Democrats’ hopes high for taking House, but nothing is certain
WASHINGTON — The day of reckoning for American politics has nearly arrived.
Voters today will decide the $5-billion debate between President Donald Trump’s takeno-prisoner politics and the Democratic Party’s super-charged campaign to end the GOP’s hold on power in Washington and statehouses across the nation.
There are indications that a modest “blue wave” of support may help Democrats seize control of at least one chamber of Congress. But two years after an election that proved polls and prognosticators wrong, nothing is certain on the eve of the first nationwide elections of the Trump presidency.
All 435 seats in the U.S. House are up for re-election. And 35 Senate seats are in play, as are almost 40 governorships and the balance of power in virtually every state legislature.
While he is not on the ballot, Trump acknowledged on Monday that the 2018 midterms represent a referendum on his presidency.
“In a certain way I am on the ballot,” Trump told supporters during a tele-town hall organized by his re-election campaign. “The press is very much considering it a referendum on me and us as a movement.”
Should Democrats win control of the House, as strategists in both parties suggest is likely, they could derail Trump’s legislative agenda for the next two years. Perhaps more important, they would win subpoena power to investigate Trump’s many personal and professional missteps.