LAST UPDATE | 8 Nov 2022
IT COMES AROUND so fast every four years, that wonderful time in the US election cycle when we get to use the word ‘gubernatorial’.
Yes, it’s midterms time. The US voting day when the White House isn’t the main talking point but it’s instead about the other strands of US democracy.
Most centrally it’s about the US Senate, the US House of Representatives and various state governors; houses, the latter being the ‘gubernatorial’ races.
But while it’s not overtly about the presidency, the midterms are still a question of Red vs Blue, Republican vs Democrat and about which party is ascendant heading towards the next presidential election in 2024.
On the basis of the polling, the Republicans are likely to see favourable swings across the board but Democrats are hoping they can win some tighter races to keep a bad night from becoming an awful one.
There’s voting taking place across all 50 US states today and the votes will begin to be counted straight away once polls close.
We’re expecting our first exit poll results at 10 pm Irish-time.
Well, all 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up for grabs, as are 34 of the 100 seats in the Senate.
Currently, Democrats have the narrowest of majorities in the Senate and a healthier majority in the House. The Senate is tied 50-50 but the casting vote of Vice President Kamala Harris gives the Democrats the edge.
The US Congress is made up of two houses, the House and and the Senate. Those elected to the Senate are referred to as senators, and those elected to the House are called congressmen or congresswomen.
Both houses work together, and with the President, to pass federal laws and are therefore the most closely watched when it comes to midterms.
When a party controls both the Presidency and Congress, as is currently the case for the Democrats, they have more power to pass the kind of legislation they want.
With all of the seats up for grabs in the House, this is where we’re most likely to see the biggest swing of the night. If Republicans can turn the polling momentum into votes then they have a very good chance of turning the House to their majority.
In fact, they’re heavy favourites to do just that.
In tweet earlier today, President Joe Biden seemed to sum up the mood.
“We need all hands on deck to elect Democrats,” he said.
With the margin tight in the Senate and only a third of the seats up for grabs, a couple of seats either way could change everything.
Indeed, even though there are 34 seats up for grabs, only about eight are seen as having the potential to swing either way. Of those, it may even come down to five or so toss-ups that will decide the balance of power.
If things are really close, we may have to wait until December to know the result in Georgia (more on that later) to know exactly who controls the Senate.
Some races will take days to be completed but if you’re willing to stay up until tomorrow morning you will have a good idea of who won and where.
We should start getting the first hit of actual results at about 1am tonight Irish-time, with a good clear idea of how it all shakes out by 3am-4am.
This sliding graph from polling website FiveThirtyEight shows the times when we will expect results in Eastern Time (Irish time minus 5 hours).
When will we know 2022 midterm election results? https://t.co/9jq8NlflAA #Election2022 pic.twitter.com/CBWhtRRTQm
— FiveThirtyEight (@FiveThirtyEight) November 6, 2022
Pennsylvania
The key to tipping the balance of power in the Senate is to win seats currently held by the other party. Pennsylvania looks like an ideal chance for the Democrats to do just this.
Whoever wins the seat of retiring Irish-American Republican Pat Toomey will go a long way to deciding the Senate and it’s probably the most-watched race across the US.
Democrat John Fetterman’s commanding lead over Republican celebrity medic Mehmet Oz has all but evaporated and the race is now neck-and-neck.
Presidents past and present Donald Trump, Barack Obama and Joe Biden have all campaigned in Pennsylvania over the past few days, highlighting just how important it is.
The Journal was in Pennsylvania last month when Biden paid another visit to the state, fundraising on behalf of Fetterman.
Oz’s ties to the state are tenuous and he was something of a surprise selection to win the Republican primary, with Trump’s support significant.
If he were to win the seat, he would be the first ever Muslim US Senator but his religion hasn’t featured much as part of the campaign.
Instead, issues like crime and abortion have been to the forefront of the battle, with Fetterman’s health problems also a big talking point.
Fetterman suffered from a stroke in May and it led to auditory processing issues for the candidate that made for a difficult debate performance last month.
Polls in Pennsylvania will close at 1am Irish-time on Wednesday morning and we should have a lot of votes counted in the hours afterwards.
Some mail-in votes may take a number of days to be counted, however, so if it ends up being super-tight we may be waiting a while.
Nevada
In Nevada, Republican challenger Adam Laxalt leads current Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto by less than a percentage point.
This means therefore that Nevada is a big opportunity for a flip for Republicans.
Democratic strategists have sounded the alarm over turnout, with many Latinos threatening to sit out the election despite Cortez Masto being the first-ever Latina woman elected to the US Senate.
“It’s what’s keeping me up at night,” Melissa Morales, president of the pro-Cortez Masto Somos PAC, told NBC.
What I’m looking at is: Do Latinos actually turn out to vote this year? If we see high turnout, we win in Nevada.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee launched Spanish language ad messages in the summer, focusing on the Democratic candidate’s criminal justice record when she was the state’s attorney general.
Georgia
While Pennsylvania may be the most-closely watched race, the one creating the most headlines is Georgia.
That’s because Georgia’s Republican candidate is former NFL star Herschel Walker who has led an often stumbling campaign.
Walker’s campaign has been beset by allegations of past domestic abuse, an exaggerated resume, fathering children outside of his marriage and of paying to have two previous girlfriends’ pregnancies terminated.
One of the women anonymously alleged in a Good Morning America interview last week that Walker pressured her, paid for her to get an abortion and drove her to the clinic.
This alleged history contrasts with Walker running on a hardline anti-abortion platform, having expressed support for an outright ban on abortions.
He denies the allegations in relation to the terminations that are alleged to have happened in the 1980s and 1990s.
Walker’s opponent in the race is Democrat pastor Raphael Warnock who has focused his campaign on cutting prescription drug charges, addressing climate change and helping restore abortion rights.
As mentioned above, if this race is very close it may not even be decided until December.
Under the state’s rules, a candidate must win over 50% of the vote to be elected, a system similar to the one seen in the recent Brazilian and French presidential elections.
The Georgia race also features Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver, who is polling at about 1.6%, and should the other two candidates be tight enough that neither top 50% then a head-to-head run-off between them would be required.
Ohio
The race to replace retiring Republican Rob Portman was once seen as the Democrats’ best opportunity for a pick-up, but Republican J.D. Vance has maintained a consistent if narrow lead since a faltering start to his campaign.
Democrat Tim Ryan – who has represented the Buckeye State for the last two decades in the US Congress – has won just two of 15 major polls against Silicon Valley venture capitalist and author, who holds an average two-point lead.
Ryan has distanced himself from Biden during the campaign, criticising the president’s response to inflation and saying he does not want Biden to serve a second term.
In previous years Ohio was firmly in the swing-state column but it has turned more Republican in recent elections. J.D. Vance is another Trump-backed candidate and is an author who wrote the bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy.
Several states have races for governor that are particularly interesting either because of candidate backstories or because of what they say about the electorate in those states.
A history as a State Governor is also seen as a well-trodden path towards the White House, with Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush all having made that journey.
Current Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is another who may be eyeing that path ahead of 2024 and is he practically guaranteed re-election today.
In today’s midterms, a couple of other names jump out.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders: remember her?
Trump’s former White House press secretary is running to be Governor of Arkansas, a position formerly held by the aforementioned Clinton and her own father Mike Huckabee.
Should the Republican be elected she would be the first female governor of the state and would become a significant figure that straddles various factions of her party.
Back to the Keystone State and we have the race to be Governor of Pennsylvania between Democrat Joe Shapiro and Republican Doug Mastriano.
Mastriano is one of the most divisive candidates to get the Trump stamp of approval and actually attended the 6 January protests in the Capitol.
Mastriano says he left Washington D.C. before the violence erupted that day but he is a vocal election denier. Should he win he would have the authority to appoint his own chief elections officials.
The Journal attended a Mastriano campaign event in rural Pennsylvania last month, hearing the candidate run through a whole selection of culture war topics including opposition to transgender rights and a push for fracking.
Struggling to raise funds as the Republicans instead flood Oz with campaign cash, Mastriano is trailing by almost seven points in the polls.
Another Trumper, Kari Lake is running to be Governor of Arizona.
The former local news anchor is considered a Republican rising star having led an aggressive campaign marked by her strong support for Trump.
The content of her interviews and speeches is red meat MAGA Republicans, describing the Covid-19 vaccine as “an experimental shot” and Joe Biden as an “illegitimate fool.”
She has been one of the most ardent amplifiers of Trump’s election disinformation and has already refused to commit to accepting the result of her own election if she loses.
Her meteoric rise to prominence has even fueled speculation that she could find a place on the ticket if Trump seeks a new term in 2024.
Lake has a growing edge over her Democratic opponent Katie Hobbs, according to Fivethirtyeight’s weighted poll of polls.
The 2022 midterms will help shape the 2024 election one way or another.
A bad night for Democrats could undermine Biden’s rationale for a second term and Trump would almost certainly seize on sweeping Republican victories as evidence of his political strength ahead of a third prospective White House bid.
Trump has all-but-confirmed another White House bid during recent campaign events and is likely to do so conclusively in the coming weeks should a ‘Red Wave’ come in on election night.
- With reporting by AP and © – AFP 2022
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