MADRID, 1 Nov. (EUROPA PRESS) –
US citizens are called to vote for a battery of mid-term elections or ‘midterm’, of which the most important of them will have the Capitol as the protagonist.
The polls will determine on November 8 the composition of the House of Representatives and the Senate for the next two years and, by extension, the room for maneuver of the current occupant of the White House.
The House of Representatives is completely renewed every two years. Its 435 seats are distributed according to the population of each of the states, in such a way that California has 52 congressmen and Wyoming, the least populated territory, with only one.
Currently, the Democrats control this legislative body thanks to their 220 seats, eight more than the Republicans, which allows the Biden party to approve any project without complications or even promote initiatives such as the investigation into the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The Senate, for its part, is renewed by thirds, with two seats per state, regardless of its population. Each senator gets a six-year term and, this time, 35 seats from a total of 34 states are up for grabs.
The Upper House, which has among its powers to endorse or overthrow public officials or judges appointed by the president of the United States, is currently divided, with 50 seats for each of the two major parties. However, the Democrats technically control it, since the tiebreaker vote falls on the Presidency of the Senate, held by Biden’s ‘number two’, Kamala Harris.
Controlling at least one of the chambers is key for any of the parties, since it allows them to promote their own legislative agenda and hinder the opponent’s. The president, however, has room to enact or veto the laws that emanate from Congress.
The polls do not take anything for granted, although the most likely scenario points to a Republican victory in the House of Representatives. If so, Biden and his supporters would lose the ability to promote some of the measures he has promised to promote, for example to enshrine the right to abortion with a federal law or introduce new controls on the sale of assault weapons.
The Republican Party, in addition, would manage to reverse the trend of the last elections in a key context, prior to the 2024 presidential elections, and would have one of its members as the third highest authority in the country. Current House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is the most likely choice to chair the body.
In the Senate, the Democrats have ‘a priori’ more options to retain control, although everything indicates that there will not be large imbalances in favor of either party. If the Republicans were to surprise and also control the Upper House, Biden’s political stability would be complicated, and he would only have to resort to the veto tool and hope for better luck two years from now.
Without either of the two chambers under his control, the president would be forced to focus on issues that do not depend so much on the approval of Congress, for example foreign policy proposals, if he wants to leave some important legacy in his last years or reinforce his campaign of facing the potential re-election in the presidential elections of 2024.
On the sidelines of the legislative elections, voting will be held in 36 states to elect the governor. The polls see different fortunes for the parties, in such a way that the Democrats can recover Massachusetts and Maryland and the Republicans Nevada, Wisconsin and even Oregon, where the emergence of a third candidate has marked the race.
There will also be local elections in dozens of cities, while more than a hundred state-level measures will be put to the vote. Proposals that may restrict the right to abortion will be voted on in several states, and the total list includes initiatives on weapons, gambling or marijuana — five states propose its use for recreational purposes.
