US midterms: Five of the key Senate races to watch on election night

Issued on: 07/11/2022 – 17:18

Democrats need to win several key races to maintain their majority in the Senate, where there is a current 50-50 split (with Vice President Kamala Harris delivering the tie-breaking vote in the case of a deadlock). In contrast, Republicans only need to flip one seat to secure a majority.

If history is any indication, the situation may even be more dire for Democrats in the House of Representatives, where the president’s party has lost seats in almost every midterm vote since World War II.   

In the 19 midterm votes held between 1946 and 2018, the party in the White House has gained House seats only twice, in 1998 and 2002. Even relatively popular presidents (Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan) have watched their parties get trounced in the midterms.

But an array of unique and unpredictable factors could lead the 2022 race to be another outlier. The reversal of Roe v Wade galvanized not only women but others concerned that the Supreme Court overstepped by infringing on the rights of citizens to make their own decisions on healthcare.

Voter registration data from 10 states showed the number of women registering to vote after Roe was overturned in late June rose by some 35 percent compared with the month before the decision was leaked, according to an August analysis by The New York Times. The number of men registering to vote over the same period rose by 9 percent. The numbers were most pronounced in Kansas, where more than 70 percent of newly registered voters were women in the week after the court’s decision. 

Young people have also registered to vote at unusually high rates in the months following the reversal of Roe, particularly in states where abortion rights are under threat. 

The opposition party tends to do especially well when the economy is in the doldrums – and by some factors (inflation, consumer spending) it is. On the other hand, unemployment remains low, wages are rising and the latest government figures showed the US economy grew by 2.6 percent in the third quarter, beating expectations. 

The president’s approval ratings are also widely seen as a factor in how well his party does in the midterms, and here again is cause for concern among Democrats, with Joe Biden’s approval hovering in the low- to mid-40s. 

But Democrats have some reason to be optimistic – in part because the Republican Party might be its own worst enemy.

The GOP’s decision to field a suite of combative, election-denying candidates could turn off voters who have been following the dramatic televised hearings on the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol building. More recently, a violent assault on the husband of Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that left him hospitalized might serve as a grim reminder that the belligerent rhetoric of many in the GOP can have real-life consequences. 

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