Polls point to Democratic gains in US midterms, with Republicans' House majority at risk

The vote and the polls

Americans vote on Tuesday, 3 November, in midterm elections that renew all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 Senate seats. Polls point to a setback for President Donald Trump's Republicans. Blick recalls that voters punished the sitting president in 18 of the 20 midterms held since 1946, a pattern it describes as almost a law of nature. Shortly before the vote, RealClear Polling projects 227 House seats for the Democrats and 180 for the Republicans, which makes the House the chamber most at risk for Republicans. Blick expects the count to be tense and says the result will come in during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday Swiss time. Polls have become more precise over time, but outcomes often turn out differently from them.

Democrats227

Republicans180

Democrats

227 seats

Republicans

180 seats

Data from the article text

A Democratic majority in both chambers

Philipp Adorf, a US expert at the University of Bonn, considers a Democratic majority in both chambers probable. He points out that Democrats have realistic chances even in traditionally Republican strongholds such as Texas and Kansas. In the Senate, RealClear Polling assigns 47 seats to the Democrats and 45 to the Republicans, while eight seats remain entirely open, which leaves the chamber closer than the House. Stern also expects a tighter contest in the Senate and says that a Democratic win there would leave the president facing two politically complicated years.

Democrats47

Republicans45

Open seats8

Democrats

47 seats

Republicans

45 seats

Open seats

8 seats

Data from the article text

Presidents before and after midterm defeats

Blick argues that a midterm loss does not have to be a death sentence for a president. Its list of presidents who lost their footing after such defeats includes William Howard Taft (1910), Herbert Hoover (1930), Gerald Ford (1974, after Nixon's resignation) and George W. Bush (2006). Blick also names Harry S. Truman, whose 1946 midterms appear in its list of predecessors who recovered after setbacks and used the headwind in Congress as a springboard. The outcome matters for Switzerland as well, because it shapes how predictable the United States remains as a trade partner, security guarantor and political actor, and how much room Trump has in his last two years in office.

Norbert Röttgen expects a fight over impeachment

CDU foreign policy politician Norbert Röttgen expects a bitter power struggle in Washington if the Democrats win a majority in either chamber. He told the ntv programme 'Pinar Atalay' that Trump stands worse in the polls than any American president since polling began.

“If the Democrats win a majority in just one of the two chambers, they will hunt him down.”

Röttgen says the Democrats could first prepare an impeachment in the House and then vote on it. Removing the president would require a two-thirds majority in the Senate, which he says does not exist. He stresses that the vote is also a verdict on the president's policies, even though Trump does not stand on the ballot himself.

“Although Trump is formally not on the ballot himself, a vote is being held on him. On his policies.”

Two years of confrontation and what comes next

Röttgen expects a sharper confrontation between the camps, which he warns will not strengthen trust in the political system. He expects Trump to focus more on foreign policy and to pursue what he considers important for his place in history, and he says this will also have consequences for Germany.

“We will have two years of election campaigning in domestic politics.”

Stern names high living costs and fuel prices as burdens on US voters and says many of them view the US-Israeli war against Iran critically. A stern live-blog headline also reports that Trump wants 20,000 votes declared invalid. Blick and stern both frame the vote as a referendum on Trump's course, and Blick adds that it will show how calculable Washington remains for its partners.