This was to be the beginning of the end for Democrats. However, the midterm elections held on Tuesday evening (and whose several results are still to be determined) could well be the best for an American president in office for 20 years.
Joe Biden and the Democrats have indeed avoided a red wave – the color of the Republican Party – while offering strong resistance in several states to the rise of radical conservatism. “It’s definitely not a Republican wave, that’s for sure,” Lindsey Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina and close adviser to Donald Trump, acknowledged on NBC News on Wednesday.
“I was surprised, because I thought that with the inflation rate, the price of food, the price of gas and the crime rate that we’re seeing…I thought all of those things would have given a great evening for the Republicans,” added former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich in an interview on the Fox News network, while acknowledging that the Democratic strategy – “despicable”, according to him – aimed at demonizing the candidates of the opposition had finally worked.
On Wednesday evening, the distribution of forces in the House of Representatives was still between uncertainty and the expectation of several results. The odds of the Republicans taking the reins, however, remained very high, but by a slim majority.
The future of the Senate still lay in a handful of races in Arizona, Nevada and Georgia. The final result could however be several days away: in Georgia, none of the candidates for the seat of senator – neither the Democrat Raphael Warnock, in advance, nor his Republican opponent, Herschel Walker – managed to collect more than 50% of the voice. A second round will therefore have to be held on December 6, as provided for by state electoral law.
“I was relieved to see that common sense was heard Tuesday night in this election, that the defense of democracy and freedoms boosted the vote of the Democrats, said Wednesday the activist Bonnie Laufer, of the organization RiseUp4AbortionRights, interviewed at To have to in Philadelphia. But we must not lose sight of the fact that the Republicans could have a majority in the House and that the resistance against their attacks on the institutions and the rights of Americans, particularly those of women, will have to continue. »
A setback for Trumpism
In Pennsylvania, Democrats made a notable net gain in the US Senate by arresting Trumpist Mehmet Öz. The star Republican candidate was defeated by state Lt. Gov. John Fetterman despite a tough campaign for the Democrat, who suffered a stroke six months ago, and the millions of dollars invested in ad campaigns to denigrate him.
Josh Shapiro also defeated Donald Trump-backed conspiracy theorist Doug Mastriano for governor there. Mastriano had actively participated in the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol.
“Abortion and the general malaise in the face of Republican extremism seem to have limited the gains of the Republicans in Pennsylvania”, a state which however leans more and more on the side of this party, summarizes in an interview the essayist David Faris, author of the book The Kids Are All Left: How Young Voters Will Unite America (Kids Are All Left. How Young Voters Will Unite America). “It is highly unusual for one party to run the governor’s office in this state for more than two consecutive terms. However, by winning this seat, Shapiro has just achieved something that has not happened here since 1946. And I think that says a lot about what Pennsylvanians think of Republicans today. »
The trend appears to have been followed elsewhere, including in Michigan, where Democrat Gretchen Whitmer easily defeated Tudor Dixon, Donald Trump’s idol and protege who made baseless challenges to the 2020 election results and attacks on the right to abortion two engines of his campaign.
In the same state, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson shielded this crucial position in organizing the election from the threat posed by Republican Kristina Karamo, who became a national figure in 2020 after spreading false accusations of voter fraud that would have taken place in the vote count in Detroit. Contradicting the facts.
“It was democracy that prevailed, rejoiced Jocelyn Benson during his victory speech, on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday. Today, Michigan voters showed the world that they voted for the truth rather than lies, for facts rather than conspiracy theories, for real results rather than empty promises. »
The issue of abortion
Elsewhere — in California, Michigan and Vermont, in particular — it is also the defenders of the right to abortion who have made themselves heard, by way of referendum, by supporting motions aimed at enshrining this right in the Constitution of these states.
The same decision was made by voters in Kentucky, a state that is nevertheless solidly Republican, who rejected a law banning abortion passed recently and supported the constitutional protection of this freedom of choice there too.
In the United States, barely 10% of the population believe that abortion should be completely illegal, according to the VoteCast opinion poll conducted by the Associated Press. About 6 in 10 Americans say they felt disappointed and angered after the nation’s Supreme Court favored a return to the political war on abortion by overturning the ruling last summer Roe v. wadewhich had partly protected him for many years.
On Wednesday, Joe Biden received some relief from the ongoing results tabulation, but felt that “‘supermega-MAGA’ fever”, as he now calls Donald Trump’s supporters, was not about “to be”. to fall “. “But I think they’re still a minority in the Republican Party,” he said from the White House.
As the final count approaches, Joe Biden seems on the verge of avoiding the debacle in Congress which cost Barack Obama 63 representative seats and 6 senator seats in 2010. The latter was then facing a wind of Republican protest. fueled by his attempt to pass laws to provide health insurance to Americans. In 1994, Bill Clinton lost 52 seats in the House and 8 in the Senate.
This report was financed thanks to the support of the Transat International Journalism Fund.The duty.