Mathematically, both parties have a chance to win both houses, but for the Democrats, this prospect is unrealistic. For example, the Fivethirtyeight project, which specializes in pre-election forecasts in the United States, estimates it at only 15%, but for Republicans this probability is more than 50%:
The House of Representatives will almost certainly be Republican, and the main battlefield will be the Senate, where the odds are almost equal. If the Republicans take the majority there, in the remaining two years of his presidential term, Biden will be effectively deprived of the opportunity to pursue his policy (this has already happened in the last years of Obama's presidency).
In the House of Representatives, Republicans need only 5 seats to regain their majority (the most intense fights are expected in California, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, only 35 seats are the most unpredictable), and in the Senate, 1 seat at all (who wins in Pennsylvania, Nevada and Georgia, or at least two of the three states, which will gain control of the upper house). Even if the Republicans win both the Senate and the House of Representatives, the gap is likely to be minimal and it is unlikely that the majority will be able to pass any major bills, and the Capitol will be in a deadlock that will resemble the government shutdown in 2013, when Obama and the Democrats refused Republican demands to repeal the President's Obamacare Health Care Act, and in response, the Republican Party blocked government funding.
But the problem is not only that the Republicans can take complete control of Congress, but also what kind of Republicans they are. The new Republican call is full of notorious candidates who support conspiracy theories (including those about electoral fraud in the United States), who share ultra-conservative views and are often more loyal to Trump than to the Republican Party establishment.
Other Republicans
“This is not the same Republican party that your father voted for,” Joseph Biden tirelessly repeats since 2014, when the right-wing “tea party movement” was in crisis in connection with tax evasion investigations and poured into the Republican cauldron. The statement was especially symbolic a month ago at a Democratic fundraiser held at the home of businessman James Murdoch, the youngest son of Rupert Murdoch, a media mogul and owner of the pro-Republican television channel Fox News.
James Murdoch and his wife Katherine are part of that Republican establishment that has refused to move further to the right on the political scale and has fallen out of the Republican Party (financially at least) into the field of swing voters. They never openly declared their political preferences and were never seen in the company of the Democratic left, appearing only in the company of Joe Biden. In 2019, James Murdoch resigned from the board of directors of News Corp (which was founded by his father and which owns Fox News), citing "disagreements over certain content published by news outlets and certain other strategic decisions of the company" and became a major contributor to Biden's presidential campaign. CNBC discovered Murdoch and his wife's massive $100 million contribution after examining a 2019 tax return. Until 2020, Murdoch's political views could only be guessed from the statements of his wife, who repeatedly criticized Trump for his actions in connection with the coronavirus pandemic (but only on this topic and no other). In 2020, the Murdocs founded Democracy Works Inc., a nonprofit organization that helps people register to vote and promotes the importance of voting. The level of the couple's financial leverage in the current election cycle will be known after the release of future tax reports, but it is already clear that such new "old" Republicans have an interest in holding back the movement of politics to the right.
Within the Republican Party itself, there are also those who are dissatisfied with the fact that a significant part of the party continues to maintain full loyalty to Donald Trump even after he essentially supported the capture of the Capitol by his supporters on January 6, 2021 after losing the election and put pressure on politicians and officials not to recognize the results of the presidential elections.
Despite the fact that the storming of the Capitol (including inciting Trump) became the subject of a high-profile criminal case, not only has he not changed his position, but he is determined to run for president again, and a significant part of the Republican establishment continues to support him. Many prominent Republican figures openly spoke out against such "Trumpization" of the party: for example, Liz Cheney, the daughter of the former all-powerful Republican Dick Cheney, became vice chairman of the Congressional committee to investigate the storming of the Capitol. Trump was opposed by such mastodons as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mitt Romney. But midterm candidates are determined not by the party leadership, but by voting in midterm elections, where pro-Trumpist radicals are popular and the party establishment has to reckon with this.
Donald Trump and his MAGA movement are an archetype of the collective unconscious, where ancient political myths (Jewish conspiracy) and the latest (deliberately infecting certain groups of people with the COVID-19 virus) are organically intertwined. To gain support for de facto Republican leader Trump, candidates must deny the results of the 2020 election. At least two of the most notable examples of this are evidence of this: New Hampshire senator candidate Don Boldak “actively and proudly denied the election results” (as the former president himself described his actions) until August 2022, then (after the start of the criminal process) refused from his words, but in order to get Trump's support, he again spoke about how the vote count of the presidential election was dishonest. Fox News released a video of the former president talking to Arizona Senator nominee Blake Masters, in which the former president praised Masters but said he needed to be tougher, louder, and more assertive about denying the election.
Election deniers
During a committee hearing on January 6th investigating the Capitol takeover, Trump indignantly (calling it bullshit) and laughingly spoke of electoral fraud. He laughed, remembering the film "Two Thousand Mules", which describes the system of "carousels" so familiar to Russians. The film claims that stacks of ballots were thrown into the early voting boxes by carousels traveling around the states, who were called "mules" (by analogy with drug deliveries across the border). According to the authors of the film, the stuffing was enough to steal the election from Trump. All evidence has been carefully reviewed and refuted by federal and independent legal and cybersecurity experts. But the idea of "mules" appealed to the collective unconscious, and on Trump's Truth Social, subscribers on Trump's Truth Social have moved from discussing the film to organizing ballot box surveillance campaigns to, they believe, prevent alleged widespread fraud. The group calling itself Clean Elections USA, organized by activist Melody Jennings, has gained the most popularity, and on the air of the Steve Bannon program she said that it was 2000 Mules that inspired her.
Following this, in Arizona, Georgia, Florida and a number of swing states, men in military uniforms with weapons and covered faces appeared at the early voting boxes, they photographed and filmed people casting ballots and published photos on social networks. A week before the election, a federal judge ruled against such acts, citing liability for voter intimidation. But who could be such a judge next time, given that if Republicans win the majority in the Senate, appointments to all public offices (including judges) will be subject only to their approval? In fairness, it is worth noting that the judge who made this decision was appointed by former President Trump and approved by the Republican Senate (however, 4 years ago its composition was more like the Republican Party, “for which your father voted”).
The results of the 2020 election are denied by more than half of the candidates from the Republican Party – 290 out of 535. Interestingly, some of them are running for re-election, which means they cast doubt on the results of the very elections in which they were elected. No-election candidates are running in 48 states, with the only exceptions being Rhode Island and North Dakota.
The election deniers movement carries a serious hidden threat: if the Republicans win a majority in the House of Representatives, they will be able to exert serious influence over the control of the electoral process, and governors and state secretaries of state will control the process on the ground. Particularly important in such a situation are positions in swing states, where election-denying candidates are now running for secretary of state in Arizona (Mark Finch) and Nevada (Jim Marchant), as well as for governor of Pennsylvania (Doug Mastriano). If elected, they may refuse to certify the results in the event of an unfavorable Republican presidential election outcome and initiate legal action against local governments based on allegations of vote-rigging, or they may introduce new rules and regulations that restrict certain methods of voting, such as mail or through special ballot boxes placed in American cities a few days before the vote.
In 2020, despite pressure from President Trump to cancel the results, Republicans in some states refused to comply. Even former Attorney General William Barr, who was appointed by Trump, has sworn in that the election passed without significant irregularities and is legitimate. If in two years the victory of one of the candidates takes place without a significant margin, it is difficult to imagine that one of the Republicans who won their primaries thanks to Trump's support will dare to challenge him.
What will happen if the Republicans win?
California Congressman Kevin McCarthy (minority leader in Congress, and therefore the de jure leader of the Republicans, who will become speaker if his party wins) promised symbolically on January 6 to dissolve the House Select Committee to investigate the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Instead, the Republicans are promising to set up several Select Committees to investigate:
the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan,
assistance to Ukraine,
the connections of President Biden's son, Hunter Biden, with Ukraine,
activities of the state in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic,
“fraud” in the 2020 elections,
· crisis on the southern border of the United States.
If the Republicans gain control of the Senate, the most obvious consequence will be a slowdown in appointments to all public offices (from federal judges to ambassadors). It is the Senate Judiciary Committee that historically initiates new immigration restrictions, so it is likely that legislation in the upper house will focus on strengthening the southern border and tightening immigration controls. A possible consequence will be the restriction of financial assistance to Ukraine, but it is worth remembering that the Republican Party "for which your father voted" is closely connected with the arms lobby and former Vice President Mike Pence, during a speech at the convention of the influential conservative Heritage Foundation, reminded of the need to continue supporting Ukraine , stating that "there can be no place in the conservative movement for supporters of Russian President Vladimir Putin." And the very next day, the president of the foundation published a clarification regarding the position on Ukraine after a possible victory of the Republicans: “We will resolutely oppose budget wasters from Washington who will try to accept another package of assistance to Ukraine without discussion, a clear strategy, targeted funding and cost compensation.” This means that assistance to Ukraine will most likely take the form of weapons that are produced in the United States (which means that the money remains in the country and their private arms corporations receive funds from the budget) and everything related to direct financial assistance for the restoration of infrastructure, assistance to refugees, training will be cut. and uniforms of soldiers and officers, in a word – everything that is not a weapon. Perhaps the Republicans will want to reduce this area as well, but this will depend on polls of American citizens and on how high public support for Ukraine will be, as well as on whether the same committee on the White House's actions in Afghanistan will be appointed. After all, if the Republican Party starts hearings on the completion of the military operation with one hand, it will be very difficult for them to support the ongoing military conflict with the other hand.
Still, there is no need to dramatize: not all candidates who deny the election have a high chance of being elected. Only 171 out of 290 are running in states leaning towards the support of the Republican Party, 71 are nominated in Democratic states, and 48 in states where there is expected to be a sharp fight. And in the last days and hours before Election Day, Democrats do not slow down – on November 5, three presidents – Obama, Trump and Biden – gathered in Pennsylvania alone, in the hope of rallying their voters and reminding them of a theme that will definitely sound in the 2024 elections: who should govern the country – professional politicians or eccentric showmen; the second variant of the same question is the Washington swamp or strong leaders. And although crime and high inflation became the main topics by autumn, we should not forget how shocked the Americans were by the decision of the Supreme Court to cancel Roe v. Wade – Abortion rights and the transfer of the issue to the states. Interestingly, even in Kansas (a traditionally "red" Republican state that last voted Democrat in 1964), 59% of voters voted against changing the state constitution, that is, against eliminating the right to abortion. And such results were not only in Kansas, after the overturning of Roe v. Wade Democrats outperformed expectations in four special House elections by an average of 9 points.
Biden vs Trump again
Republicans, and especially Republican radicals, have a good chance, not so much because they have a lot of credibility, but because they get the votes of those who are dissatisfied with the current state of affairs. There are many such people in the USA today – only 25% of Americans think that the country is moving in the right direction:
Historically, in the first midterm elections, the party holding the White House loses an average of 20-30 seats in Congress (with the exception of 1986, 1998 and 2002, when the president's party not only did not lose, but also won several seats). At the same time, the rating of Biden himself, which sank heavily after the elections, has in recent months pulled itself up to a quite worthy 42-43% (for comparison: Trump's rating for all four years of his presidency has rarely risen above these figures).
Against this background, Biden may well decide to go for a second term in 2024, although he will already be 81 years old by then. In any case, at the moment, Biden is set up for just that. Sources close to Trump claim that after the midterm elections he will also declare his desire to go to the polls in 2024, although he will be 78 in two years. Considering that Biden will not have to go through the primaries at all, and Trump is still far behind defeats all potential Republican candidates, so far everything is going to the fact that in 2024 the Americans are waiting for a rematch between candidates whose total age is 160 years. Trump's plans can only be thwarted by a verdict in one of the many criminal cases brought against him, or the sudden participation of some super-popular Republican (for example, Arnold Schwarzenegger could be, but he does not have the right to run, since he was born in Austria). Biden's plans can only be thwarted by a deterioration in his health or a decrease in his rating – however, both of them are a very real prospect in his case.
If the Republican Party, most likely, does win a majority thanks to the success of congressmen who deny the results of the 2020 election, the duel between Biden and Trump will be a real challenge to the American political system. In this case, the Democrats will have to fight not only for the majority of the electoral votes, but also for Biden's victory to be recognized as valid.