USA Mid Terms 2014 A Modern Studies Analysis

WHY MID TERMS?

Mid Terms Explained

Americans like to hold their elected representatives to account. That is why elections in the USA are staggered. The President gets elected every four years, members of the House every two years and 1/3 of the Senate every six years. Midterm elections are sometimes regarded as a referendum on the sitting president's and/or incumbent party's performance.

US Election timetable

2012 Presidential Election, all of House of Representatives and 1/3 of Senate.

2014 Mid terms, all of House of Representatives and 1/3 of Senate.

2016 Presidential Election, all of House of Representatives and 1/3 of Senate.

2018 Mid terms, all of House of Representatives and 1/3 of Senate.

Public confidence in Barack Obama is collapsing.

The Republicans seized control of the Senate taking eight seats from the Democrats. Another, in Louisiana, is likely to fall their way after a run-off election in December.

Republicans increased their majority in the House of Representatives and won many governors’ races, not just in the conservative heartlands but in such Democratic bastions as Maryland.

WHAT HAPPENED?

3 minute summary

2015 US House of Representatives

2015 US Senate

RESULTS HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

The Republicans have a large majority in the House of Representatives. Relations between Republican House leader, John Boehner and President Obama have been poor.

The next House of Representatives will still be conservative: hostile to gay marriage, abortion and any checks on gun rights, sceptical about climate change, determined to shrink the state and unwilling to increase taxes.

More gridlock is likely.“The President could burn himself if he acts alone”

RESULTS: SENATE

New Senate leader, Mitch McConnell (Rep)

The Republicans are likely to have 53/54 Senators when the new Senate sits in January. Mitch McConnell has offered to work with President Obama. We’ll see!

We’ll work with the President

RESULTS: STATE LEVEL

At state level Republicans are in charge. Republicans now control 29 state legislatures, holding both chambers—two more than they did, and the most they have since the 1920s.

Interestingly, while most states have Republican leadership, some states voted for very liberal causes in referenda. Nebraska and Arkansas voted to raise the minimum wage, Alaska and Oregon and Washington DC voted to legalize marijuana, and Washington state voted for a gun control measure.

Marijuana Vote in Oregon

Mia Love, first African American woman to be elected to the US Senate.

Democrats chose economic insecurity as a core theme, hammering Republicans for being selfish billionaires, heartlessly ignoring public demands for such policies as raising the minimum wage. Many Republicans played on voter fears about national security. Ads filled the airwaves with doomy images of Ebola victims and Islamic terrorists, and accusing Democrats of doing nothing to secure America’s borders. They made every race about Mr Obama, in particular, ‘Obamacare’.

CAMPAIGNS

Rick Scott

Joni Ernst

Rob Maness

Rick Scott was re-elected as Governor of Florida.

Joni Ernst won her US Senate race in Iowa.

Rob Maness tried to win the Republican nomination for the Louisiana US Senate election. He lost.

Some ads by some Republicans were bizarre

WHAT DO THE MID TERMS MEAN FOR PRESIDENT OBAMA?

Republicans now have control of the House and the Senate. It’s a whole new ballgame for the President. He’s going to need to make serious adjustments in the ways he deals with the opposition.

He may veto legislation he does not like and to write executive orders for the policies he does.

It will complicate efforts at far-reaching legislation, such as immigration or tax policy reform.

Mitch McConnell has never made much of an effort to get on with President Obama. He has tried to defeat almost every Obama proposal. In 2010 he said his top goal was making sure that Obama was a one-term president.

Obama is likely to do what many presidents do in their last two years: turn to the foreign stage, where they may have more leverage to effect change. Obama has the achievements of ending the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the killing of Osama Bin Laden.

But even there, Obama faces difficult challenges. Relations are thorny with as Russia as well as with the USA’s historic ally Israel; conflict in Iraq and Syria has become a mess; and Ebola continues to have a hold in parts of West Africa.

A LAME DUCK PRESIDENT?

President Obama may see power slip away from him in his last two years.

He is likely to try to make sure the Affordable Care Act is implemented and some immigration reform takes place.

A lame duck President?