WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump said on Oct 13 Republicans face an equally difficult fight to retain control of the House of Representatives and the Senate in November’s midterm elections, despite forecasts showing a considerably tougher contest in the House.
“I would say equal,” Trump told reporters at the White House when asked which chamber would be harder for Republicans to defend in the Nov 3 vote.
Trump acknowledged the historical disadvantage facing the party of a sitting president, although he insisted that enthusiasm among Republican voters was surging.
“When you have a sitting president... no matter how good they seem to be, they’re at a big disadvantage, tremendous disadvantage,” he said.
“But I’m doing a tour right now, and I’m doing rallies. The level of enthusiasm for the Republican Party is way up.”
Trump’s assessment was striking because Republicans have been widely seen as particularly vulnerable in the House, while the Senate’s electoral map had initially offered them greater hopes of retaining control.
Election forecaster Decision Desk HQ gives Democrats a 77% chance of winning the 435-seat House, projecting that they will take 235 seats to the Republicans’ 200.
It also narrowly favours Democrats to capture the 100-seat Senate, giving them a 56% probability of victory and projecting a 51-49 majority.
Losing either chamber on Nov 3 would complicate Trump’s ability to push his agenda through Congress during the final two years of his presidency, while handing Democrats greater power to investigate his administration.
Trump has embarked on a campaign blitz in the closing weeks of the election, including rallies in traditionally Republican states where his party faces unexpectedly competitive Senate races.
History offers little comfort to the president.
The party holding the White House has almost invariably lost seats in midterm elections, with just three exceptions in the House since 1934, according to figures compiled by the American Presidency Project.
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Democrats gained nine House seats in 1934, while Bill Clinton’s party picked up four in 1998 and George W. Bush’s Republicans gained eight in 2002.
The worst modern midterm drubbing came in 1938, when Roosevelt’s Democrats lost 72 House seats, followed by Barack Obama’s Democrats losing 63 in 2010.
Trump himself presided over a split verdict in his first midterms in 2018, when Republicans lost 41 House seats but gained two in the Senate. AFP