(Phoenix) Millions of Americans participate Tuesday, in a heavy climate, in decisive elections for the presidency of Joe Biden and the ambitions of his rival Donald Trump to reconquer the White House in 2024.
Posted at 1:48 p.m.
“We need everyone on deck to elect Democrats,” Joe Biden tweeted at midday, calling for his camp to mobilize in the most contested states.
Handicapped by soaring inflation, the 79-year-old president risks losing control of Congress during these midterm elections traditionally unfavorable to the ruling party.
His predecessor Donald Trump, who vigorously supported a large number of Republican candidates, is counting on their success to relaunch himself in the presidential race. At his final rally, he promised to make “a very big announcement” on November 15 from his residence in Mar-a-Lago.
“It’s going to be a very exciting day for a lot of people,” he promised Tuesday as he exited a polling station in Florida. In the meantime, “I think we’re going to have a really good night,” the 76-year-old billionaire added confidently.
The Americans are called upon to completely renew the House of Representatives, a third of the Senate, many local elected positions and to settle dozens of referendums at the state level, in particular on the right to abortion.
The first results are expected from 7 p.m. but the outcome of the tightest duels, in Pennsylvania or Georgia, could be several days away.
“Tense”
More than 40 million Americans cast their ballots early, and on Tuesday voters marched in droves to polling places, where the mood was grim.
“I hope everyone will be civilized” and accept the verdict of the polls, confided Enrique Ayala, a 64-year-old retiree, crossed in McAllen, Texas, while Donald Trump and his supporters are still contesting his defeat of 2020.
During the campaign, “there was a lot of tension and misinformation”, regretted for his part Robin Ghirdar, a 61-year-old doctor who came to vote Democratic in an office in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, deploring that “the search for truth and of compromise has disappeared in the battle. »
In fact, each camp dramatized the stakes of the election: the Democrats posed as defenders of democracy and the right to abortion against Republicans deemed “extremist”; the conservatives acted as guarantors of order in the face of a so-called “lax and radical” left in matters of security and immigration.
” A good family’s father ”
Inflation – more than 8.2% over one year – however crushed all other subjects.
“It handicaps Americans who are trying to get by,” said Kenneth Bellows, a 32-year-old law student who voted Republican in Phoenix, Arizona (southwest), calling for policies “from good father to family “.
Until the end, Joe Biden sought to defend his economic record, presenting himself as “the president of the middle class” who canceled student debt and invested in infrastructure.
But his efforts do not seem to have borne fruit.
According to the most recent opinion polls, the Republican opposition has a good chance of winning at least 10 to 25 seats in the lower house – more than enough to be in the majority there. Pollsters are more mixed about the fate of the Senate, with nevertheless an advantage for the Republicans.
Deprived of his majority, the president would be paralyzed and the Republicans have made it known that they will not spare him. In particular, they plan to launch investigations in the House into the affairs of his son Hunter, some of his ministers…
Breathtaking duels
Concretely, the midterm elections are being played out in a handful of key states – the same ones that were already in play in the 2020 presidential election.
All the spotlights are thus on Pennsylvania, a former bastion of the steel industry, where the multi-millionaire Republican surgeon Mehmet Oz, dubbed by Donald Trump, faces the bald colossus and former Democratic mayor of a small town, John Fetterman, for the post the first. most disputed of the Senate.
PHOTO HANNAH BEIER, REUTERS
Mehmet Oz (pictured) takes on John Fetterman, for the Senate’s most contested post.
As in 2020, Georgia is also at the heart of all desires. Democrat Raphael Warnock, the first black senator ever elected in this southern state with a heavy segregationist past, is trying to get re-elected against Herschel Walker, a former African-American sportsman, also supported by the former president.
Arizona, Ohio, Nevada, Wisconsin and North Carolina are also the scene of intense struggles, where Democrats everywhere are opposed to the candidates of Donald Trump, who swear absolute loyalty to the former president.
These breathless duels were all fueled by hundreds of millions of dollars, making this election the most expensive midterm elections in US history.