President Donald Trump appears clear-eyed that public disapproval of nearly every major policy of his, from the economy to immigration, could make the November midterm elections rough for his party. Republicans could lose control of Congress for the final two years of his time in office. Many state lawmakers and governor’s races are also on the ballot in November, and Democrats are eyeing big wins there, too.
As election season begins, here’s what will be decided in November’s midterm elections and how those races are shaping up.
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House
The battle for the House is probably the biggest event of the midterms. Every congressional seat across the country is on the ballot, and Democrats need to net only a handful of seats to take back the majority from Republicans. (Meaning the amount they win is more than than the amount they lose.) There are competitive races stretching from California to Iowa to Pennsylvania and New York.
Democrats winning the House is not a given. Republicans gave themselves a boost by aggressively gerrymandering districts in a number of states and Republicans have significantly more cashto spend on ads. But analysts on both sides of the aisle say voters are so focused on high prices that it will be hard for Republicans to keep control of the House, particularly with Trump’s unpopularity.
“Affordability is the top issue,” said Sarah Chamberlain, president of the Republican Main Street Partnership, which supports Republican lawmakers in competitive congressional districts, in a recent interview.
A recent poll by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report finds that voters in the congressional districts that will determine control of the House prefer a Democrat in Congress and trust Democrats better to handle the economy, inflation and the cost of energy.
If they win back the House, Democrats say they’re preparing to investigate nearly every aspect of Trump’s governance and his administration.
Senate
After Trump retook the White House, only the most optimistic Democrats were talking about retaking the Senate two years later. Now, it’s a real possibility.
“If the election were held today, we would win the majority,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (New York) told my colleagues at The Washington Post.
Republicans hold a narrow majority in the Senate, too, but because senators serve six-year terms, only a third of Senate seats are up for reelection in the midterms. It’s the luck of the draw for Republicans that most of those competitive races are in red-leaning or red states.
But Trump’s unpopularity, Democratic voter enthusiasm and independents’ dissatisfaction with what Republicans have done in power are helping Democrats be competitive in states where they haven’t won a Senate seat in decades, like Texas.
“Even red states aren’t safe when you see a president whose numbers have dropped as much as Trump’s have,” said Jessica Taylor, the Senate and governors editor for the election analysis site Cook Political Report.
To win the majority, nearly everything needs to go perfectly for Democrats in this election. They need to keep Michigan and Georgia in Democratic hands, then they need to beat Republicans in Maine and North Carolina, and then win at least two races in redder states such as Ohio, Alaska, Texas and Iowa.
The early campaign season has not gone perfectly for Democrats so far: They had a dramatic candidate implosion in Maine and there is some concernin Michigan that the party nominated someone too liberal, Abdul El-Sayed. But Republicans have their own unpopular or staid candidates.
“Iowa and Ohio rather than Michigan are in jeopardy for us, which is crazy,” a national Republican strategist said.
Governor’s races and state legislatures
Democrats have struggled to win at the state level for the past decade after Republicans invested heavily in wining state legislatures with the aim of controlling the redistricting process. They have been chipping away at that deficit, and this year they have a chance to make a significant dent in state control. They could win control of state Houses or state Senates (or both) in Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
“I’m very excited,” said Carolyn Fiddler, a Democratic state legislative analyst who writes the newsletter “Statehouse Action.” “A rising tide lifts all boats. And a lot of things are happening at the state level that are getting voters amped up.”
There are also competitive governor’s races in Nevada, Arizona, Ohio, Alaska, Michigan and Iowa. In some of these states, Democrats haven’t won the governor’s mansion in decades, but if they win the most competitive races, Democrats could control a majority of governor’s mansions in the country.
Amber Phillips writes The 5-Minute Fix newsletter, a quick analysis of the day’s biggest political news. Send her an email here, or ask a question that could be featured in an upcoming newsletter.
The post What’s on the ballot in these midterm elections appeared first on Washington Post.
