Midterm elections | Portrait of the American voter

Who are the Americans called to the polls on November 8? Portrait, in figures, of a society full of contrasts.

Andre Duchesne
The Press

More than 333 million inhabitants

Growing diversity

Prevalence of color and origin

An aging population

More urban, less rural

Minimum wage: $7.25 / hour

Since 2010, the minimum hourly wage in the United States is $7.25, according to the federal standard (i.e. $9.80 CAD). In 2020, there were 73.3 million (55.5% of employees) workers aged 16 and over paid by the hour. About 247,000 workers earned minimum wage and 865,000 were paid an hourly rate below it. In April 2021, President Joe Biden signed an executive order raising that hourly rate from $10.95 to $15 per hour for federal government contract workers.

The prevalence of firearms

• 30% of adults say they own a gun.
• 11% of adults say they do not own a gun but live with someone who does.

Adults with a firearm

• Whites: 36%
• Blacks: 24%
• Hispanics: 18%
• Asians: 10%
• Republican or Republican-leaning: 44%
• Democrats or Democratic-leaning: 20%
• Urban: 20%
• Suburban: 29%
• Rural: 41%

Religion

Party balance sheet, two years later

Democrats

Upon taking office on January 20, 2021, Democratic President Joe Biden signed executive orders to bring the United States back into the Paris Agreement on the environment, cancel the Keystone XL pipeline project (to the regret of Albertans and the Canadian government), halting the construction of the wall on the Mexican border, etc. He then narrowly had a 1,900 billion economic support plan adopted to revive the country shaken by the COVID-19 pandemic. But a series of blunders, including the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, resulted in a rapid drop in his approval rating. The year 2022 has started badly with rising inflation and soaring gasoline prices. In the middle of the summer, however, the unpopular Supreme Court decision on abortion and the adoption of a vast plan for the environment and health (1700 billion) proposed by Joe Biden allowed the party to rise slightly in the polls.

Republicans

No matter what the Republicans are talking about, Donald Trump’s shadow still hangs over the party. The 45^e President of the United States, still so bitter from his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, distributed accolades and snubs to elected officials or Republican candidates according to their allegiance, or not, to his person. It is thus clear that Representative Liz Cheney, to name but one, lost the Wyoming primary by an abyssal margin after opposing Mr. Trump since the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021. On the other hand, the fact that Mr. Trump is constantly in the news (legal investigation in Georgia, seizure of documents at Mar-a-Lago) puts the spotlight on him instead of the weaknesses of the Democrats. In addition, in Congress, a few Republicans voted with the Democrats to pass certain bills, including a $550 billion infrastructure plan, raise the debt ceiling or remove responsibilities from conspiratorial Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene. In June, following the Uvalde massacre, a very rare agreement between elected representatives of the two parties in the Senate made it possible to vote (65-33) a law allowing better supervision of the sale of firearms.

Sources: US House of Representatives, 270towin.com, The Cook Political Report, Bloomberg Government, United States Census Bureau, US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Statista, fivethirtyeight.com, Pew Research Center, United States Department of Agriculture and NPR