Issue 149

A Crash Course in... The US midterm elections

20th November 2006

The US midterm elections have been and gone. But what were they about, and how do they affect the world as a whole?

The midterm elections take place on the first Tuesday of every November every even numbered year, between presidential elections, and if that sounds complicated, the bad news is that it doesn't really get any simpler.

Both houses in Capitol hill are contested - the House of Representatives and the Senate. Elections are held for all 435 seats in the house of Representatives, and for one third of all the seats out of 100 in the Senate. The Democrats won narrow victories in both houses in the recent elections; The Midterms are also considered to be a good indication of how the presidential elections in two years time will go.

The Democrats won a majority in the senate for the first time since 1994 thanks to two independents who are expected to side with them following a 49 all tie between the major parties, and a 229 to 196 majority in the house of Representatives, the first time that they have had a majority there in 11 years.

The result of the 2006 midterms, with such a dramatic swing towards the Democrats is that President Bush is going to find it extremely difficult to push through any new legislation through congress, drastically reducing his chances of victory in the 2008 presidential elections.

The BBC believes that such a dramatic swing away from the republicans was a combination of protest votes and the fact that voters were "overwhelmingly upset with the direction of the country, disgusted with President Bush and angry at the course of the war". Corruption in the senate was also regarded by many analysts as a major factor in voter behaviour.

The results of the midterms saw US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld resigning from his post in response to his poor handling of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the first ever female speaker of the house in Nancy Pelosi and the first ever muslim elected to Congress in Keith Ellison.

The major issue in the 2006 midterms has been the war in Iraq, which has so far lasted longer than the US involvement in the second world war. The war has become deeply unpopular with a mounting toll that the US population is becoming increasingly reluctant to bear. As a result, George W. Bush's popularity ratings have plumeted since 2003.

Other issues of note were Abortion, Gay marrage, and Stem Cell research. Along with alegations of scandal, many votes were lost for the republicans in these areas that they had gained from the religious right in the 2004 primary elections, when the Republican party proffered itself as the party of moral standing and decency. The knock on effects of all this are that, for once, the Democrats stand a good chance of winning the 2008 Primary elections.

Dan Shaw