WWhat happens on November 8th will be pivotal for American democracy. The congressional elections are the first federal elections since a violent mob stormed the Capitol to block Joe Biden’s inauguration in January last year. Donald Trump and his supporters continue to spread the myth of the “stolen election” for which there is no evidence.
More than half of Republican candidates running for Congress and state posts deny, or at least question, the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. They could influence the election process in the future as members of the House of Representatives, as senators, as “Secretary of State” (chief electoral official of a state), as Attorney General or governor. The 2024 presidential election at the latest will show how big the problem is that has not disappeared from politics with Trump.
The Law of the Midterms
During the election campaign, Biden was unusually harsh in calling the “America-first” Republicans a “threat to democracy,” accusing them of “semi-fascism,” provoking a storm of indignation among them. The president should feel what their growing influence means when the new Congress meets in January. Even if Biden’s name isn’t on the ballot papers in two and a half weeks, the “midterms” after half the term in office are always a verdict on the president. Traditionally it turns out badly. Since Truman’s time, the presidential party has lost an average of 29 seats in the House of Representatives. It hardly seems possible that the Democrats can break this law in the elections in two weeks. Republicans only need to gain five seats to take away their narrow majority in the House of Representatives.
All sorts of Republicans have already threatened Biden with impeachment proceedings. So far, the allegations have been vaguely worded, for example about Biden’s alleged failure in border policy or the hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan. A simple majority in the House of Representatives is sufficient to pass impeachment. However, the two-thirds majority in the Senate required for a conviction would then be unlikely – regardless of who wins there. But even without such revenge campaigns for the two impeachment proceedings against Trump, Biden will have a hard time with a Republican majority in the House of Representatives. The commission of inquiry into the storming of the Capitol would almost certainly be dissolved.
Biden had to make compromises
Biden has just emphasized that no president before him has achieved so much in the first two years. And it’s true that he can point to successes: in November last year, Congress approved the infrastructure package that was one of the president’s core projects. In June he signed a tightened gun law. In August he managed to get his climate package through both chambers. But the truth is that Biden often fell far short of actual plans to reach consensus.
Such compromises would be all but impossible in the future, even with only one Republican-dominated Chamber of Congress. What Biden would then be left with is governing by regulation and reviewing what has been accomplished to date. The 79-year-old will not announce whether he will run again until after the congressional elections. It is also becoming increasingly unlikely that the Democrats will be able to defend their wafer-thin majority, at least in the Senate. Because of the stalemate of fifty to fifty senators, it is currently carried only by the vote of Vice President Harris.
The fate of Biden is likely to decide one issue above all: the historically high inflation rate with horrendous petrol prices. A third of Americans see the economy as the country’s biggest problem, and more than half are dissatisfied with the president’s work. The Republicans never tire of blaming the President for the economic difficulties.
The fact that petrol prices are rising again after the Opec-Plus decision just before the congressional elections is likely to destroy the Democrats’ ace: the abortion issue. They took advantage of the Supreme Court’s June decision to overturn nationwide abortion rights as best they could, fighting their way out of forecasts that predicted a Republican flash flood in the spring. But that’s not an issue Americans are reminded of every day at the grocery store and gas station.
