By definition, mid-term elections in America take place two years into the presidential term with two years before the next general election.
They have no direct relationship as to who the President of the United States residing in the White House is.
The midterm is about the election of officials to Congress – the other, legislative, branch of the United States government and offices in each of the 50 states, the constitutional counterweight to the centralized federal government in Washington DC.
In the excitement of carefully examining the numerous results of a massive nationwide vote involving millions, it is worth remembering that extrapolation from midterms is a very unreliable way to predict who will be the next president or even who they will be. the main candidates in the race.
Recent history shows just how wrong snap judgments can be. Two years after the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump was widely regarded as an unlikely jokey candidate. At a similar time before 2008, conventional wisdom was inclined to have Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani as candidates.
Quite different people, Barack Obama and John McCain, eventually fought. In 1994 Newt Gingrich led the “republican revolution” with his “contract with America”, shattering the ambitions of Bill Clinton’s Democrats. He was Time magazine man of the year and designated as future president. Despite numerous offers for the White House, he never came close.
The final results have not yet arrived, but there are already some indications of the political mood in the United States.
The “expected” red wave was more of a ripple. There is almost always a backlash against a presidential party in the first term in mid-term, but the Democrats fared much better under President Joe Biden than Obama or Clinton.
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Check out the results from the United States
Trump’s wave of support for Republicans fails to take off
As Dominic Waghorn reported here, Republican candidates backed by Donald Trump fared far worse than those who turned away from him.
Only a minority of Republican candidates were interested in campaigning on the “great theft” – the false claim that Trump actually won re-election in 2020, Republican analysts argue that the party is now moving away from Donald Trump’s obsession.
Dr. Mehmet Oz, a Republican candidate for the Senate in Pennsylvania, explicitly phoned Democrat John Fetterman to admit defeat. Trump is said to be furious with his wife Melania for approving the TV doctor. Fox News he belittled Trump on election night and Rupert Murdoch’s leading US newspapers, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, they have become very critical of him. The Post dubbed the former president “Trumpty Dumpty” this week.
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“Red wave” is not displayed
Control of the equally divided US Senate rests on three states that also played a key role in determining the outcome of the 2020 presidential contest: Nevada, Arizona and Georgia. Since the Republicans did not vote as strongly as they would have liked, the special electoral ballot in Georgia on December 6 will be crucial. According to state law, the winner must take more than 50% of the votes. In the first round, reigning Democratic pastor Raphael Warnock had 49.2% and his Republican opponent, former soccer star Herschel Walker, 48.7%.
From next January, the lower house of Congress, the House of Representatives, will go from Democratic to Republican. Kevin McCarthy will replace Nancy Pelosi as Speaker, the third elected office in the United States. A Republican House will most likely prevent President Biden from passing any further significant legislation. The investigation into the January 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol and Trump’s role in it will likely be closed.
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Donald Trump may soon be the news yesterday as the American right-wing media turns to Ron DeSantis
Could Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Thwart Donald Trump’s New White House Run?
The standout winner of the evening was 44-year-old Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida who won re-election with an avalanche of votes in what is now Trump’s home state. Another name to watch out for is the ambitious and high-profile JD Vance, the best-selling author of Hillbilly Elegy. He fought a poor campaign but still comfortably held the Ohio Senate seat for Republicans.
Immediately before the election, it was assumed that the 2024 race would be a 2020 rerun: Biden v Trump. Both men had already indicated their intention to get up, although neither of them had yet made a formal statement. If he (all men until now) presented his name, a president in office like Biden would normally not be seriously challenged by his own party. Trump’s car seemed to be unbeatable.
Battle between Trump and DeSantis expected
The relatively mild jokes from the Democrats this week would appear to solidify Biden in place. But now there’s a question mark about Trump, despite his upfront insistence that a poor Republican show would have nothing to do with him. A nomination battle between Trump and DeSantis is widely expected. Things are unlikely to be that simple.
Mr. Trump faces busy days. On Monday he is under subpoena before the House inquiry on January 6, though it’s a matter of conjecture whether he will show up. On Tuesday he promised to make a “very big announcement” which he said will “possibly” be the biggest in American history. This is expected to be the official launch of his re-election candidacy in 2024. Winning or losing, the campaign is a source of income for Trump.
Becoming president would be the best escape from the various civil and legal cases that are overwhelming him. But the Republican hierarchy doesn’t want him to be their candidate and the pressure builds on him to delay. If he retires, Mr. DeSantis will surely step forward. However, there would certainly be a contested primary season for the Republican nomination, with no certainty that Mr. DeSantis would come out the winner. DeSantis’ prospects are even more uncertain if he is locked in a bloody competition with Trump, with others posing as compromise candidates.
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The answer to the Republican candidate’s dilemma could determine whether Joe Biden, who will celebrate his 80th birthday on November 20, will really bid for the Democratic nomination and a second term. Analyzing the data, Republican pollster Frank Luntz explains that Biden is the only Democratic candidate who could beat Trump (he has already done so once) but, paradoxically, any other Republican candidate would beat Biden. If it’s not against Trump, the Democrats would be wise to go with someone other than Biden.
Fallibility of opinion polls
The fallibility of American opinion polls further increases uncertainty. Surveys and the data mining aggregators working on them, such as Nate Silver’s 538.com, had another bad night this week. John Della Volpe, the head of polls at Harvard University’s Kennedy School, did much better by predicting the simple “red ripple”.
He points out that most commercial polls are commissioned by right-wing entities and tend to show that Republicans are doing better than is the case. In particular, their samples failed to reflect the high-level commitment of younger voters and their centrist tendencies, most likely reinforced by the Supreme Court ruling against abortion.
All of this means that we still don’t know what the political battlefield will be in 2024 and we can’t be sure who the “leaders” will be. It is unwise to read too much into the medium term or pay close attention to the same experts who told us that President Trump in 2024 was practically a frozen certainty. The confused wonders of democracy were indeed in a runoff this November.
