Joe Biden urged Americans to “stand up for democracy” on Monday, Nov. 7, in a final plea on the eve of an election that could render him politically powerless while orbiting rival Donald Trump for 2024. “The moment came for you to defend democracy,” the US president said.
“We viscerally know that our democracy is in danger”, he still assured, while Republican candidates in this multitude of ballots gathered under the name “midterms” threaten to contest a possible defeat. “We will be there. Power in America is where it has always been: in your hands, the hands of the people,” the 79-year-old Democrat said at a historically black university in Maryland, outside Washington.
The choice is significant for this elected president largely thanks to the support of the African-American community, which he has tried to remobilize in recent days. Faced with a generally enthusiastic audience – with the exception of a few noisy opponents quickly exfiltrated by security – he also tried to paint the Republicans as the party that “wants to get rid of” the social advances initiated under his mandate.
Across the country, polling stations will open at six or seven in the morning (11 a.m. or 12 p.m. GMT) depending on the state, on this first Tuesday following the first Monday in November, according to tradition for national elections in the United States. United. The entire House of Representatives, a third of the Senate and a whole series of local elected positions are at stake. Referendums on the right to abortion are also organized in four states: California, Vermont, Kentucky and Michigan.
Organized two years after the 2020 presidential election, these midterm elections are also a referendum on the occupant of the White House. The president’s party rarely escapes the sanction vote. According to the most recent opinion polls, the Republican opposition has a good chance of winning at least 10 to 25 seats in the lower house – more than enough to be in the majority there. Pollsters are more mixed about the fate of the Senate, but the Republicans seem to have the advantage there too.
The loss of control of both houses of Congress would have serious consequences for the Democrat, who has so far said he “intends” to run again in 2024, foreshadowing a possible remake of the 2020 duel.
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Trump promises ‘a really big announcement’ next week
Former US President Donald Trump, who is flirting with a new run for the White House, on Monday evening promised a ‘very big announcement’ for next week as Americans prepare to vote for an election on Tuesday. crucial midterms. “I am going to make a very big announcement on Tuesday, November 15 at Mar-a-Lago”, his residence in Florida, announced the Republican billionaire during a campaign rally in Ohio, on the eve of mid-term elections. mandate decisive for his political future and that of Joe Biden.
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Until the last moment, Donald Trump had cast doubt on a possible candidacy announced on Monday evening. But he assured not wanting to steal the show from the candidates he dubbed. Faced with a tide of red caps, the 76-year-old ex-president painted an extremely bleak picture of America under Joe Biden on Monday evening. A country where soaring prices “strangle households”, where “violent crime is out of control” and where the far left “indoctrinates our children”.
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“There is only one solution to put an end to this madness”, pleaded the American billionaire. “If you want to put an end to the destruction of our country and save the American dream, you must vote Republican tomorrow”, he assured Americans are called upon during this election to renew the entire House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate. A whole series of local elected positions, which decide their state’s policies on abortion or environmental regulation, in particular, are also at stake.
The 76-year-old billionaire announced that he would make “a very big announcement on Tuesday, November 15 at Mar-a-Lago”, his residence in Florida, well aware that a victory for his lieutenants in the polls on Tuesday could offer him the springboard ideal for a 2024 presidential candidacy.
“An election to save the country”
Joe Biden, for his part, says so far that he intends to run again in 2024, but the prospect does not delight all Democrats, because of his age – soon to be 80 – and his unpopularity. This confrontation by meeting interposed between the current and the former president concludes a campaign which crudely exposed the divisions of the first world power.
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In the audience who came to listen to Joe Biden, Marisha Camp, a photographer who made the trip from New York State (northeast), summarizes the feverishness of the Democratic camp. “There is a sense of urgency on the right, the feeling that everything is falling apart and that there is a moral duty to fix it… This urgency, I do not know why, is not not felt the same way on the blue side ”, that of the Democrats, she worries.
“We know deep down that this is an election to save the country,” echoed Republican candidate for Arizona senator Blake across the country. Masters. It could allow the “Grand Old Party” to regain a majority in the Senate if it wins.
Biden’s record overwhelmed by Republicans
White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre expressed calm on Monday, saying authorities had identified “no credible, specific threat” from within against election security. For their part, the Republicans believe they can not only take the House of Representatives, which is the classic scenario in these traditionally difficult elections for the White House party. But also snatch Joe Biden’s slim control of the powerful Senate.
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In the event of victory, the conservatives promise to scrutinize all the initiatives of the Biden administration, including internationally. Kevin McCarthy, possible future Republican boss of the House of Representatives, repeated Monday on CNN that he did not want to “write a blank check” to Ukraine if his party seized the majority. The White House countered that US support would be “unwavering” regardless of the outcome of the ballot – which may slowly settle as the votes count.
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Faced with the effectiveness of a Republican campaign centered on galloping inflation, Joe Biden had a hard time touting purchasing power reforms, which will only be felt in several years. The Democratic camp has therefore, beyond these economic subjects, sought to the end to paint the Republican Party as a threat to democracy and social achievements such as the right to abortion. Whether this will have the desired effect remains to be seen. Or if the well-known saying of an adviser to former President Bill Clinton holds true again, that in elections it’s always “the economy that counts” (“It’s the economy, stupid”).
Key duels
Concretely, the midterm elections are being played out in a handful of key states – the same ones that were already at stake in the 2020 presidential election. All the spotlights are thus on Pennsylvania, a former bastion of the steel industry, where multimillionaire Republican surgeon Mehmet Oz, knighted by Donald Trump, takes on bald colossus and former small-town Democratic mayor John Fetterman for the most contested Senate job. Because on this seat very possibly depends the balance of powers of this upper chamber, with immense power.
As in 2020, Georgia is also at the heart of all desires. Democrat Raphael Warnok, the first black senator ever elected in this southern state with a heavy segregationist past, is trying to get re-elected against Herschel Walker, a former African-American sportsman, also supported by the former president. Arizona, Ohio, Nevada, Wisconsin and North Carolina are also the scene of intense struggles, where Democrats everywhere are opposed to the candidates of Donald Trump, who swear absolute loyalty to the former tenant of the White House.
These breathless duels were all fueled by hundreds of millions of dollars, making this election the most expensive midterm elections in US history.