Will Trump’s Republicans Lose Control of Congress as Americans Vote in Midterms Today?
With Republicans fighting to hold on to their narrow majorities in Congress, Donald Trump is making increasingly desperate appeals to voters ahead of the November 3 US midterm elections. The president’s party has lost House seats in 18 of the 20 midterms since 1946, and polls suggest Republicans could face another defeat.
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In a Nutshell
- In 18 of the 20 midterm elections since 1946, the President’s party has lost House seats, averaging 26 seats. Only Bill Clinton’s Democrats in 1998 and George W. Bush’s Republicans in 2002 bucked the trend.
- Democrats need to gain three seats in the House and four in the Senate to take control of Congress.
- Trump held his final campaign rallies in Iowa and Kansas on November 1, urging voters to “pretend I’m on the ballot” and vote Republican.
Context
With polls suggesting Democrats could gain control of Congress, Trump’s Republicans are facing a difficult battle to retain their narrow majorities. The historical record offers little reassurance, as the president’s party has lost House seats in 18 of the 20 midterm elections since 1946.
The trend, known as the “presidential penalty” or “midterm penalty”, reflects how voters use elections halfway through a president’s four-year term to check the sitting President’s party. The President’s party has also lost Senate seats in 13 of those 20 elections, although the chamber changed hands in only six.
Why It Matters
As Republicans fight to hold on to Congress, Trump has continued his Islamophobic and racist attacks on Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and Representative Ilhan Omar. At his last two campaign rallies in Iowa and Kansas on November 1, Trump repeated unsubstantiated claims that El-Sayed has terrorist ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, calling him a “jihadist” and saying the Senate would need a special metal detector to scan him if he were elected. He also repeated conspiracy theories alleging that Omar was married to her brother. At both rallies, Trump urged voters to “pretend I’m on the ballot” to encourage them to vote red.
His repeated attacks on Democratic candidates and appeals to voters signal the anxiety within his party about potentially losing a majority in either the House or the Senate.
Throughout the campaign, Trump has also used popular figures among his voter base to draw more support for Republicans.
On October 25, he flew rapper Nicki Minaj in his F-1 jet to a rally in Michigan. Minaj, who suddenly declared her political allegiance to the Republican Party last year, parroted usual talking points within the party about the threat that transgender people pose in the country. She urged attendees to vote for Trump, saying that he would work to prevent transgender people from “brainwashing kids”.
What We Think
The midterm elections are underway today, and it remains to be seen which party will win a majority in Congress. If the results are similar to early polls, which suggest that Trump’s Republican Party is faring poorly, losing either chamber of Congress would leave Trump with far less room to pursue his agenda during the final two years of his presidency.
If his party loses control of the House to Democrats, they would have the power to launch investigations into the Trump administration, potentially looking into his association with the Epstein files, and impeach the president. Losing the Senate to Democrats, meanwhile, would allow the opposition to block or delay the president’s appointments, including judicial nominations.