WASHINGTON: Medium to high voter turnout was reported from across the United States on Tuesday as Americans began voting in the 2022 midterm elections.

The results will determine whether Republicans or Democrats control congress for the final two years of President Joe Biden’s term.

Polls opened in the second smallest state of Vermont — which has about half a million voters — at 5am. More than 45 million mail-in ballots had already been cast in 47 of the 50 states even before the voting began. Media reports said that pre-election voting this year has been higher than the last midterm, held in 2018.

The turnout was high in the so-called toss-up states, such as Michigan, that can go either way and it was lower in the states which are clearly marked as Republican or Democratic.

Throughout the election campaign, President Biden, and other Democratic leaders like former President Barack Obama, had been urging Americans to vote to protect democracy, “An overwhelming majority of Americans believe that our democracy is under threat,” he said in one of his speeches before the campaigning closed.

“You can’t call yourself a democracy or supporting democratic principles if you say, ‘The only election that is fair is the one I win,’” Mr Biden said.

His Republican rival, former President Donald Trump, however, did exactly that. In a social media post earlier this week, he claimed that Dem­ocrats were trying to steal another election by rigging pre-election votes and Republicans will not accept another defeat. Hours before the polling started, he riled up his supporters by saying that he’ll make a “very big announcement” on Nov 15.

“Not to detract from tomorrow’s very important, even critical, election, and I would say in the strongest way it’s a country-saving election ... I’m going to be making a very big announcement on Tuesday, Nov 15 at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida,” Mr Trump said.

The US media reported that Mr. Trump plans to announce he will make another bid for the White House in the 2024 presidential election.

Media reports also indicated that Republicans have maintained the lead they had going into Election Day on Tuesday, with high hopes of winning back the House. The Senate will be decided by a handful of close races.

CNN reported that a Republican wave would bring scores of new members into the House of Representatives who “swear by Mr Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.”

Mr Trump “weaponise a Republican-controlled House against Mr Biden ahead of the 2024 presidential vote.”

Kevin McCarthy — who will likely become Republican Speaker if Republicans win — has not ruled out impeaching Mr. Biden, despite the absence of any evidence that he’s committed an impeachable offense.

A surprise Democratic victory would “allow Mr. Biden to build upon his social, health, and climate change legislation, and to balance out the judiciary with liberal judges after four years of Trump’s conservative picks,” the report added. If Republicans capture both the House and the Senate, they will turn Mr. Biden a lame-duck president in his remaining two years, preventing him from any legislation that could favor the Democrats in 2024.

President Biden, however, could still use his veto power, which requires, which requires a two-thirds majority to override. In the 100-seat Senate, a total of 35 seats are up for grabs.

Democrats control the Senate with Vice President Kamala Harris’ tie-breaking vote. Republicans only require a net gain of a single seat to take control.

Democrats pin their hopes for gaining the Senate majority on the ultra-competitive contests in Pennsylvania and Georgia. The Senate races in the two states remain stubbornly close.

Interviews with voters show that most Americans have been affected by inflation and rising prices of gas and food. This favors the Republicans as the incumbent always gets the blame for economic failures.

Republicans also used rising crime rates and continued illegal migration through the US-Mexico border for stirring up their supporters, who are mostly White.

Besides democracy, Democrats also used the Republican anti-abortion policies to bring out women voters. A high turnout of women voters favours the Democrats.

Published in Dawn, November 9th, 2022