Tough battles ahead in US mid-term poll
Election puts contentious gun control issue under the spotlight once again
Several notable races will take place on Tuesday in the US midterm elections, when Americans go to the polls to elect governors and members of the US House of Representatives and Senate.
One of the most expensive and closely watched Senate races is in Texas, where incumbent Republican Senator Ted Cruz faces Democratic Representative Beto O’Rourke.
O’Rourke, 46, whose given names are Robert Francis but who goes by Beto, is mounting a surprisingly strong challenge to Cruz, 47, in the reliably Republican “Lone Star State”. O’Rourke, a three-term congressman and former member of a punk band, is drawing enthusiastic support from many urban dwellers in Texas while Cruz does better in conservative rural areas.
Plucking the Senate seat from Cruz, who battled Donald Trump for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, would be a major victory for the Democratic Party.
In Georgia, Stacy Abrams, 44, the former minority leader of the state House of Representatives, is running for governor against Republican Brian Kemp, the 55-year-old Georgia secretary of state.
Abrams, who has received the support of Oprah Winfrey and other celebrities, would be the first black woman to become governor of a US state if she wins.
The race has seen allegations that Kemp has attempted to prevent tens of thousands of mainly black voters from taking part in the election.
Arizona will have a woman representing the southwestern state in the US Senate for the first time as two women battle for the seat being vacated by Jeff Flake, a Trump critic who is not running for re-election.
The Republican flag bearer is Martha McSally, a 52-year-old former US Air Force fighter pilot and two-term member of the House of Representatives. McSally’s Democratic opponent is Kyrsten Sinema, 42, a threeterm member of the House of Representatives.
McSally and Sinema are running neck-in-neck in a state which President Donald Trump won by 3.5 percentage points in the 2016 presidential election.
Two of the most-watched races in the country are in Florida. Democrat Bill Nelson, 76, was first elected to the Senate in 2000 and was easily re-elected in 2006 and 2012.
But Nelson, who served as a payload specialist on a Space Shuttle in 1986, is facing a tough challenge this time from Florida’s Republican Governor Rick Scott.
Gun control is a big issue in the race following the February shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, which left 17 people dead.
Another close race in Florida is for a governor to replace the 65-year-old Scott.
Democrat Andrew Gillum, 39, the African-American mayor of Tallahassee, is locked in a battle with Ron DeSantis, 40, a member of the House of Representatives and ardent Trump supporter.
Kemp allegedly tried to block tens of thousands of voters from taking part in the election