06/11/2014
Juan Tovar is a lecturer of International Relations, Universidad de Burgos.
The mid-term elections, in which virtually all members of the House of Representatives are chosen, as well as a part of senators and governors among many other positions at the state and local level, and also some specific legislative initiatives, do not normally bring good news for the ruling party in the United States. This trend has been confirmed by the victory of the Republican candidates in more than the six states required to snatch from the Democrats, for the first time since 2006, control of the Senate while increasing the Republican majority in the House of Representatives.
To get an idea of the size of the Democratic defeat, Republicans – so far and still pending the results of some of the specific elections which could yet increase their majority – have won 22 of the 36 seats at stake in the Senate, 242 of the 435 seats in the House of Representatives (they had 235) and 24 of the 36 governors. Most of the predictions, which emphasised the possible complete Democrat loss of Congress, complicating the second half of President Obama's tenure, are thus confirmed.
The first question to be asked is what has happened to the Democrats – who until recently controlled both houses of the US Congress – to lose it completely. There is no single cause, on top of the debate that is usually developed in each state, there's the relative boredom of voters with an economic situation that, despite the changes and progressive growth, they feel still has not improved completely. It should also be added that the social segments on which the electoral Democrat power rests – women, Latinos and African Americans – tend to vote on a smaller scale in an election the average turnout of which is around 40%, as many analysts have pointed out. And these elections have been no exception, with an even lower turnout (36.6%).
Furthermore, although foreign policy has not played a prominent role in these elections, different analysts have mentioned it among the issues which could have influenced the voter with a political feeling which some have defined as "adrift." On the other hand, the divisions that affect the Republican Party and which have caused clashes between the representatives of the Tea Party and the Establishment, have not operated this time and Republican voters went en bloc to elect their representatives, thus achieving a victory that will allow them to exercise control over the Legislative.
One could wonder about the possible consequences of a change that, more prominently even than in recent years, will hinder the government of a system based on checks and balances and wherein the power of each of the institutions is designed to be balanced by the others. Therefore, a Republican majority in Congress will allow the blocking of the bills of President Obama more effectively than hitherto, who had already been forced to make use of presidential decrees to get them through, as they can only be rejected by a two-thirds majority in the Senate. The first speech of Senator Mitch McConnell, likely new leader of the Republican majority in the Senate, has raised the possibility of pacts with the Democrats, something that has yet to materialise.
Nor is it clear that this victory in Congress will facilitate the arrival of a Republican Presidency, affected as they are by broad divisions, and for which they would still need to win broad electoral segments to their side – who turned their backs to them in the latest presidential elections, where the turnout rate is greater – and get a strong candidate capable of surpassing Democratic presidential contenders like Hillary Clinton. This situation will not be positive either for the already tarnished image of a paralysed and dysfunctional Washington, which is already affecting a large number of voters, as many political scientists and analysts have said. An image produced, moreover, amid an atmosphere of great political and ideological divisions, not only between parties but within them, as in the Republican case.