Trump, rivals in final push to sway voters
32.4M EARLY BALLOTS POINT TO HIGH OVERALL TURNOUT IN MIDTERMS
US congressional candidates hammered into the home stretch of a bruising campaign season yesterday, with Democrats focused on protecting a 2010 healthcare law while President Donald Trump touted economic growth and sounded dire warnings on immigration.
Control of both houses of the US Congress, currently dominated by Republicans, and 36 governors’ offices will be at stake when Americans vote in Tuesday’s elections. Interest has been unusually high for a non-presidential election year, with early voting running well ahead of past cycles.
Opinion polls and nonpartisan forecasters generally show Democrats with a strong chance of taking the 23 additional seats they would need for a majority in the House of Representatives, which they could use to launch investigations into Trump’s administration and block his legislative agenda.
Republicans are favoured to retain control of the Senate, whose powers include confirming Trump’s nominations to lifetime seats on the Supreme Court.
“Heading to Montana and Florida today! Everyone is excited about the Jobs Numbers — 250,000 new jobs in October. Also, wages rising. Wow!” Trump said on Twitter.
As of Friday night, almost 32.4 million people had cast ballots early, according to The Election Project at the University of Florida, which tracks turnout.
That is up more than 50 per cent from the 20.5 million early votes cast in all of 2014, the last federal election when the White House was not at stake. The trend suggests a high overall turnout for contests that could define the final two years of Trump’s term.
Some analysts said the president’s repeated visits to states that he won in 2016 were a signal Republicans were worried about keeping control of Congress.
Twitter deleted thousands of automated accounts, many posing as Democrats, that were posting tweets encouraging US voters to sit out the elections, according to media reports.