WASHINGTON: As the US heads into mid-term election tomorrow (Tuesday), Americans will decide control of the US House and Senate for the next two years.
Republicans made a final push Sunday to prevent a predicted thumping in US midterm elections where Democrats are gunning to win Congress and impose a first political check on President Donald Trump’s unprecedented pursuit of power.
Democrats have a sizable advantage in the battle for control of Congress days ahead of the midterm elections, a new national NBC News poll finds, with voters clamoring for change and voicing all-time high disapproval of President Donald Trump.
Registered voters prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress by a 7-point margin, with Democrats leading Republicans 52pc-45pc — 2 points more than in last month’s poll. That includes a 21-point lead among independents.
Another NBC News poll released Sunday showed 60 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s performance, particularly over high prices exacerbated by his now eight-month, sputtering war against Iran.
Reports said there are 210 million registered voters who are the key to determining the makeup of Congress. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 of the Senate’s 100 seats are being contested, including special elections in the states of Florida and Ohio to fill the seats vacated by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance.
More than 52 million Americans have already voted in person or by mail, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab, a record for a midterm and up from nearly 46 million who voted before the Election Day in 2022.
Midterm elections are also widely considered a referendum on the sitting president’s performance. Since 1946, the president’s party has lost an average of 26.5 seats in the House and a handful in the Senate in midterm elections.
This time, the Democrats hope to capitalise on the deep voter dissatisfaction with the party in power in Washington DC, President Trump’s own performance and the “crisis of affordability” that he has been unable to resolve. Voters in 36 states will also elect governors. House members represent one congressional district each and serve two-year terms, while senators serve six-year terms.
Republicans are defending their slim congressional majorities, but President Donald Trump predicts the GOP (Republican party) will hold the House and Senate. “If you elect a Republican House and a Republican Senate on Nov 3, we will continue to put America first every single day,” the president pledged on the campaign trail last week. And he claimed if the Democrats take control, “this country will go to hell.”
Republicans are fighting political history, as the party in power in Washington has traditionally lost seats during midterm election years. The GOP also faces a challenging political climate fueled by persistent inflation tied in part to what polls show is an unpopular war with Iran and Trump’s increasingly negative approval ratings.
Also up for grabs in this year’s midterm elections — governorships in 36 of the 50 states (as well as the territories of Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the US Virgin Islands). Plus, all but four states are holding legislative elections. And voters will also weigh in on 145 statewide ballot measures in states from coast to coast.
Republicans currently control the chamber 53-47, with the final Fox News Power Rankings ahead of Election Day rating the race for Senate control a toss-up. Both parties are three seats short of a majority, according to the forecast. Democrats are favoured in 48 seats and Republicans are ahead in 47. The GOP needs to hold 50 seats to retain control of the chamber, since Republican Vice President JD Vance is the tie-breaking vote in the Senate.
If Democrats ride a blue wave to victory by winning most or all of the competitive races, they could potentially come away from the midterms with up to 54 seats. But if Republicans have a good night and defy expectations, the GOP could hold the majority with up to 52 seats, according to the forecast.
A good night for the Democrats could see them ending up with as many as 240 seats in the 435-seat chamber. But if Republicans have a good night, they could end up with 212 seats. That’s six short of a majority, but enough to make life difficult for the next Democratic House speaker, who would have to balance the demands of the moderate and far-left wings of the party.
The earliest-closing districts on election night will give some sense of the House’s future.
Polls show Democrats are all but certain to take the majority from Republicans in the House of Representatives and -- against all previous expectations -- with a shot at winning the Senate.
But after a decade of Trump defying political gravity and two years of a second presidency in which he has ridden roughshod over every norm, Democrats remain nervous. “Nauseously optimistic,” Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock told CNN to describe the mood.
Trump headlined the Republicans’ last-ditch charge, holding rallies for candidates in Iowa and Kansas -- states where ordinarily his party should be confident of victory and not require presidential boosts. Along with making lurid claims that Democrats will turn the country communist, Trump is dangling the promise of $5,000 payments to everyone in the country if his party wins. “I feel good,” Trump told reporters at his luxury golf club in Florida late Saturday. “The country has never done better.”
A Democratic House would impose the first real political constraints on Trump since he swept back into office in 2025. The Republican’s second term has featured a relentless expansion of presidential power. Winning the House would give Democrats serious power. They’d be in charge of the budget and take control of committees set to probe allegations of mass corruption, Trump’s links to infamous sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and other explosive topics.
Reflecting the high stakes, these midterms have seen about $11.6 billion spent on advertising, with large chunks coming from individual mega-donors. Elon Musk, a close Trump ally who led the so-called DOGE in dismantling entire government departments, has given a staggering nearly half-billion dollars to help get Republican candidates elected.
The campaigns have also been marked by blistering language and insults, such as Trump’s repeated false claims that Michigan’s Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed is a “jihadist.”
Hanging over everything is concern that Republicans will refuse to accept a loss, leading to a constitutional crisis similar to Trump’s attempt to overturn his 2020 presidential election defeat.
White House has spent months preparing for a possible Democratic takeover of Congress, developing plans to keep advancing major parts of Trump’s agenda through executive power while bracing for investigations of his administration, according to a White House official and two people familiar with the plans.
Among the executive actions under consideration are new tariffs on imports of critical minerals and wind turbines, tighter rules on visas for international students and temporary foreign workers, and measures aimed at lowering housing and construction costs, the White House official said.
