WASHINGTON: With just 11 days left for the November 8 midterm polls in the US, former President Donald Trump has gone from bad to worse in approval ratings, while incumbent President Joe Biden shows only marginal improvement as voters are divided on important issues like inflation and abortion rights, while swing ballots hold the key in at least eight battleground states.
In the upcoming election, all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate will be contested.
Thirty-nine state and territorial gubernatorial elections, as well as numerous other state and local elections, will be contested. The results will determine the 118th US Congress.
In the Senate, the Democrats and Republicans split 50:50 with Vice President Kamala Harris holding the edge for the Democrats with her tie breaking vote.
In the House, Democrats have a wafer-thin majority of 220 seats and Republicans 212, with three seats vacant.
The two parties want to retain their numbers and the Republicans appear set to increase it.
Using the average of race ratings from the Cook Political Report, the American encyclopedia of politics, Ballotpedia identified 13 battleground states of Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
These are the states on which an electoral victory hinged in the 2020 elections and the scenario remains much the same in 2022.
Previously, Trump had in Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas, while Biden emerged victorious inArizona, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Trump is under fire from the congressional panel probing the January 2021 Capitol riot for an alleged involvement to incite right wingers who invaded the Capitol Hills to overturn a popular mandate endangering the lives of policemen and Senators, including former Vice President Mike Pence.
Trump faces both civil and criminal suits from the New York Attorney General's office led by Letitia James (Democrat), accusing him of systematic fraud on the government by inflating property values, securing enormous loans with "fraudulent claims" and evading taxes by "false claims".
While Trump's USP is inflation and unemployment and Biden's USP is restoration of abortion rights that would bring out women voters in the hordes. Inflation is striking a response from the swing voters. Who are they? They are generally the ethnic and young unemployed Latino voters.
Democrats are polling best in states where surveys tend to misfire, media reports say. However, polls in right-leaning states have most overestimated support for Democrats recently. The party campaigns American democracy is under threat are also having an impact with voters and dividing the nation along partisan lines. (IANS)
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