Washington, DC – Democrats have the momentum; Republicans are surging in defence and cash.
That narrative has emerged ahead of the United States midterm elections in November, as races across the country enter their final stretch.
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With control of the US House of Representatives and the US Senate at stake, Democrats begin October with a surprisingly rosy outlook as more congressional seats are seen as in play.
Republicans, meanwhile, appear to be in damage control, pouring millions of dollars into races once seen as secure victories while injecting more funding into a handful of marquee showdowns.
The party’s standard bearer, President Donald Trump, who has embraced the notion of the election being a referendum on his leadership, enters the final month with staggeringly low approval ratings.
The most recent Associated Press-NORC polling, released on Thursday, showed Trump with 31 percent approval, the lowest during either of his two terms. Only 26 percent of respondents approved Trump’s handling of the economy, dipping two points below his predecessor, former President Joe Biden’s lowest rating on the topic.
Surveys continue to show voters rank the economy as their top issue, with topics like gas prices, made higher by the US-Israel war with Iran, dominating their concerns. Immigration and corruption have also regularly ranked high.
“The broad stroke is that Americans are disappointed, bordering on angry that President Trump hasn’t delivered on the core promises he made when he won re-election,” according to Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC.
House looking solid for Dems
Political trackers have long projected Democrats will take control of the US House of Representatives in the November 3 vote.
Winning a majority in the 435-member chamber from Republicans would give the party renewed legislative power to assert leverage over Trump, while launching investigations into his administration’s dealings. Top Democrats have already signalled that probes into Trump’s family business dealings would be top priorities.
Two election non-partisan prediction authorities, the Cook Political Report and the University of Virginia’s Sabato’s Crystal Ball, have recently assessed that the likelihood of Democrats taking the House has only increased.
The Cook Political Report recently shifted 15 House races in the direction of Democrats, moving some considered “toss-ups” to “leans Democrat” and some previously considered “lean Republican” to “toss-ups”.
One such shift was for a Texas border district represented by Republican Monica De La Cruz. Her district was emblematic of a wider Latino shift towards Trump in 2024. Once seen as holding the advantage over her challenger, Democrat Bobby Pulido, Cook now rates her race as a “toss-up”.
All told, the political analysis clearinghouse now predicts Democrats are on track to win 5 to 15 House seats.
Senate in play
With 30 days left to go, “there’s much more drama in the Senate than the House races”, according to Kyle Kondik, the managing editor at Sabato’s Crystal Ball.
Once considered a pipe dream for Democrats, who need a net gain of at least four seats to win a slim majority, the 100-member chamber has moved within a more comfortable striking distance.
Unlike in the House, where every seat is up for re-election, only 35 Senate seats are up for grabs in this cycle, creating a far narrower pathway to control.
“The trajectory of the polling since Labor Day (September 7) has generally been that a bad Republican environment is just getting worse,” Kondik said, adding that “the Senate just seems to get more and more competitive as the cycle has gone on”.
To be sure, the quality of polling can vary across the country, with Kondik cautioning that gauging the political temperature of the Midwest has been particularly challenging for pollsters.
Still, in North Carolina, former Democratic Governor Roy Cooper is expected to trounce former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Whatley in the race for a Senate seat currently held by Republicans. Top conservative donors have already begun to divert funds from the contest.
Surveys have consistently shown Democrats leading in three other races for seats currently held by Republicans: Democrat James Talarico against Republican Ken Paxton in Texas; Democratic challenger Sherrod Brown against Republican incumbent Senator John Husted in Ohio; and Democratic Mary Peltola against Republican Dan Sullivan in Alaska.
Races for Republican held seats in Iowa, between Republican Ashley Hinson and Democrat Josh Turek, and in Maine, between Republican incumbent Susan Collins and Democratic challenger Troy Jackson, remain separated by less than one point, according to Real Clear Politics polling averages.
Democrats, meanwhile, have consistently led in polling in Senate races in Georgia, New Hampshire and Michigan for seats the party currently holds.
Big money in the race
For Republicans, salvation could be in the spending, with this year’s race continuing a US phenomenon of small fortunes poured into politics.
All told, at least $4bn had been spent on gubernatorial and congressional midterm advertising buys as of September 17, putting the race on track to become “perhaps the most expensive midterm on record”, according to Michael Franz, co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project.
Republicans entered September with a considerable funding edge. The Republican National Committee had $125.6m on hand, with the Democratic National Committee trailing far behind with $16.9m and $17.6m in debt.
When accounting for the three major committees associated with both groups, the Republican Party had $233.4m in cash, according to a CNBC analysis, while the Democratic Party had $130.4m.
Trip Yang, a Democrat strategist based in New York City, told Al Jazeera such spending can be deployed to help boost a candidate’s name recognition or to tear down a competitor.
According to AdImpact, Republicans and their allies were set to spend $888m on advertising from mid-September to election day, with Democrats and their supporters set to spend $666m.
The firm found pro-Republican ad spending would be particularly pronounced in the key Senate races in Ohio, Texas and Michigan, outpacing Democratic spending by at least $24m in each state.
Trump’s unpopularity, Yang said, means “Republicans spending millions or hundreds of millions of dollars improving their candidates’ images by itself may not be enough”.
“If you’re a little bit handicapped because your president is so toxic, you try to spend your hundreds of millions of dollars attacking the Democrats to make it more of a food fight,” he said.
A New York Times analysis estimated by the end of August at least $1bn in so-called “dark money” had been poured into the midterms. The term refers to spending where the donor’s identity is shielded, typically through nonprofit and shell-company donations to Super PACs.
Industry groups, including those supporting Crypto, AI and online betting firms, are expected to be top spenders in key races, although their support tends to cut across partisan lines.
Trump, meanwhile, has pledged to spend between $400m and $500m from his MAGA Inc Super PAC, though it has so far spent about $15m to support Paxton’s Senate bid in Texas.
Pro-Paxton ad reservations far outpaced Talarico in September, according to AdImpact data analysed by NPR, with $94m spent compared with $30m to support the Democrat.
The Trump factor
Trump has pledged to spend the final days before the election in non-stop campaign mode, after urging supporters during his Republican Midterm Convention in Dallas, Texas, to “vote like I’m on the ballot”.
His plan to criss-cross the country for rallies underscores a “base turnout” strategy meant to energise voters already loyal to the party, according to conservative analyst Olsen.
“But the Republican problem is a persuasion problem with people in the middle,” Olsen said. “[Trump’s campaigning] might help with some turnout … but their real problem is persuasion, and it’s not something that’s going to help with that in the slightest.”
Polls have spelt trouble for Republicans when it comes to swaying independents, with a PBS News, NPR and Marist poll from September 23 showing unaffiliated voters breaking for Democrats at 57 percent compared with 32 moving towards Republicans.
The scenario has created a dilemma for some top Republican candidates over whether to break from the president on his most controversial actions, according to Lee Miringoff, the director of the Marist University Institute for Public Opinion.
Senate candidates Ashley Hinson in Iowa, Jon Husted in Ohio and Mike Rogers in Michigan all recently put daylight between themselves and Trump on the war with Iran.
One Republican House candidate, Representative Maria Elvira Salazar, has criticised Trump’s aggressive immigration enforcement policies as she seeks to rally Latino voters in South Florida.
Trump, in turn, reposted a social media message calling Salazar a “backstabber”.
“You need to have, you know, something else going for you other than endorsement of Trump,” said Miringoff. “Some Republicans are starting to have self-preservation kick in because they’re concerned.”
What can change?
Achieving a wide-scale shift in public opinion remains a tall order for Republicans in the final stretch of the race.
Many of the defining issues are unlikely to change before November, with Trump signalling a possible escalation with Iran following the vote as he has downplayed the prospect of short-term affordability relief.
At the same time, the US president has also not ruled out actions that rights groups say could upend voter turnout. Most recently, he refused to commit to not invoking the Insurrection Act or declaring a state of emergency surrounding the vote during an interview with Time magazine.
Miringoff said he believed that the “potential for more than just a marginal shift is there”, as he assessed some Democratic candidates have struggled to present clear visions beyond opposition to Trump.
“The result isn’t formed in concrete,” he said, “to the degree that there’s going to be a lot of money still spent.”
Analyst Olsen saw less remaining wiggle room for the party.
“Republicans have the time and the resources to change the outcome with respect to a few close Senate races,” Olsen said. “But to change direction, they would need something that would be apocal.”
