The United States celebrates its legislative elections this Tuesday, elections that will determine the composition of Congress and the last two years of the mandate of the president, Joe Biden.
The Democrats currently hold control of the House of Representatives and the Senate, but polls predict that the Republican opposition will regain power. The weighted average of polls carried out by the FiveThirtyEight website gives them a 55% chance of winning the Upper House and an 84% chance of becoming strong in the Lower House.
The country is divided into nine time zones and the earliest polling stations, such as in the state of Vermont, will open at five in the morning. The closing will take place in the majority between seven and eight local time.
In the United States, there is no central electoral authority and the Secretaries of State of each of the 50 states of the country are responsible for counting the votes.
As this process usually takes a long time, the big US media, such as CNN or The New York Times, among others, are the ones in charge of declaring which candidate has won a contest, something that specialists do by analyzing data coming from the field.
The result of many electoral battles is usually known on the day of the vote, but other times it is so tight that days or even weeks go by.
For example, in the 2020 presidential election, it took four days for the big US media to declare that Democrat Joe Biden had won over Republican Donald Trump.
In her daily press conference, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre admitted on Monday that there could be delays: “We may not know who the winners are for a few days. It takes time to count all the lollipops in an orderly manner.” “, he asserted.
The Department of Justice is going to send observers to 64 jurisdictions in 24 states to control the development of the elections and guarantee that the right to vote is fulfilled.
He has been monitoring elections since the Voting Rights Act was enacted in 1965, but his mission becomes especially important after unfounded allegations of fraud in the 2020 presidential election by some Republicans and by Trump himself, who still does not recognize the results of that time. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has a specific page to deny rumors: from those who claim that the voting system software can be easily manipulated to that votes from deceased people are already being counted.
On the internet, an inexhaustible source of conspiracy theories, the one that urges to mark the ballot only with a blue ink pen is still valid because any other color can be easily altered.
The final stretch of the campaign has also been marked by the advance by former United States President Donald Trump (2017-2021) late on Monday that on November 15 he will make “a big announcement” from his residence of Mar-a-Lago in Florida, in a veiled reference to his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election.
Although there had been speculation throughout Monday that he might announce his candidacy that same day, Trump set that day to make an announcement. But he did leave signs of his intentions: “In 2024 we will recover our magnificent White House,” he proclaimed during his speech at a campaign event in Ohio.
Biden’s last act took place on his behalf in Maryland. A state of Democratic depth, in which he warned that the Republicans “will undo everything achieved” during his government if they achieve a majority in Congress, and stressed that the elections are not a referendum on his management but the moment to decide between ” two visions” of the country.
Biden later insisted that he is optimistic about the results of the midterm elections and confident of a victory in the Senate, but acknowledged that Democrats have a hard time holding on to a majority in the House of Representatives.
The current tenant of the White House does not enjoy popular approval: according to FiveThirtyEight, 53.1% of citizens disapprove of his management, and only 42.1% consider that he is doing a good job.
The elections this Tuesday are not a referendum on his work, but his result will condition the end of his term. Losing the majority in Congress will hamper any attempt to push through new regulations.
Therefore, although in most states the results are clear, the focus is concentrated on those where the margin in the race for the Senate is so tight that there could be surprises. Nevada, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are some of those that have the power to tip the balance on one side or the other, and thus define what the last stretch of the Democratic Presidency will be like.