Winning the White House is, of course, the big prize in the November 5 election. But in the American system, controlling the government counts for relatively little if you don’t also control Congress, which is responsible for passing laws and budgets. For months, as President Joe Biden floundered in the polls, Democrats feared a Republican majority in the House and Senate. But at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, the shift in attitude was palpable: there was jubilation about his chances, not just in the White House but on Capitol Hill as well.
Smiles and hugs were everywhere in the hallways of the United Center, the Bulls’ arena that hosted the convention. The same was true at the meetings of the various groups of legislators — the Latino caucus, the black caucus, the women’s caucus — in the Chicago hotels and restaurants where the top Democrats met outside of official events.
Polls indicate a comeback for the Kamala Harris-Tim Walz ticket, which is currently tied with Republicans Donald Trump and JD Vance. Democrats are ahead of Republicans by 1.7 percentage points in polls on which party voters prefer to see in Congress. Democratic donations are multiplying those from the Republicans: on Sunday, the vice president’s campaign announced that, in the month since Biden was replaced by Harris, the party has raised 540 million dollars (482 million euros).
“The momentum we’re seeing in Chicago reflects the energy we’re seeing across the country with our Senate and House candidates, and with Harris and Walz leading our ticket,” said Congressional Democratic campaign chairwoman Suzan DelBene in a talk with reporters during the convention.
It’s a far cry from the “sense of agony,” as one senior Democratic official described it, that permeated lawmakers in the weeks before Biden declined to seek reelection. Democrats then feared losing their one-seat Senate majority and that the House, which Republicans control by 220 seats to 212 and three vacancies, would see their rivals’ hold expand by several more seats.
“The prospect of not winning the White House and of Republicans controlling the House of Representatives was a horrible prospect,” admitted former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi last week in a talk hosted by the digital newspaper Political.
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The veteran politician, probably the most influential Democratic leader in the party, was, according to what has been leaked since then, the decisive voice in forcing Biden’s departure, precisely with the argument that the foreseeable defeat of the president could cause a hard blow also in Congress. Her statements about “it is up to the president to leave or not” were the symbolic knife in those idesJuly. And they have earned her the nickname of The Godmother in certain circles of the party, in allusion to the trilogy The Godfather, by Francis Ford Coppola.
Now, consider, the tables have turned completely. Democrats believe they have a real chance of winning control of the House of Representatives through victories in Republican districts in California and New York, two states with overwhelming Democratic majorities. Analysts think that, of the total 435 seats in the House, 22 could fall to either side.
“We need to win five more seats to get a majority, but I want more,” Pelosi said. But the grand dame of Democratic politics also called for complacency. “What is going to be difficult is for everyone to continue to focus on working to win, because right now the euphoria is unleashed. But we have not won anything yet,” she recalled.
The difficulty of maintaining the Senate
It is not an easy road. And in the Senate, the prospects for maintaining control appear complicated. Harris’s party dominates the upper chamber by 51 seats to 49, and in this year’s race they are defending 23, most of them in Republican or swing states, while the Republicans only have 11 in play, all of them in favorable territories.
If they win the White House, the Democrats could afford to lose one and still retain their dominance: in the event of a tie, the vote of the vice-presidential candidate breaks the tie. But they have already ruled out one, that of Joe Manchin in West Virginia, who is withdrawing. And among those up for grabs this year – the House of Representatives is up for all its seats; the Senate only a third – two are from very Republican states: Jon Tester, in Montana, and Sherrod Brown, in Ohio. Neither of them has participated in the convention, to accentuate the independent profile with which they are presenting themselves in the campaign.
Perhaps overly optimistic, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer predicted this week that not only will they retain control of the Senate, but they will expand it “by a seat or two.” Although he did not specify where, the veteran politician noted that Colin Allred is raising significant donations in his battle in Texas against Senator Ted Cruz. In Florida, the race between Debbie Mucarsel-Powell and Republican Rick Scott “is going to be a lot closer than people think.” The senior Democrat also points to the fact that several states with contested seats in the upper house, such as Nevada, Florida and Montana, will also vote on measures on reproductive rights in November, an issue that favors Democrats.
To give their candidacies a boost, the last day of the convention dedicated several speaking turns to some of the senatorial candidates who will be competing in November, from Elisa Slotkin in Michigan to Colin Allred in Texas. The latter received one of the biggest ovations of the night, minutes before Harris’s speech.
“We can’t send Kamala and Tim to the White House alone,” Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez urged in her applauded speech to the convention. “Together, we must elect strong Democratic majorities in the House and Senate so we can implement an ambitious program for the people.”
“The energy and interest we’ve seen” in the front-runner “absolutely carries over” to the rest of the races, said Congressman Peter Aguilar, the third-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives. “I think it’s given new energy to our communities in the swing districts, and that’s where we’re headed to get 218 in the House.”
Republicans, for their part, claim that discontent over the state of the economy and border policy, among other things, will give them the necessary boost to win the electoral triple. They are betting that the enthusiasm for the slogans of “joy” and “we are not going to go back” and the enthusiasm of the Democrats will decrease in the coming weeks, as Harris has to make her government program clearer at events such as the presidential debate in Philadelphia on September 10.
“If we talk about the politics of joy, almost two-thirds of New York State is not feeling that joy. What they are feeling is the problem of inflation eating away at their wages and their salaries are now worth 5% to 15% less, and that hurts them,” said the chairman of the Republican Party in New York, Ed Cox, this weekend.
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