When to watch
year. And it is an extremely rough map for the Democrats, as they are playing defence far more than offence. The party already holds 26 of the seats up for re-election, of which 10 are in states that voted for Trump in 2016, some by up to 19 points. Meanwhile, the Republicans are defending only nine seats, of which just one is in a state that went to Hillary Clinton in 2016 – Nevada.
This atrocious map has led to the Democrats widening their field of attack and going after some more long-shot races in Texas and Tennessee, all while playing some serious defence elsewhere. Given they are bound to lose at least one current senator – probably Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota – they will need to win Nevada, Arizona, and one of those longshots to gain control.
A referendum on Trump? Kind of
Obviously, every single race is local. The Senate particularly favours maverick candidates able to buck their party and appear bipartisan – that’s why the Democrats in Trump states such as Missouri are still competitive.
But these are races for national office, and voters understand that. The president himself has described the race as a referendum on his time in office. At other times he’s described it as a kind of apocalyptic precipice, saying that Democrats, if elected, will open the borders and unleash waves of crime. (His main campaign slogan has been ‘‘Jobs not mobs’’.) Meanwhile, his main opposition on the campaign trail, former president Barack Obama, has also described it as a referendum on Trumpism, a chance for the US to push back into ‘‘reality-based governance’’.
In terms of national issues, nothing has come close to healthcare and immigration. Despite the booming economy, and a godsend of a jobs report in the middle of the campaign, Trump has been far more keen to talk about the ‘‘caravan’’ of migrants on its way to the southern border than he has about the economy.
He’s said Democrats want to open up US borders completely, allow illegal immigrants to vote, and even implied the Left has been supporting the caravan financially. None of this is backed by any evidence, but Democrats do have a more liberal outlook on immigration than Republicans. Trump’s rhetoric on this issue has risen to such a level that CNN, NBC, and Fox News have stopped playing his latest ad on the topic because they view it as too offensive.
On the other side of the ledger, the Democrats have been desperate to talk about healthcare above all else. Indeed, topics like the Russian election meddling and other corruption allegations have barely got a look in.
Surprisingly, the Democrats’ 2010 healthcare reform, known as ‘‘Obamacare’’, which subsidises health insurance for a lot of low-income people and prevents insurance companies from discriminating on the basis of pre-existing conditions, has become very popular as Republicans have tried and failed to dismantle it.
The pre-existing conditions protection is now politically untouchable, leading to Republicans all over the country promising to keep it, including the president. And yet the Republican incumbents can’t escape their multiple votes to repeal the law, meaning Democrats have lots of ammo for attack ads.
Polls suggest healthcare is the most important issue for voters, but immigration is not far behind.
The money and the early vote
Two other signs are giving Democrats confidence: fundraising and the early vote.
The Democrats have massively outstripped the Republicans for fundraising this cycle, mostly from small donors and probably on the back of antiTrump sentiment. The Democrats and their allied outside groups will spend roughly US$2.5 billion this cycle, well above the Republicans’
US$2.2b. Their biggest advantage is in the House, their most likely target. In the 69 most competitive House races, Democrats have raised US$252m to Republicans’
US$172m. This huge spend means that basically every ad on American TV in certain states right now is political, as are all the ads on social media.
There’s also the early vote. Democrats typically suffer in midterms thanks to their core constituencies – the young and ethnic minorities – not bothering to turn out and vote. This election their people seem to be coming out, particularly in Florida and Georgia, two states where a popular AfricanAmerican has a good chance of becoming governor. (The logic goes that people turn out to vote for the governor’s race then end up voting for other Democrats down the ticket.)
As of the day before the election, 36m people had voted, well above the total early vote in the last midterms of 21m. Three key states for the Democrats – Arizona, Texas, and Nevada – have surpassed the total vote from last time, all with early voting. Young people seem to be driving that surge: in Nevada and Texas, there are five times the number of voters under 30 than in the last midterms.
And yet, early vote tea-leaf reading is remarkably hard. You cannot tell how many of those people would have voted anyway, and simply showed up early because it was more convenient. And the race may have energised Trump voters to come out and defend him.
There’s another reason to believe the Democrats are going to have a good night. Trump himself has started to set up a narrative whereby any loss is not his fault, noting repeatedly that he’s ‘‘not running’’ but that he has a ‘‘tremendous impact’’ with the campaigning he has had. Then again, multiple reports suggest Trump didn’t think he was going to win in 2016 either, and a small polling error could easily see those predictions of a Democratic House takeover blown to smithereens. You never know. Polls start closing at 11am NZT. Stuff will run a live blog throughout the day.