RIGHT TURN

Republicans hold both houses

Heading into election day, the Republican party holds control of the US Presidency, the lower House of Representatives and the upper Senate — together these two chambers are known collectively as Congress — and to emerge from the midterms with maintained or enhanced majorities would represent a very significant, if unlikely, endorsement.

In the House of Representatives, the Republicans would need to prevent the Democrats from winning 23 more races in the 435 up for re-election. Right now, with 33 senate seats up for re-election, the Republicans hold a slim two-seat majority. Opinion polls show the Democrats with a lead of about 10 percentage points. But opinion polls have been wrong before — most noticeably in the 2016 presidential race. What’s more, the senate seats that are up for re-election are in states that are mostly solidly red — traditional Republican areas. But a win in both houses, and the Republicans have a mandate to get tough on immigration, eliminate public health care, strip back social programmes, rip up environmental and workplace regulations and remake the US federal government in a big-C conservative mould. A double victory would be an endorsement of the turbulent and divisive policies of Trump, and kill off the investigation into Russian collusion in that 2016 presidential election.