US Senate’s Republican mid-terms ‘red wave’ shrinks to ripple

A Republican landslide in November that sees them retake control of Congress is now unlikely with the Democrats, and Biden, rising in the polls.

US President Joe Biden has seen his approval ratings rise. Picture: AFP.

The Democrats’ feared ‘red wave’, a Republican landslide in November elections that would see the GOP retake control of Congress, may amount to a ripple, as support for Democrats and President Biden grows amid a new FBI investigation into former president Donald Trump.

After 18 months in which everything seemed to go wrong politically for the Democrats – an unpopular withdrawal from Afghanistan, rising inflation and crime, failure to “shut down” Covid, and Mr Biden’s underwhelming performance – pundits and punters expect the ruling party to maintain control of the Senate.

For the last three weeks, and for the first time since the 2020 presidential election, bookies have the Democrats as the favourite to maintain control of the critical chamber after November’s poll, when American voters elect their Congressional representatives - even if they lose the House of Representatives, as is still expected.

“We are having a comeback,” said Congressman Sean Maloney on Sunday (Monday AEST), pointing to Democrats’ recent passage of the Inflation Reduction Act – which includes popular electric car subsidies and pharmaceutical price caps – and allegedly unpopular Republican calls to “to defund the FBI and ignore [Mr Trump’s latest] serious threat to our national security”.

“We had a summer of strength and we‘re going to buck history,” Mr Maloney, also chairman of the party’s campaign committee, added, speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press.

Since Harry Truman’s presidency in the 1940s, the party not in control of the White House has won, on average, more than 20 seats in the House and a handful in the Senate in the midterm elections, easily enough to wipe out slender Democrat margins in both chambers.

Republicans’ “summer of stumbles”, including backing the Supreme Court’s unpopular reversal of the Roe vs Wade abortion ruling in June, would cost the GOP at the ballot box, Mr Maloney added.

After falling to the lowest of any president at the same point in office, Mr Biden’s approval rating has risen from less than 38 per cent a month ago, to almost 41 per cent, according to FiveThirtyEight, which analyses US polls, amid signs the economy remained strong.

Inflation fell to 8.5 per cent in July from a 40 year high of 9.5 per cent a month earlier, and the unemployment rate fell back to its pre-Covid low of 3.5 per cent, the lowest level since the 1960s.

Two recent polls by Politico and USA Today, asking Americans whether they intend to vote Democrat or Republican in November, conducted in July and August, each put the ruling party four percentage points ahead.

Since the start of August, Democrats’ chance of keeping control of the Senate, currently split 50-50 between the two major parties, has surged from less than 50 to 62 per cent, according to PredictIt, a political betting agency, although Republicans maintain an 80 per cent chance of retaking the House of Representatives.

“Republican hopes for the Senate rest mainly on candidates pulled across the finish lines of their primaries by former President Donald Trump, like “Hillbilly Elegy” author JD Vance in Ohio, celebrity surgeon Dr Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania, former pro football player Herschel Walker in Georgia and hedge fund billionaire-backed Blake Masters in Arizona,” the agency noted in analysis published on Friday.

Republican governor of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu, on Sunday warned his party against focusing on the multiple inquiries into Mr Trump’s behaviour, which now include an FBI investigation into whether the former president broke the Espionage Act.

“We’re talking about things that don’t matter, voters care about high prices … Mar-a-Lago isn’t driving folks to the polls, we gotta get back to basics,” Mr Sununu said, speaking on Fox News.

“Winning a primary means nothing if you can’t govern,” he added, alluding to the success of Trump-backed candidates in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Ohio and Georgia – seats the GOP must win to retake the Senate – most of whom trail their Democrat opponents by large margins.

Donald Trump slammed Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell on Sunday, who last week put the GOP’s diminished chances of retaking the senate down to “candidate quality”, a thinly veiled reference to Mr Trump’s influence over the Republican primaries.

“Why do Republicans Senators allow a broken-down hack politician to openly disparage hard working Republican candidates,” Mr Trump said on social media.

Liz Cheney, the most senior Republican on the Congressional committee investigating Mr Trump’s role in the January 6th Capitol riots, was thrashed by a pro-Trump Republican candidate in the Wyoming Republican primary last week, testament to Mr Trump’s enduring influence among rank-and-file Republicans.

“I’m going to be very focused on working to ensure that we do everything we can not to elect election deniers,” Ms Cheney said on Sunday, speaking on the ABC network.

Ms Cheney, daughter or the former vice president, has repeatedly teased a presidential bid of her own 2024, which could siphon off a significant minority of Republican votes, should she run as an independent.