Congressional elections, abortion… Behind the Trump-Harris duel, these other decisive ballots – L'Express

In Macon, Georgia, the weather is radiant this Tuesday, November 5, 2024. A young American voter goes to work and stops in front of his old high school where the polling station is located in the neighborhood where he grew up. He parks his pickup in the establishment's parking lot, puts on his shirt and joins the queue that has formed at the entrance to the gymnasium. More than twenty voters are already gathered there. When his turn comes, a volunteer checks his identity and shows him a machine that looks like an ATM. The way in which the presidential election is taking place in the United States is likely to perplex more than one French voter. In front of his voting machine, our American citizen does not slip a ballot into an envelope, as in France: he ticks boxes. Lots of boxes. He checks his vote one last time and prints his ballot. Then goes to another machine responsible for scanning and recovering his ballot. “Voted!”

This scene resembles that which millions of Americans called to the polls will experience this Tuesday. During this election, they will not only vote to elect their president, but also, often, for their senators, their elected representatives in the House of Representatives, their local elected officials… They will elect certain members of the administration of their State – their sheriff, their tax collectors, their prosecutor – and will sometimes have to vote for measures put to referendum by the local legislature. All these elections have a direct impact on their daily lives, but are, inevitably, the subject of much less media coverage than the race for the White House.

Republicans target the Senate

The American Senate is the upper house of Congress, the parliament of the United States, and the political balances within this body should be reversed. After six years of Republican governance, the Democrats had snatched a very narrow majority in 2020, which they were able to keep during the last mid-term elections. They now have 51 seats (including 4 occupied by independents, often former democrats) out of 100, which leaves them very little room for maneuver, especially since this year the configuration of the vote is not up to par. their advantage.

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A small point of constitutional law is necessary: ​​each American state is represented by two senators – regardless of its population – and these senators are elected for six years. Every two years, a third of the Senate is renewed. Problem for the Democrats: this year, two thirds of the seats put to the vote belong to their majority. There is no guarantee that Kamala Harris' party will be able to keep the majority, but to remain at the head of the Senate, the Democrats cannot afford to lose a single seat.

Of the 23 Democratic and independent seats up for grabs, the party is almost sure to keep around fifteen, such as in California or in the Northeast states (New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Connecticut, Massachusetts). Two seats are much more contested, however: that of Joe Manchin, former Democratic senator from West Virginia, now independent, who is retiring this year and that of Sherrod Brown, the senator from Ohio. Flipping these two seats would be enough for the Republicans to regain control of the Senate, especially since the “Grand Old Party” should keep all of its 11 seats renewed during the November 5 election.

In the House: target six elected officials!

The lower house of Congress operates a little differently. First, it is completely renewed every two years. Then, the electoral map is drawn according to the population of the country and each state has a different number of representatives (52 for California, only one for Wyoming, Vermont or North Dakota).

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After four years of Democratic governance, the Republicans were destined to largely regain control of the House of Representatives in 2022. But in the meantime, the Supreme Court, largely in favor of the party's conservative agenda, overturned the Roe vs. Wade who allowed abortion nationwide. This controversial measure (today, nearly two-thirds of Americans say they are in favor of reproductive rights) had weakened them in many states and they ultimately won the majority by only a handful of seats. This Tuesday, November 5, they hope to expand this majority a little further. Nothing has been won yet: for their part, the Democrats are only missing six seats to regain the perch of the lower house. A result that is not beyond their reach.

This election promises to be extremely close because the composition of the House is quite fixed. According to a study by Pew Research Center, 311 of the 435 constituencies voted systematically for the same party between 2012 and 2022, which corresponds to around 71% of the seats. Another 27 “districts” have voted consistently with one exception, and only 28 districts have elected both Republican and Democratic representatives in ten years.

If we focus on the last two elections, only 18 seats had changed political color between 2020 and 2022 (or around 4% of the total number of seats). These are the regions that observers of American politics scrutinize carefully: the main American news sites have identified around twenty. As with the presidential election, the majority in the House will be decided in a handful of territories.

Referendums in several states

Every four years, during the American presidential elections, states can also organize referendums on certain measures. This year, ten states will, for example, question their citizens on the question of reproductive rights.

Since the Supreme Court's decision in 2022, half of American states have already introduced measures restricting or prohibiting the right to abortion. Following these referendums, certain bans could be lifted or confirmed.