Shadow of Trump looms over vote
TURNOUT BIG AS DEMOCRATS MAINTAIN EDGE IN HOUSE, GOP IN SENATE
The U.S. political balance appeared set to tilt leftward Tuesday as early results came in from a midterm election seen as a watershed moment for the tumultuous Donald Trump presidency.
At stake was control of at least one house in the United States Congress, and with it Trump’s ability to drive ahead with an unconventional style of government that has divided Americans like rarely before. Democratic candidates had won or were leading in a net 25 or so House of Representative seats held by the Republicans by about 9:30 p.m., on target for gaining the 23 extra districts they needed to seize a majority in the House. But Republicans appeared bound to hold onto the Senate, and possibly even pick up a couple of seats. At least two Democratic senators lost their elections. Meanwhile, two of the mostwatched races — for governor and senator in Florida — seemed headed toward the kind of nailbiting close finish for which the state is famous. Democrat Andrew Gillum, vying to become the first African-American governor of Florida, was trailing Republican Ron DeSantis by barely a percentage point with most of the votes in, but not enough to declare a winner. Rick Scott had a similarly narrow edge over Democrat Bill Nelson.
In one surprise, star Democrat candidate Beto O’Rourke, touted as a potential presidential contender, moved ahead of incumbent Senator Ted Cruz in early returns in Texas, a bedrock Republican state.
Yet across the country, despite Democratic gains, there were few signs of an overwhelming blue wave.
“It’s heartbreaking,” former Barack Obama adviser Van Jones said on CNN, noting the lack of a widespread repudiation of Trump. Drawing attention like few other midterm contests, the election has pitted competing visions of the country against each other, with race often being front and centre, punctuated by two racially tinged crimes.
In a string of rallies attracting thousands of supporters in battleground states and districts, Trump leaned heavily on his antiimmigration views, portraying a caravan of central-American migrants as a dire threat, and the other party as pandering to illegal immigrants. “Democrats are inviting caravan after caravan, illegal immigrants to flood into our country,” he said at a rally on the election’s eve Monday.
Trump also touted a booming U.S. economy that continues to pump out jobs and raise average wages. But his economic arguments were overshadowed by those appealing to nativist sentiments, such as a promise to end the automatic right of anyone born in the States to citizenship. Democrats themselves sought to root their campaigns in more bread-and-butter issues, such as what they portrayed as Republican assaults on the popular aspects of Obamacare. But former president Barack Obama was among those who directly targeted Trump and his personal style and beliefs, saying at one point “the character of the country is on the ballot.” Indeed, the election was in many ways a referendum on the president himself, two years after he beat most predictions and took the White House, even as he lost the popular vote. According to CNN, exit polling showed that twothirds of voters considered the election to be about Trump, whose approval rating remains below 50 per cent.
In a possible sign of American interest in the election, advance voting was at levels above those in 2014 in at least 35 states, and reports suggested a heavy turnout on Tuesday as well.
The election saw all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 of 100 in the Senate up for grabs, as well as 36 governorships, many of those state races toss-ups, according to polls. Going into election day, the Democrats needed a net gain of 23 seats to take over a majority in the House, and polling indicated that they stood an excellent chance of achieving that.
The Republicans were likewise expected to keep their slim, 51-49 advantage in the Senate, or perhaps even add to their majority. A disproportionate number of the seats up for election were in traditionally Republican states with Democratic incumbents. Opposition control of the House could seriously impede Trump’s plans for the next two years, which include trying to build a wall along the Mexican border, possible new tax cuts and more attempts to dismantle Obamacare. A Democrat-controlled House was expected to pursue anti-corruption and voter-rights legislation, and hold multiple investigations on controversial aspects of the Trump administration, not least being allegations of collusion between his 2016 campaign and Russia. They have also talked about pushing for improvements to the Obamacare system.
The future of the special counsel investigation headed by Robert Mueller could also depend on whether Democrats take control of one of the houses. Should he conclude that Trump committed a crime, a Democratic House could launch impeachment proceedings, but the process would likely come to a halt in a GOP-held Senate. The midterms also featured some potentially historic candidates, including Stacey Abrams, who would be the first black woman to be governor if she won in Georgia.