Congress control, Trump agenda in balance

Could be a big Democratic year

WASHINGTON, Sept 26, (AFP): Do Americans support the Republicans shepherding Donald Trump’s policies through Congress? Or do they want Democrats to reclaim the House and Senate and block the controversial president’s agenda?

These are the main political questions to be answered in just six weeks, when US voters pick the representatives to send to Washington and to state legislatures, as well as the governors of three dozen states.

With polls consistently showing a Democratic advantage, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has likened his Republican party’s efforts to hold on its majority to a “knife fight in an alley.”

Several political experts are talking about a possible “wave election,” a term used to describe a party making major gains in either the House or Senate, or both.

History suggests it could be a big Democratic year, as the party controlling the White House often loses seats in Congress two years after a president takes office.

Occur

US midterm elections occur halfway through a president’s four-year term, when the president himself is not on the ballot.

Election Day this year is November 6, although nearly all 50 US states allow some form of early voting.

All 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up for grabs every two years. In the 100-member Senate terms last six years, and 35 seats are up in November.

Republicans currently hold a 236193 advantage in the House, and a 5149 Senate edge.

Democrats would need to gain an additional 25 seats to reclaim the House.

A two-seat Senate gain would give

nings to conduct two executions this week, it is set to put to death a man convicted of drowning a woman in a bathtub 20 years ago and dumping her cement-encased body in a remote area. Troy Clark, 51, was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at the state’s death chamber in Huntsville at 6 pm (2300 GMT). On Thursday, Texas NEW YORK, Sept 26, (RTRS): An Indiana US senator seen as one of the chamber’s most vulnerable Democrats has a slight edge while four of his Rust Belt Democratic colleagues have solid leads in states President Donald Trump won in 2016, a Reuters poll found.

A Reuters/Ipsos/UVA Center for Politics Poll released on Wednesday found that a majority of likely voters in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan and Indiana disapprove of the Republican president and more than one-third were “very motivated” to back someone who would oppose his policies.

The poll found that Senator Joe Donnelly of Indiana has a 3 percentage point lead among likely voters over Republican businessman Mike Braun. Braun, a former state representative, has positioned himself as a Trump-like candidate who would bring an outsider’s perspective to politics in Vice President Mike Pence’s home state.

Democrats are aiming to win two more Senate seats in the Nov 6 congressional election to take a majority

Democrats control in that chamber, but this year’s Senate electoral map is particularly challenging, as Democrats are defending 26 seats compared to just nine for Republicans.

The election’s impact could be monumental, beyond just whether Congress will support or impede Trump’s agenda.

Should Democrats flip the House, the likelihood of impeachment proceedings against Trump would increase dramatically.

plans to execute Daniel Acker, 46, who was convicted of kidnapping and murdering a woman in 2000.

Both men have maintained they are innocent. If the executions go ahead, they would be the 17th and 18th this year in the United States. Texas has already executed eight inmates this year and has put more in that chamber and serve as a check on Trump’s agenda. They can ill afford to lose any of the five seats covered by the poll.

Trump won the five states after pitching himself as a business-savvy pragmatist who would improve the lives of working class Americans. Two years later, more than half of likely voters in those states think the country is now on the “wrong track,” the poll found. “There are lots of places in this region where economic opportunity has been stifled,” said Kyle Kondik, a political analyst at the Center for Politics.

Kondik said the Rust Belt frequently shifts its support between parties, in some cases because voters who are frustrated with the lack of economic progress come to the ballot box intent on checking the party in power.

This year Democrats have the added advantage of being able to attack an unpopular president as well as Republicans’ deficit-increasing tax plan and their failed effort to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, he said.

Investigations into Trump’s administration, including the probe about his campaign possibly colluding with Russia, would intensify.

Committee chairmanships shifting to the Democrats could result in a new round of subpoenas.

And Democratic control of the Senate, which votes on the president’s nominees, would make it harder for Trump to get any new picks onto the Supreme Court should a vacancy occur.

prisoners to death than any state since the US Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.

Clark was convicted of killing Christina Muse in 1998. Clark lived with his thengirlfriend, Tory Bush, and the two used and sold methamphetamine, according to documents filed in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. (AP)

Flooding envelops homes:

A week ago, firefighters in Conway went to a neighborhood and told surprised residents their houses would flood from Hurricane Florence even though they had never had water in them before.

On Monday and Tuesday, those same firefighters checked on those same neighborhoods with maps that detailed each of the nearly 1,000 homes that could expect to be inundated. “It’s kind of playing out exactly like we forecast,” Conway Fire Chief Le Hendrick said.

Twelve days after the once-fierce hurricane arrived on the coast, and more than a week after it blew north and dissipated, rivers swollen by its relentless rains are still flooding homes and businesses in their paths as they make their way to the sea.

The slow-moving disaster has allowed forecasters to pinpoint exactly who will flood. There have been few rescues or surprises in South Carolina - just black, reeking water slowly seeping in and even more slowly receding. (AP)