United States

On November 8, Americans will be called to vote for a variety of federal, State, and local offices. The entire House of Representatives, one third of the Senate, and 36 gubernatorial seats will also be on the ballot. The outcome of the 2022 midterm elections won’t just have a major impact on the remaining two years of Joe Biden's presidency.

After four turbulent years in the transatlantic partnership under President Trump, the Biden administration aspired to rebuild trust among its allies. Under the slogan “America is back” President Biden and senior officials not only emphasized their commitment to the transatlantic partnership but also proposed a future-oriented agenda to increase institutional innovation and resilience.

On November 8, Americans will be called to vote for a variety of federal, State, and local offices. Like every two years, the entire House of Representatives and 1/3 of the Senate (34 senators + 1 special vote in Oklahoma) will be up for election. At the State level, 88 of 99 legislative chambers – Nebraska having the only unicameral system – will hold elections, and 36 gubernatorial seats will also be on the ballot (there were only 11 in 2020).

The 2022 midterm congressional elections should be good ones for the Republican Party. Capitalizing on President Biden’s unpopularity and voter concerns over inflation, crime, and border security, GOP candidates are widely expected to capture the House of Representatives, and stand at least an even chance of taking the Senate as well. The party, however, stands in many ways at a crossroads in 2022; the outcomes of various races on Election Night will tell much about the party’s agenda, coalition, and prospects going forward.

As the midterm elections approach, immigration is again a powerful flashpoint in the polarised landscape of American politics. 

Last September, the House minority leader Kevin McCarthy (R-California) blamed president Biden for making ‘every community a border community’. He may have not accurately described the state of affairs on the ground, but he certainly made it clear that border security, often conflated with crime, is at the centre of the GOP’s electoral rhetoric.

Almost exactly sixty years ago John F. Kennedy, a first-term Democratic president from the moderate wing of his party, campaigned across the country to prevent his party from losing control of Congress in the midterm elections. Kennedy had come under fire from the liberal wing of his party, and from African Americans marching for their civil rights, for being too timid in advocating for progressive change, but he was also under pressure from others in his party and beyond to revive a slowing economy.

Since its creation during the 1820s, the Democratic Party has always been a broad coalition of partners with little in common, at least demographically. During the nineteenth century, it brought together white Southerners, rich and poor and nearly all Protestant, with Catholic wage-earners from the industrial North. Until two-thirds of the way through the twentieth century, Democrats retained the loyalty of most whites from Dixie – who abhorred racial equality – while gradually winning over Black and Hispanic voters too.

While the pandemic has monopolised attention over the past two years, it’s far from the only story, as tectonic changes continue on the world stage and the “great transition” picks up pace.

Worldwide, energy prices recently skyrocketed to their absolute highest level in decades, spreading concerns about their ripple effect for consumers, the economic recovery, and energy security.

The Singapore Summit between US President Trump and North Korean leader Kim was lighting a beacon of hope on the Korean Peninsula. After almost 70 years of unending war, a new historical chance was emerging that would gradually bring peace to the divided nation. But, after the summit, renewed frustration about a lack of progress was not long coming. Particularly, the US administration returned to old patterns of negotiation and demonstrated an ambiguous agenda.

The United States looks at the upcoming Egyptian presidential elections with mixed – although increasingly critical – feelings. During his recent state visit to the Middle East, at the end of January, Vice President Mike Pence paid traditional lip service to Cairo’s strongman, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, confirming President Trump’s will to re-establish good political relations “after a time when our countries seemed to be drifting apart”[1].

Donald Trump’s first year as President of the United States has been, to put it mildly, tempestuous. After a bitterly divisive campaign and a razor-thin victory (he won in the Electoral College with only 46.4% of the national popular vote), Trump took office with the lowest initial approval rating of any president in the modern polling era, and has remained historically unpopular for a first-year president.