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President Joe Biden, who had been sounding an optimistic note about the midterms, finally conceded Monday night that it’ll be ‘tougher’ for his party to win the House as polls point to a Republican victory.
Biden’s comments come as his approval rating dropped down to 39%. His low numbers and fears of a red wave coming out of Tuesday’s election has some in the Democratic Party calling for a ‘next generation candidate’ to run for the White House in 2024.
‘I think we’ll win the Senate. I think the House is tougher,’ the president told reporters at the White House after he returned from his final campaign rally, where he pleaded with voters to send more Democrats to Congress.
Asked what the reality of governing will be like if Republicans win, he responded: ‘More difficult.’
Biden faces a difficult two years in office should the GOP emerge victorious on Tuesday as Republicans have vowed to stymie Biden’s legislative agenda and investigate his presidency.
Election forecasters have the GOP winning the House. But the Senate, where any one race can flip the chamber’s majority, is seen as more up for grabs.
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden return to the White House after a campaign rally in Bowie, Maryland, on Monday night
Final voting has begun across the country.
Almost 44.5 million people across the country had already cast ballots in early voting, according to the U.S. Elections Project.
The midterms arrive at a volitale point in America.
The country is finally emerging from the COVID pandemic but facing an economic downturn, abortion rights are in danger in many states after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, and there are threats of violence and intimidation at the polls in this first election since the January 6th insurrection.
All 435 seats in the House and one-third of the Senate, along with several governor races, are being decided on Tuesday. Results could take several days to process as votes are counted. Many Senate and governors races were polling within the maring of error.
In a sign Democrats are worried about how election night will go for them, more of them are flipping on the president with some already calling for him not to run for re-election.
Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota told CNN it’s time for new leadership.
‘Regardless of tomorrow’s results, I believe Democrats must rebuild our brand and repopulate our bench of future leaders – for both Congress and the White House,’ Phillips said. ‘President Biden has fulfilled his promise to serve as a stabilizing ‘bridge’ to the future, and I expect a majority of Democrats will be seeking a next generation candidate to take the baton in 2024.’
Many Democrats worried that Biden wasn’t doing enough to address the economy. In poll after poll, voters labeled it their top concern as rampant inflation drives up the cost of living.
A Washington Post-ABC News poll out this week found Republicans had significant advantages on economy and inflation, which voters call their central concern of the midterm election.
‘I’m a loyal Democrat, but I am not happy. I just thinking we did not listen to voters in this election and I think we are going to have a bad night,’ longtime Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen, who is close to the Biden White House, said on CNN Sunday.
Voters have given Biden low marks for his handling of the economy and that has given the president a low approval rating. It sits at 39% in the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll.
Biden has defended his record by touting the record number of jobs created by his presidency. But many of those were a result of the job marketing reopening after the shutdown during the COVID pandemic.
The president also has bragged he’s reduced the deficit. But his plan to cut student loan debt – which is being challenged in the courts – will actually add to the country’s debt.
Biden has no public events on his schedule for Tuesday. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said he would ‘have a full schedule here at the White House’ but offered no other details.
People wait in line to vote at a polling place in Hialeah, Florida
Voters arrive to cast their ballot in Commerce, Michigan
The president, in the runup to Tuesday’s election, notably stayed away from some of the biggest battleground races. He made no appearances in Nevada, New Hampshire or Arizona, where they are competitive Senate races.
He did appear in Pennsylvania for Senate candidate John Fetterman. Pennsylvania is Biden’s second home state. He was born there but raised in Delaware.
Otherwise the president has focused on getting out the vote in blue areas of the country. His final rally was in Maryland, where Democrat Wes Moore is trying to become the state’s first black governor. Biden won the state of by 34 points in the 2020 presidential election.
He also made stops in New Mexico and Florida.
Most presidents see their party lose seats in power during the midterm election. Barack Obama famously called the 2010 midterm a ‘shellacking’ after Republicans won 63 House seats during the first midterm election of his presidency.
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Bill Clinton and George W. Bush also saw their parties lose seats. All three men went on to win a second term in the White House.
Meanwhile, Republicans are already eying rolling back portions of the Inflation Reduction Act, including its new, higher taxes on corporations and some of its climate initiatives, if they win on Tuesday.
They would, however, also need control of the Senate. Biden also still has his presidential veto pen.
One area Republicans can have autonomy is in investigations.
Republicans in the House are getting ready to target the administration on a range of issues: from the business dealings of Biden’s son, Hunter; to what Republicans call political interference by the FBI and Justice Department; to the origins of the COVID pandemic; and the situation at the Southern border.
Biden also has to contemplate running for a second term. He has said he intends to make another bid but also has said he will discuss it with his family when they are all together over the holiday season.
Jill Biden, who has a highly influential role with her husband, is on board for another run.
Biden turns 80 this month. He has down played concerns about this age.
In a radio interview on Monday, he downplayed his upcoming birthday, saying he feels more like 50.
‘There’s so much we can do, and we’re just getting started,’ he said.
When will result of midterms be in? It could take just hours or almost a MONTH for control of Congress to be known… but beware of red and blue ‘mirage states’ that appear decided before they really are
Though Election Day is just days away, it may take Americans up to a month to know which party will be in control of the United States Congress,
All 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives are up for grabs on Tuesday, as are 35 U.S. Senate seats and 36 governorships.
Republicans would need to pick up five seats to take a majority in the House and just one to control the Senate. Nonpartisan election forecasters and polls suggest Republicans have a very strong chance of winning a House majority, with control of the Senate likely to be closer fought as voters say they are most concerned about the economy.
A massive wave of Republican support could lead to declarations of victory hours after polls close.
But with dozens of races expected to be close and key states like Pennsylvania already warning it could take days to count every ballot, experts say there’s a good chance Americans go to bed on election night without knowing who won.
‘When it comes to knowing the results, we should move away from talking about Election Day and think instead about election week,’ said Nathan Gonzales, who publishes the nonpartisan newsletter Inside Elections.
The earliest vote tallies will be skewed by how quickly states count mail-in ballots, with some states reporting mail-in ballots results earlier, which could make it seem like Democrats have the lead in the state
Beware of red and blue ‘mirage’ states
The earliest vote tallies will be skewed by how quickly states count mail-in ballots.
Because Democrats vote by mail more often than Republicans, states that let officials get an early jump on counting mail ballots could report big Democratic leads early on that evaporate as vote counters work through piles of Republican-leaning ballots that were cast on election day.
In these ‘blue mirage’ states — like Florida and North Carolina — election officials are allowed to remove mail ballots from their envelopes before Election Day and load them in vote counting machines, allowing for speedy counting.
But states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin don’t allow officials to open the envelopes until Election Day, leading to a possible ‘red mirage’ in which Republican-leaning Election Day ballots are reported earlier, with many Democratic-leaning mail ballots counted later.
Experts like Joe Lenski, co-founder of Edison Research, which will be tracking hundreds of races on November 8 said he will keep an eye on the mix of different types of ballots each state is counting throughout the night.
‘Blue mirage, red mirage, whatever. You just have to look at what types of votes are getting reported to know where you are in that state,’ said Lenski.
So when will we know when the races are won?
The first wave of vote tallies are expected on the East Coast between 7pm and 8pm ET. An early indication of Republican success could come if the races expected to be close — like Virginia’s 7th congressional district (where Republican Liz Cheney has put her support behind a Democratic candidate) or a contentious U.S. Senate seat in North Carolina — turn out to be Democratic routs.
By around 10pm or 11pm EST, when polls in the Midwest will be closed for an hour or more, it’s possible Republicans will have enough momentum for experts at U.S. media organizations to project control of the House, said Kyle Kondik, a political analyst at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.
If the fight for the House still looks close as vote tallies start coming in from the West Coast — where there could be more than a dozen tight House races — it could be days before control of the chamber is known, experts said.
California typically takes weeks to count all its ballots, in part because it counts ballots postmarked by Election Day even if they arrive days afterward. Nevada and Washington state also allow late ballots if postmarked by November 8, slowing down the march to final results.
‘If the House is really on the edge, that would matter,’ said Kondik.
It may take longer, perhaps weeks longer, to know which party will control the Senate, with close contests in Pennsylvania, Arizona and Georgia likely to determine final control.
And iIf Georgia’s Senate race is as close as expected and no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote, a run-off election would be scheduled for December 6, possibly leaving control of the chamber in limbo until then.
