Midterm elections in the United States: the Biden-Trump duel in the background

Published on: 23/10/2022 – 12:56 The campaign for the 2022 midterms is marked by the unusual presence of the former president. So much so that this ballot, which historically sanctions the head of state in place, this time looks like a double Biden-Trump referendum. And the Democrats hope to take advantage of it. To analyse. There is a little air of 2020 in 2022. On November 8, the United States will organize their midterm elections: legislative and local elections which usually make it possible to take stock of the first half of the mandate. of the current president. However, among the front pages of the American press, it is as much, if not more, about Donald Trump than Joe Biden. Tradition dictates that once outside the Oval Office, the former heads of state maintain relative silence. , preferring vacations in the sun, highly paid conferences or the construction of a presidential library to the tumult of Washington. This is not the case for Donald Trump. Since his defeat in 2020 – which he has never recognized – the billionaire, silenced on Twitter and Facebook, continues to mobilize his supporters by press release and on his own Truth Social network. Donald Trump leaves the door wide open for a candidacy for the White House in 2024. He goes on meetings, often stealing the show from the contenders for Congress he is supposed to have come to support. For those midterms, he dubbed with relative success candidates, like best-selling writer JD Vance in Ohio, who supported his conspiracy theory of the stolen election. Conversely, some of those who refused to walk in his game, like the Republican representative of Wyoming Liz Cheney, lost their primaries. Since this summer, business has been piling up. The FBI’s spectacular search of his home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, led to the seizure of boxes of classified White House archives. Since then, the battle of lawyers between Donald Trump and the Department of Justice has raged. His legal troubles do not stop there. New York State Attorney General Letitia James on September 21 announced civil lawsuits against Donald Trump and some of his children in the investigation into the Trump Organization’s tax practices. congressional investigation into the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, the last hearing of which was held live on October 13, continues to remind Americans of the putschist intentions of their former president. But the latter persists and signs. Summoned to appear in a final showdown by the commission, Donald Trump responded the next day with a scathing statement. “With the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on what many consider a farce and witch hunt…you haven’t spent even a moment looking into the massive voter fraud that has taken place. during the 2020 presidential election (…).”The Democrats are rubbing their hands. While the spotlight is on Donald Trump, his pans and his accusations without proof, the critical examination of Joe Biden’s record takes a back seat. “Midterms are often referred to as a referendum on the incumbent president. Which should logically hurt Democrats because Joe Biden is not a popular president,” comments J. Miles Coleman, political cartographer and co-editor of Sabato’s newsletter. Crystal Ball, the University of Virginia’s election prediction tool. The popularity rating of the head of state is indeed around 42.5% only, after having plunged to 37% this summer. But according to J. Miles Coleman, Donald Trump’s extreme visibility could “save” the Democrats: “The more he inserts himself into this election, the more he reminds undecided voters why they voted for Biden.” ?So that these midterms promise to be a double Biden-Trump referendum. Doug Schwartz, director of the Quinnipiac University polling institute, confirms that this is quite unusual for midterm elections. “Traditionally, the result would look like a judgment on the performance of Joe Biden and his party. But it turns into a choice, because a lot of voters have Donald Trump on their minds as well.” And to add: “Six months ago, most political observers expected a big Republican wave of the same ilk as the one we saw two years after Donald Trump or Barack Obama came to power. Today, they estimate that the wave may not be that big, if there is one.” Lately, analysts believe that the Democrats have a chance to keep their majority in the Senate. The “Trump” effect on these midterms could also have an impact on the Republican primaries for 2024, according to J. Miles Coleman: ” Seeing the hearings on January 6, Republicans are tempted to think: ‘We could nominate someone who looks like Trump but who does not drag his pans’.”Democracy on the ballotJoe Biden and his teams have seized this opportunity. While Republicans try to blame him for the spectacular inflation – dubbed “Bidenflation” – that is hitting the country and the rest of the world, he responds by campaigning on the theme of saving democracy. “There is no place for political violence,” he said on September 1 during a speech with great fanfare in Philadelphia, where the Declaration of Independence and the American Constitution were adopted. Still, the theme of democracy is a double-edged sword. First, because it is not the priority of voters to date. “Inflation and abortion are surely more important issues”, assures J. Miles Coleman. But also, he notes, because everyone sees a little what they want in the expression “saving democracy”: “A polling institute asked voters if threats against democracy were an important theme. Two-thirds answered yes, across all parties. But in fact the wording was quite broad. If you’re a Democrat, you think of the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol or Trump and his authoritarian tendencies. If you’re a Republican, you’re thinking voter fraud.”Democrats know they won’t be able to convince die-hard Donald Trump supporters anyway. But to keep a chance in the Senate, they rather target independent voters, moderates who switch from one party to another depending on the election, and to whom the evocation of the figure of Donald Trump gives pimples. If the latter are very dissatisfied with Joe Biden’s policies and galloping inflation, perhaps a reminder of the January 6 attack could save them from putting a Republican ballot in the ballot box. The Democrats will have their answer on November 8.