7 min read
This article is more than 7 years old
Explainer
Could the US midterm elections break Trump's presidency?
Voting in the US midterm elections is now underway.
Published
Updated
By Rashida Yosufzai, Nick Baker
Image: President Donald Trump. (AAP)
Americans have started to cast their ballots in a vote that could shape the rest of Donald Trump's presidency.
Although the US midterm elections are technically held on 6 November, early voting has already started in a handful of states.
Minnesota was the first state to allow early in-person voting on 21 September, with a handful of key states following, including New Jersey, California and Arizona.
Thirty-five states and the District of Columbia offer some form of early voting, meaning every day until 6 November counts for Democrats and Republicans.
It's been an inauspicious beginning to the voting season for Mr Trump and his Republican Party, which continue to struggle under the weight of near-constant self-imposed crises and chaos.
What are the midterms?
The US midterm elections are held halfway through a president's four-year term and are generally considered a check on their performance.
At a federal level, all 435 seats in the House of Representatives are in contention, while a third of the Senate is up for grabs.
Both the House and Senate are currently controlled by the Republicans, theoretically giving them free rein to pass their legislative agenda. But that could change after the midterms.
Trump delivers his first State of the Union address in the House of Representatives. Source: AAP
What do the polls predict?
At this stage, it looks like the midterms could bring a Democratic House of Representatives (only just) while keeping a Republican Senate.
Democrats need to pick up 24 seats to regain a majority in the House. And the signs are looking good.
According to an opinion poll analysis by US website FiveThirtyEight, the Democrats have a roughly of winning back the chamber.
The Senate though is likely to be retained by the Republicans.
According to CNN, the Democrats are defending some two dozen seats, including 10 in states where Mr Trump secured victory in 2016, and five of those where he won resoundingly.
Why do these elections matter?
Many see it as a test of Mr Trump's presidency.
More significantly, if the Democrats regain the House of Representatives, it will add to Mr Trump's problems, leaving him with a hamstrung legislative agenda.
The Democrats could also use their numbers to set up House select committees targeting the president.
"They will have an opportunity to set up special panels and committees to essentially smear President Trump," United States Studies Centre research fellow Dougal Robinson told SBS News in April.
Mr Robinson pointed to the Benghazi committee set up by the Republicans against Hillary Clinton in 2014 to further investigate the fatal 2012 terrorist attack on two US government facilities in Libya.
How could recent developments affect things?
Just weeks out from the midterms, the US political world is consumed by a bitter fight around the nomination of to the Supreme Court.
Once seen as cruising to an easy vote - fulfilling Mr Trump's key promise to stack the Supreme Court with conservative justices - a string of sexual assault allegations has turned the Kavanaugh decision into.
According to CNN's national political reporter Eric Bradner, the scandal and lukewarm response from some Republicans to Mr Kavanaugh's accusers could "drive suburban women away in midterms".
Analysts also point to Robert Mueller's investigation as an ongoing potential source of political curveballs.
Mr Mueller has already indicted more than 30 people in connection with his probe into whether members of Mr Trump's campaign colluded with Russia to help get the real estate tycoon elected.
And speculation has swirled in recent days that Mr Trump may fire embattled deputy attorney general - who oversees the Russia collusion probe.
Doubts over how long Mr Rosenstein can keep the job have swirled since shock media reports that he once suggested secretly recording Mr Trump to collect evidence for ousting him under a constitutional amendment for presidents unfit to remain in office.
Mr Rosenstein's firing - and Mr Trump possibly putting someone more pliable in his place - would set off alarm bells over the future independence of a probe, which has the potential to rock both the midterms and the entire Trump presidency.
Could Trump be impeached?
Should Democrats win big in November, there's the possibility of an impeachment motion.
"If the Democrats take the House, they will be on a high," Mr Robinson said.
"They will feel as though the country is on side with them and therefore against President Trump.
"There will be a lot of pressure from the Democrat base for a new Democratic House of Representatives to vote to impeach President Trump."
Impeachment in the House (where the House levels charges against a public official, in this case Mr Trump) won't mean instant removal from office.
The motion would move to the Senate where a trial requires two-thirds of support - and the Senate is predicted to be retained by the Republicans.
It's also worth noting that despite big wins for the Republicans at the 1994 and 2010 midterms during the presidencies of Democrats Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, both went on to be re-elected at the main poll two years later.
What's more concerning though, is that as the divide between left and right deepens in the US, hyper-partisanship could make way for more government shutdowns and legislation that is going nowhere as a compromise between the parties fails.
People wait in line to vote in the Texas primary in March. Source: Houston Chronicle / AAP
"It means that representatives from the Democrat and Republican parties have strong incentives not to compromise, to stick to their principles and what that means for Washington as a whole is that legislation gets stuck on the floor of House of Representatives or the floor of the Senate," Mr Robinson said.
That was the case when the Republicans held the House and Senate in the last two years of Mr Obama's presidency, following the midterms, forcing him to turn to foreign policy or executive orders, Mr Robinson said.
Will the youth vote make a difference?
The turnout by tens of thousands of students at the March For Our Lives rallies for gun control across the US in March was a major talking point.
The organisers sought to enrol thousands of young people who'd be eligible to vote in November poll, with one activist, Delaney Tarr, promising: "If there is no assault weapons ban passed, then we will vote them out".
But Mr Robinson was sceptical the turnout for the rallies will flow onto the midterms.
Voter turnout has traditionally been low for the midterm elections, at about 40 per cent of eligible voters, compared to the presidential election of about 60 per cent.
What does it mean for Australia?
The high degree of partisanship is bad for Australia and its interests, Mr Robinson said.
"Because it means the US government's action and the action of the US political system is less predictable and compromise is required to make these things work, and compromise is a dwindling thing in Washington DC at the moment."
A co-authored by Mr Robinson predicted after the midterms, Congress would be highly unlikely to support a US re-entry to the Trans-Pacific Partnership - a trade deal between 11 Pacific nations including Australia and New Zealand which Mr Trump pulled the US out of last year.
Another issue that may affect Australia is that if the Democrats retake the House, it is likely to lead to lower defence spending.
Additional reporting: AAP, AFP
This article was originally published in April 2018 and updated in September 2018.
