Five ways the 2022 U.S. midterm elections will shed light on the state of America’s political transformations

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Millions in television and internet advertising, thousands of commentaries, hundreds of political contests – and now, finally, one of the most contentious American midterms elections on Tuesday is screeching to a fevered conclusion.

Soon the celebrations will begin. Along with, inevitably, the recriminations. But once the results are tabulated, many vital elements of U.S. political life may be clarified.

How economics, cultural class shapes U.S. politics

First, there is the depth of the chasm in economic and cultural class that has shaped the country’s politics since the beginning of this century. The gap between the group at the top (the wealthy and merely well-off) and the group at the bottom (the poor and the striving) has always had political implications in the United States – but until recently, the prosperous tended to be Republicans and the members of the underclass tended to be Democrats. That began to change in the Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan years, with the transformation of many blue-collar workers into reliably Republican voters becoming vividly evident in the Donald Trump years.

2022 U.S. midterm elections live updates

The best gauge for this is the voting behaviour of those without a university degree. As recently as the 1994 midterms – when insurgent Republicans overthrew 40 years of Democratic rule in the House of Representatives – 57 per cent of white Americans without a degree sided with the Democrats. By 2019, that figure dropped to 30 per cent, according to the Pew Research Center. The exit polls and surveys that will emerge shortly after this week’s election should tell us more about this important cultural measure.

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Changing party preference among Hispanic voters

Second, there is the big question of the Hispanic vote, which represents 34 million people who are eligible to cast a ballot on Tuesday. The largest minority group in the country is also growing swiftly, adding 12 million people in the past decade and accounting for the largest rate of change among racial and ethnic groups since the 2018 midterms.

Thus, Hispanic people are an indispensable prize in U.S. politics. When Bill Clinton won this group by 36 percentage points in 1992, Democrats grew confident that they could harness the community’s allegiance and ride them to victory for generations. But President Joe Biden won them by only 21 percentage points, and Donald Trump, who gained about 10 percentage points between 2016 and 2020, has boasted about his performance among these voters. Close Senate races in Nevada, Arizona and even in Wisconsin are where Hispanic Americans could provide the margin of victory.

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Post-election strategies

Third, there are the lessons that will emerge if the current conventional thinking – never fully accurate, and sometimes strikingly wrong – is confirmed and the GOP has a strong election night. In politics, as in sports, winning performances prompt teams to double down on their strategies, and failures prompt reflection and rebuilding. In this case, the Republicans would continue to emphasize the cultural and immigration issues that powered Mr. Trump to victory in 2016.

The Democrats would begin a struggle – almost certainly bitter – over whether to moderate their views on economics and the environment or to veer leftward. Progressives from the Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren wing will almost certainly argue that Mr. Biden’s instinct for moderation has left the Democrats without a persuasive profile for blue-collar workers, who were once the party’s core after Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. The moderates will argue that the progressive wing’s views on taxes, spending, climate change and gender identity made the party an easy target for negative advertisements from Republicans.

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Domestic policy

Fourth, there is the domestic policy differences between the current near-standoff in Congress and the one likely to emerge when the new members are sworn in next year. Regardless of whether the Republicans take both the House and the Senate, or just the former, there will be no reprise of the Biden initiatives on climate and economic stimulus measures that marked his first two years in the White House.

Republican efforts to pare back measures passed, while the Democrats held both chambers will be for naught – Mr. Biden will still retain a veto, and the Republicans will not have enough support to override those vetoes. But House Republicans will shut down the investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, uprising and substitute relentless probes into the financial dealings of Hunter Biden, the President’s son.

One immensely significant part of U.S. politics would be dramatically affected if the Republicans take the Senate: the confirmation of presidential appointments. This would be especially significant in judicial nominations, where Mr. Biden’s choices would face formidable obstacles to confirmation.

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Foreign affairs

Fifth, the American profile in foreign affairs is at a crossroads. The irony of Tuesday’s elections is that they may have more impact in Kyiv, Ukraine, than in Kalamazoo, Mich. Republicans, once the party that urged an aggressive American approach to freeing the Warsaw Pact nations from Soviet influence, now are deeply skeptical of the U.S. role in Ukraine.

Last March, only 6 per cent of them believed the U.S. was doing too much in the war against the Russians, according to a Wall Street Journal poll. The most recent Journal survey, released last week, found that 48 per cent feel that way. The implication: Congressional resistance to more weapons and economic assistance to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Election denial

Finally, there is the future credibility of any election denying, as a GOP surge to victory would place Republicans in an especially poor position to argue that U.S. elections are corrupt. For example if, in Pennsylvania, gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano loses, as expected, the Republicans will have a hard time arguing that the election was unfair if their Senate candidate, Mehmet Oz, wins at the same time.

Nationally, a big night for the Republicans could leach some of the power out of election denying.