they showed voters disliked Trump either, with only 37 percent accepting him.

The final forecast for FiveThirtyEight on November 7 confirmed that the Republicans are closest to controlling the House of Representatives and that they are also close to beating the Democrats in the race to the Senate.

On November 7, Politico made similar predictions, stressing that the Republicans are the closest to controlling the House of Representatives, but the competition is close for the Senate, while the Democrats will win most of the positions of state governors.

While the change this year was much less, the Democrats lost as of writing the report only 27 seats, compared to the loss of 63 seats by the Democrats under Barack Obama in the midterm elections and 52 under Bill Clinton.

The president’s party, or the ruling party in the White House, usually loses the midterm elections, although there were exceptions to this rule in the years 1934, 1998, and 2002, during which the ruling party won.

In more than 160 years, the US president’s party in power has rarely escaped a punitive vote in this election.

The same thing was confirmed by the Associated Press on November 9, 2022, with a broad headline: Election takeaways: No sweep for the Republicans after all.

The reality looked very different, AP reported. Instead of a blanket rejection of President Biden and his party, the results have been much more mixed, and several Democratic candidates have proven surprisingly resilient and outperformed their party’s expectations.

Observers confirm that the final results, which take weeks, may witness more surprises because many voters who support the Democratic Party vote by mail, and the strength of their votes appears only at the end of the count, which is what happened in the 2020 presidential elections.

Before the midterm elections, the Democrats held the majority in the House of Representatives with 222 seats compared to 213 in favor of the Republicans, while the Senate is divided (50-50) between the Democratic and Republican parties, and the vote of Vice President Kamala Harris is likely to lead them with 51 votes.

Perhaps that is why the Washington Post described the election results on November 9 as a “disaster for Trump.”

It made it clear that all that mattered to Trump from this election was preoccupation with his political future and the prospects of his return to the White House again, as he gave priority to raising his imminent presidential campaign and began pursuing his Republican rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

It emphasized that the party’s candidates who supported them lost, and that it might cost the Republican Party to lose the majority of the Senate as well, so everyone abstains and thinks about supporting an alternative candidate in the 2024 presidential election.

The magazine indicated that Trump was the first president to lose the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the presidency in one term, and with the possibility of the Republicans losing the majority in the Senate and substandard elections, the Republicans are considering that he is not fit to nominate him in the 2024 elections.

 

The Secret of the Coup

Because the results were like a coup against what the polls had expected, which spoke of a “red wave” for the Republicans and the crushing of the “blue” team for democracy, there were questions about why these expectations were not met.

The American newspapers summarized the matter by saying that many voters, even if they were not satisfied with the performance of Biden and his Democratic Party, set their sights on what happened from Trump’s supporters storming Congress and their failure to accept the results of democracy if they lost, so they chose the Democrats.

A study conducted by the University of Chicago for the Associated Press on the results of voter voting trends, involving 94,000 voters, revealed that voters were affected by two things:

The first is inflation, which they do not blame the Biden administration for and see as external causes related to global wars and tensions, and their fear in return of the Republicans’ financial policies.

The second is their concern about the fragility of American democracy, their fear of what Trump and his anarchist supporters did, and their fear of their success for the Republicans, which decided the choices of many of them in favor of voting for the Democratic Party.

The danger of the midterm elections this time is not in the victory of either party but in the future of America itself. The election results will decide the future of democracy in America and the rule of the people.

Biden “played on this chord” and voted in favor of democracy, not the party, stressing in his rounds to support the party’s candidates that democracy is in danger because of lies, violence, and extremists.

Because of this, nearly 11 Republican candidates, who supported Trump’s attempts to cancel the results of the previous presidential elections, lost in these midterm elections, according to the Associated Press.

A poll of the Edison Research organization of the opinions of voters after the ballot showed this fear, as about 7 out of 10 voters confirmed that they believe that American democracy is in danger, according to Reuters on November 9.

In a sign of the toxic political climate in the country caused by Trump’s extremists, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi canceled most of her campaign after a member of extremist groups that support Trump stormed her home and hit her 82-year-old husband in the head with a hammer.

American newspapers fear that the simple majority of Republicans in the House of Representatives will affect the priorities of Biden’s deputies when they launch investigations into Trump’s political and financial irregularities.

It also fears that Trump’s supporters will reject the election results if the Democrats’ victories continue at the end of the count, claiming that the results are fake, as Trump said in the 2020 presidential elections, and hinted at the same thing in 2022.

Newsweek published an investigative report on December 20, 2021, entitled Millions of Angry, Armed Americans Stand Ready to Seize Power If Trump Loses in 2024, to explain how the armed far-right groups of Trump supporters and ordinary citizens, “tens of millions,” were completely convinced that Trump was a winner and the result was stolen.

Therefore, observers believe that the semi-final results of the midterm elections revealed that Biden, his Democratic Party, and their supporters succeeded in avoiding a major setback, and minimizing the damage due to the voters’ fear of Trump.

 

International Repercussions

The midterm elections for Congress do not concern only Americans, but are followed by countries whose interests are positively or negatively affected by the control of the Republicans or Democrats.

With indications that the Republicans won by small percentages, analysts are considering several repercussions on a number of files, foremost of which is the Russian-Ukrainian war, the Iranian nuclear program file, and the relationship with China and the Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia.

The Republicans’ obtaining a majority in Congress would paralyze Biden’s agenda for the next two years, and pave the way for Trump’s return to the White House if he ran; in addition to its impact on Arab issues, the return of support for Arab dictators, and the expected religious alliance between the American evangelical far-rights with the right-wing Zionists who won the Israeli Knesset elections.

Foreign Policy columnist Amy MacKinnon said on November 7 that the midterm congressional elections will be closely watched in Kyiv and in Moscow as well.

There have been calls from some Republicans calling for a reduction in US aid to Kyiv if they succeed in controlling Congress.

Kevin McCarthy, a prominent Republican member of the House of Representatives, said that the Americans should not give Ukraine a blank check.

America leads Western countries in terms of the amount of funds and weapons it has provided to Ukraine since the beginning of the war in February 2022, with more than $13.6 billion, including military and humanitarian aid.

On the Arab level, America’s relationship with Saudi Arabia has been strained since Biden came to power for several reasons, including human rights and Washington’s disregard for the Houthi attacks on Gulf lands.

Tensions increased after the Saudi-led OPEC+ coalition refused to increase oil production in line with Russian wishes, prompting Washington to threaten to impose sanctions on Riyadh.

But the writer for Foreign Policy magazine, Jack Deitch, had ruled out an improvement in relations between Saudi Arabia and the United States, whether the Republicans or the Democrats won.

He said there will be no more handshakes between Biden and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and inferred the pressure exerted by Republicans and Democrats on the Trump administration to stop supporting the Arab coalition in Yemen.

He expected that the US pressure regarding the human rights file in Saudi Arabia would continue, which would affect the US quest to complete the path of normalization between Riyadh and Tel Aviv.

As for the relationship with Iran, analysts believe that the Republicans’ control of power will hinder reaching an agreement on the nuclear file, on which the talks seem to have failed due to Tehran’s involvement in supporting Moscow’s war against Ukraine.

The writer in Foreign Policy magazine, Robbie Gramer, said on November 10 that the nuclear agreement at this stage is “dead” before it is reborn, and the Republicans will always use Iran as a talking point to hit Biden, saying that he is too lenient with it.