US into Midterm Elections: Trump’s Record in Focus

Local Editor

Americans head to the polls Tuesday in an election widely seen as a referendum on the first two years of Republican President Donald Trump’s leadership.

Bitter US political campaigns thundered to a hectic, unpredictable finish on election eve Monday, as candidates scoured the country for votes in dozens of crucial races that opinion polls showed were still razor-close.

Control of both chambers of the US Congress and 36 governor’s offices are up for grabs.
In the final stretch, Trump has ramped up his hard-line rhetoric on immigration and cultural issues, including warnings about a caravan of migrants headed to the border with Mexico and “liberal” mobs, and touted a growing US economy that he said would be threatened by Democrats.

Trump spent a final day on the campaign trail Monday, hitting the Midwestern states of Ohio, Indiana and Missouri at the end of a six-day pre-election sweep focused mostly on competitive U.S. Senate races.

“It’s all fragile. Everything I told you about, it can be undone and changed by the Democrats if they get in,” Trump told supporters in a conference call aimed at getting out the vote.

Opinion polls and election forecasters favor Democrats to pick up the minimum of 23 seats they need Tuesday to capture a majority in the US House of Representatives, which would enable them to stymie Trump’s legislative agenda and investigate his administration.

But Republicans are favored to retain their slight majority in the US Senate, currently at two seats, which would let them retain the power to approve US Supreme Court and other judicial nominations on straight party-line votes.

But 75 or more of the 435 House races remain competitive, forecasters said, and control of the Senate is likely to come down to half a dozen close contests in Arizona, Nevada, Missouri, North Dakota, Indiana and Florida.

Democrats also are threatening to recapture governor’s offices in several key battleground states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania, a potential help for the party in those states in the 2020 presidential race.Trump’s polarizing style has spurred record turnout, cranking up enthusiasm in both parties as voters cast ballots to oppose or support the president.

Approximately 40 million early votes including absentee, vote-by-mail and in-person ballots will likely be cast by Election Day, according to Michael McDonald, a professor at the University of Florida who tracks the figures. In the last such congressional elections in 2014, there were 27.5 million early votes.

The numbers suggest turnout will be very high for a nonpresidential election, McDonald wrote on his US Elections Project website.

He estimated turnout would reach 45 percent; that would be the highest for a midterm election in 50 years.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team