US elections

While the votes are not fully counted, it is clear that the ‘red wave’ being predicted for several months had weakened to a ripple by election day. While almost every president in the past century has seen his party lose seats in the midterms, the scale of the losses this time around seemed relatively small for President Joe Biden and the Democrats. Exit polls showed that the economy and abortion were the biggest concerns for voters in most states. The split between the parties on the two issues may have been enough to keep the Democrats from losing too many seats in the House. However, it seems more likely that the Republicans may eke out a narrow majority in the 435-member lower house.

But while Republicans went into the election hoping to retake control of both the House and Senate, preliminary results suggest that the Democrats will almost certainly keep the Senate, although the final balance will be unclear till the runoff election for a Georgia Senate seat on December 6. The elections also exposed the unscrupulous nature of the Trump-era Republican Party, with the Georgia Senate seat offering the most graphic representation. Even though the Republicans have long framed themselves as the party of family values and opposition to abortion, their candidate in Georgia is Herschelle Walker, a former football player with several known illegitimate children who also paid off and threatened women to get abortions. Despite this and the fact he even admits to a long history of domestic violence against his partners, Walker and the Republicans accused his opponent Raphael Warnock — a civil rights activist and actual priest — of not being morally fit for the job.

The election was also a concern for Donald Trump, who intends to announce his presidential campaign in the coming days. Almost all the candidates he endorsed in competitive seats lost, suggesting support for his far-right authoritarian brand is fading; and some Republican leaders have begun admitting — several years too late — that Trump’s politics do not align with true American Conservatism.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, November 11^th, 2022.

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