Down to the wire:
• New poll suggests that while Democrats have an edge, Republicans can take advantage of positive assessments of the economy
Former US president Barack Obama greets voters during a rally in Gary, Indiana. The most expensive midterm campaign in US history raced to a finish ahead of Tuesday’s election, as both sides braced for a possible split decision that would hand the House to Democrats and leave Republicans holding on to or expanding their Senate majority.
Donald Trump, his Republicans and their Democratic rivals steeled themselves for a frenzied day of campaigning on Monday on the eve of midterm elections, when voters will render their verdict on the president’s first two years in office.
Trump has seized on the us-versus-them message that resonated with his base during the 2016 campaign as he races across the country to secure votes, using inflammatory language as he paints a country under threat from hordes of illegal immigrants, rampant crime and far-left Democrats.
“They want to impose socialism on our country. And they want to erase America’s borders,” Trump told a raucous rally in Chattanooga, Tennessee late on Sunday.
As Republicans aim to protect their majorities in the US House and Senate, Democrats hope their strong grassroots enthusiasm can help them win back at least partial control of Congress.
Fierce political battles were raging in races across the nation. In traditionally red Texas, popular Democrat Beto O’Rourke is trying to dethrone Senator Ted Cruz. Republican Pete Stauber might flip a House Democratic stronghold in Minnesota.
In Florida and Georgia, Democrats are aiming to become the states’ first African American governors.
Monday was a barnstormer for Trump, who made stops in Ohio and Indiana before a final campaign pitch in Missouri, where he was trying to knock Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill out of office.
Trump was on a hectic schedule of campaign appearances for Republican candidates on Sunday.
Former president Barack Obama made a last-ditch appeal for an endangered Senate Democrat in Indiana.
“You gotta get to the polls on Tuesday, and you gotta vote,” Trump implored a crowd in Macon, Georgia, where he campaigned for the Republican gubernatorial candidate in one of the country’s tightest major races. “The contrast in this election could not be more clear.”
Obama laid into the president for the investigations into Russian interference in the US election that are weighing on his administration. “They’ve racked up enough indictments to fill a football team,” Obama scoffed. “Nobody in my administration got indicted.”
Political passions have risen to a rare peak, with early voting in some states already running far ahead of normal levels.
“It’s all about turnout,” Senator Chris van Hollen told Fox News Sunday.
Democrats are far better positioned to reclaim a majority in the House, experts and polls say. But in the first midterm under Trump — an utterly unconventional president — there are many unknowns, above all the bottom-line impact of a president who has driven both supporters and foes to a rare fever pitch of emotion. “I can’t speak to the blue, but I can speak to the red,” Trump said.
The party of a first-term president tends to lose congressional seats in his first midterm. But a healthy economy favours the incumbent — and the US economy has been growing with rare vigour.
A new Washington Post-ABC News poll suggested that while Democrats retain an edge in their battle for the House, Republicans could take advantage of increasingly positive assessments of the economy and by Trump’s harsh focus on border security.
It found registered voters preferred Democratic candidates for the House over Republicans by 50% to 43%, but that was down from a 14-point advantage in August.
A second poll, by NBC and The Wall Street Journal, showed Democrats holding the same seven-point advantage. But in what could be a sharp warning sign for Republicans, that poll reported that college-educated white women — the so-called suburban moms seen as crucial to the 2018 outcome — favour Democrats by a substantial 61% to 33%.
Another wild card: the campaign’s closing days come just a week after a gunman, who allegedly hated immigrants and Jews, killed 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue.
A fanatical Trump supporter was also arrested on charges of mailing pipe bombs to prominent opponents of the president, including Obama.
The president’s critics say the highly charged atmosphere he has helped create made the two attackers feel sufficiently comfortable to carry out their crimes. Trying to move past that, the Republicans have been enthusiastically pressing the economic argument.
But Democrats painted sharp distinctions with Trump, insisting that only they will protect the health-care gains made under Obama.