bthechange
The Midterms Approach
By Nayyer Ali MD
In a month the US will head back to the polls for the midterm elections. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives will be up for grabs, as will 33 seats in the Senate. Typically, the party that is in the White House tends to lose badly in the midterms.
Sometimes these waves can lead to change of control in one or both houses of Congress, as occurred in 1994, 2006, 2010, 2014, and 2018. With Biden in the White House, Republicans were hoping a wave election would sweep them back into power. As the Democrats currently hold the tiniest majorities in both Houses (only 5 seats in the House, and a precise 50 to 50 seat split in the Senate) it wouldn’t take much to bring to switch control.
The Democrats earlier this year were quite pessimistic about their chances. During midterms, partisans of the party out of power tend to be motivated and upset and turn up to vote, while those who just won the Presidential election two years earlier are less interested and stay home. The President’s popularity also plays a big role, and an unpopular President exacerbates these trends. Biden’s popularity reached a low point in the spring, and with that Republicans were excited about the coming midterms.
Since then, however, the Democrats prospects have turned the corner. With oil prices declining the sting of inflation has lessened. Biden got a number of major legislative wins during the summer, including the bipartisan CHIPS Act which invested in America’s computer chip industry, and the Inflation Reduction Act. The IRA was a huge and unexpected win for Biden’s domestic agenda. It passed only with Democratic support, and raised taxes on corporations, invested in expanding Obamacare, and most importantly, made a huge investment over the next ten years in moving America to lower fossil fuel use to fight global warming. Biden then used executive action to forgive 10,000 dollars in student loan debt for most Americans with student loans. These actions and legislative wins have helped Biden’s approval rating recover significantly in the last month.
However, the biggest factor boosting Democratic chances is the actions of the Supreme Court. In June it overturned Roe v. Wade, the decision in 1972 that guaranteed women’s rights to have an abortion. This decision has led several states to ban abortions, even in cases of rape or incest or severe fetal abnormalities. The Court’s actions have been deeply unpopular, and even in extremely conservative Kansas, an initiative to ban abortion was turned down by the voters 60-40, which is a huge margin. The vast majority of Americans disagree with the Court, and many women in particular are motivated to vote to protect abortion rights.
Republicans have also hurt themselves by picking some lousy candidates in key Senate races. The Democratic Senators most vulnerable this year are in New Hampshire, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada. Fortunately for the Democrats, the Republicans have nominated terrible candidates in all of those races. One, Herschel Walker in Georgia, has even been accused by his ex-wife of pulling a gun on her. These lousy candidates have made it unlikely the Republicans can pick up the extra Senate seat they need to take control. But for them it gets worse. There are three Republican held seats in which the Republicans have terrible nominees. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, JD Vance in Ohio, and incumbent Senator Ron Johnson in Wisconsin. It is likely that the Democrats will win 1 or 2 of these seats. There is an outside chance the Democrats could also win in North Carolina, depending on turnout, as the Republican nominee there is also weak.
The House is still likely to flip, given that the Republicans only need to take five seats from the Democrats. But the turnout of women over the issue of abortion is a wild card here. There is 20-30% chance that Democrats can hold the House.
If the Democrats were to keep control of Congress, even by the slimmest margins, it will be huge. Just holding the Senate means that President Biden can continue getting judges confirmed to appointments for the next two years. But if the Democrats hold both houses, what would be their agenda? To a large extent it will depend on whether they can pick up two seats in the Senate. To enact much of the Democratic agenda at this point will require doing away with the Senate filibuster rule, which requires 60 votes to pass most legislation. This is not part of the Constitution, but is a rule that was added later and has long outlived its usefulness. Unfortunately for the Democrats, only 48 of their 50 current Senators are willing to do away with it. Senator Manchin from West Virginia and Senator Synema from Arizona are still supporters of this rule. To overcome their stance, the Democrats will need to win two of the Republican held seats currently, but this is definitely possible.
If the Democrats hold Congress, and end the filibuster, we could see a tremendous burst of significant legislation. Raising the minimum wage to 15 dollars, passing a new Voting Rights Act that applies to the whole nation and ends voter suppression and gerrymandering, and making abortion legal in all 50 states would be the obvious first steps. Beyond that, Democrats could grant statehood to Washington DC, giving the Democrats two extra reliable seats in the Senate, and possibly granting statehood to Puerto Rico, if the inhabitants of that island want it. Health care could be expanded further, particularly Medicaid expansion in the remaining conservative states that have continued to block this key aspect of Obamacare. Free community college and substantially raising taxes on the wealthy to pay for all this would also be on the table. Democrats might even look at ways to reform the Supreme Court, such as term limits, and expanding the court to undo the way Republicans essentially stole seats by refusing to grant a vote to Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland in 2016. This midterm election could have huge consequences for the US going forward.
