Il mondo di Trump

CONGRESSIONAL POLLS

The new president may still have a divided Congress

The country is split. There is the possibility of reduced majorities and difficulties in government

3 November 2024

La candidata presidente dei democratici Kamala Harris durante un comizio a Charlotte, North Carolina.

4' min read

Such is the focus on the race for the White House that one tends to forget that the elections on 5 November will also decide which party will control the House and Senate. And that is no small thing.

Suppose Trump wins.

It would make a big difference if he had both houses of parliament on his side. Actually, this already happened when he was elected in 2016 but then the Republican Party had not yet become the party of Trump. Today it is different. Trump is unique in American history: he has taken the Republican Party and made it practically a personal party by radically changing its profile. This is why the concentration of power that would occur in the event of his victory with a Republican majority in both chambers would be such as to risk undermining the system of checks and balances that is at the heart of American democracy. All the more so since on his side, as seen for example with the recent ruling on presidential immunity, he would also have the Supreme Court with a conservative majority.

For the past twenty years, divided government, that is, a government in which different parties control the presidency and one or both chambers, has been the norm in American politics.

Today the Democrats have a slim majority in the Senate: 51 to 49. The Republicans, on the other hand, have a slim majority in the House.

LA SFIDA ALLA CAMERA

Out of 435 seats they have 220 against the Democrats' 212, with three seats vacant. Only on two occasions has there been a case of a unified government, i.e. one party winning it all: in 2008 when Barack Obama became president and precisely in 2016 with Trump, but in the immediately following midterm elections both Obama and Trump lost control of the House. That being said, what can we expect from this election?

As in the case of the presidency, the predictions for both chambers are very uncertain. More uncertain in the House than in the Senate. The Cook Political Report, the most authoritative analysis of the two parties' chances of victory in Congress, divides the 435 constituencies into different categories. The safe ones are those where there is a solid majority in favour of one or the other party. The probable are those in which the chances of victory are good. The possible ones are those where one party has a chance. And then there are the constituencies in the balance. In the case of the presidential there are the Swing States, in the case of the parliamentary there are the Swing Districts. In the total count, the Republicans have the advantage: 220 to 215. But in reality the difference is minimal and there are 22 constituencies in the balance.

It is difficult to predict how this will turn out. What is highly probable is that the winner - whatever it may be - will have a slim majority.

In the Senate, the situation is more defined. Unlike the House, only a third of senators are re-elected. To be precise, there are 34. The outgoing are 23 Democrats and 11 Republicans. Recall that there are currently 51 Democrats and 49 Republicans. Again, it is the Cook Political Report that helps us make the point. Also added to the categories of constituencies mentioned above are the definitely lost and probably lost constituencies. The Republicans are better off than the Democrats.

LA SFIDA AL SENATO

First of all because their seats at stake are less than half that of the Democrats. Secondly because they are already certain to recover a seat in West Virginia and probably that of Montana.

In light of these calculations, the most reasonable conclusion is that it is really difficult for the Democrats to maintain control of the Senate. Even if they win all the safe, the likely, the possible, and the four in the balance, together with the current 28 senators they already have, they would arrive at 49 with the Republicans having 51.

The picture of the Congressional contest is substantially the same as that for the race for the White House. It is the picture of a deeply divided country. Whoever wins will find it difficult to govern, as it has been since Ronald Reagan. The new president will probably face a divided parliament or at least a slim majority in both chambers. All this in a context where polarisation has eliminated the willingness to compromise.

Few congressmen and senators are willing to cooperate in the general interest of the country. Among them are two moderate Republican senators, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine. If Trump wins and the Republicans have a slim majority in the Senate a great responsibility will rest on these two women. They are the few representatives of a world that no longer exists.