Millions of Americans concerned about the situation in the country and upset with the progress of the economy voted this Tuesday in the first national elections for the Presidency of Joe Biden, with control of Congress at stake and an eye on the 2024 general elections for a probable presidential candidacy of Donald Trump.
Authorities said it would take hours or perhaps days for the final results, and Biden’s Democratic Party was bracing for them to be potentially disappointing, with the prospect of almost certain loss of the House of Representatives but the hope of being able to maintain the majority in the Senate.
After two years full of conspiracy theories about the transparency of the elections, the vote passed without allegations of major irregularities, but Trump, who claims that Biden stole the 2020 election from him, again hinted, without showing evidence, that there could also have been fraud in this election.
The elections crowned a campaign that once again fueled the rampant political divide in the United States and raised specters about its commitment to a democratic future, with hundreds of candidates loyal to Trump coming to the election refusing to commit to accepting the results if they did not win. .
Added to this distrust in the electoral system is an inflationary spiral, a wave of disinformation and serious acts of political violence.including a recent attack on the husband of the Democratic leader of Congress, Nancy Pelosi, inside his own home, which completes a social environment of growing toxicity.
The government of more than thirty states was also put at stake, and Massachusetts elected the first openly lesbian governor of the United States, the Democrat Maura Healey, and Maryland its first African-American governor, the Democrat Wes Moore, local media projected.
In his final campaign rallies, Monday night, Biden called for “defending democracy,” while former President Trump promised a “big announcement” next week, raising expectations that he would attempt a return to the White House in two years.
Trump voted Tuesday in Florida, predicting a “great night” for Republicans and saying he should get “full credit” in the event of a victory. of the dozens of his party’s candidates he campaigned for.
The tables began to close in the first states of the east coast of the United States from 18 (20 in Argentina), but in states of the west coast voting continued.
More than 45 million Americans voted early in these midterm elections, including Biden, who did so last month in his home state of Delaware. Early voting exceeded the pace of the previous midterm elections, in 2018, in every state where data was available.
Voters were called to renew the 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 in the Senate, in elections that will define Biden’s management capacity in his last two years in office and, possibly, his chances of seeking re-election.
The 79-year-old president has indicated publicly and privately that he intends to run again and that he would do so with more determination if Trump, 76, were also to run, which would reissue the duel between the two of 2020.
The elections are the first in the country since hundreds of Trump supporters attacked Congress in January 2021 to try to interrupt the certification of Biden’s victory, in an event that shook the foundations of American democracy.
Authorities reported isolated problems Tuesday with voting machines in Arizona and receiving mail-in ballots in Georgia, two states where key battles for the Senate are being fought.
Trump said on his social networks that the problems of Arizona they were recorded mostly in areas that vote Republican.
“Is the same thing happening with electoral fraud that happened in 2020???, he wrote on his platform Truth Social.
However, a large exit poll showed that the majority of voters, eight out of ten, do trust the transparency of the electoral system, and that half of them have a lot of confidence. Also, seven out of 10 said democracy was somewhat or very threatened, reported CNN and other networks, which commissioned the study.
The same survey, conducted by the consulting firm Edison Research, showed a high level of concern about the country’s present situation and discontent with Biden’s management, especially due to inflation.
All in all, the poll showed that the opinion of Trump is worse than that of Biden.
About a third of voters said inflation was the deciding factor in their vote, while about 27% said it was abortion.
More than 70% of voters said they were dissatisfied with the overall situation in the United States, while a third said they were angry rather than dissatisfied.
Biden’s discharge approval hovered around 45%. The proportion of voters who said they strongly disapproved of his work in his first two years in office was double the proportion who said they strongly approved of it, the poll also showed.
Only 37% expressed a favorable opinion of Trump, and six out of ten expressed an unfavorable one.
Historically, these “mid-term” elections – because they are held in the middle of the president’s four-year term – favor the party that is in opposition.
Polls indicate that Republicans would win between 10 and 25 seats in the House of Representatives, more than the five they need to take control of it.
The Republicans have already said that, if they win the Lower House, they will paralyze Biden’s legislative agenda and bury the work of the special commission of congressmen investigating the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
In the Senate the contest is more even. Democrats have a technical majority there of just one vote. The Republicans aspire to take control of it too, which will be defined in a handful of states where the most competitive races are held.
The new legislators will take office in January 2023. The representatives have a four-year term and the senators, six.
The elections are the first since a Supreme Court ruling earlier this year that ended the federal right for women to end their pregnancies and left the issue in the hands of states, many of which have Abortion has been banned ever since.
Together with their representatives in Congress, citizens of 36 of the 50 states will elect their governors, in an important vote due to the number of issues that, in the absence of federal legislation, are resolved at the state level, such as abortion.
In Florida, Republican Ron DeSantis was re-elected, media projected.
