Barack Obama: Election Outcast

The Democrats, currently the minority party in the House of Representatives, could be set to lose control of the U.S Senate this coming Nov. 4. This may just prove to be a fitting punishment for an unpopular president.

For Barack Obama, the outcome of the approaching legislative elections is not looking good. Come Nov. 4, all 435 seats in the House and 36 of the 100 seats in the Senate will be in play. “In terms of pure numbers, the situation does not bode well for the Democrats,” said James Hohmann, political journalist for the website Politico.com. “The majority of Democrat Senators up for re-election were originally elected in 2008, two months after the financial crisis began. And many of them were elected in states like Alaska and Louisiana, where they would not normally have gained the majority of votes,” he said during a video conference in Washington.*

The battle between U.S state governors may be a close one, but the main issue at stake here has to do with the fact that the Republicans may potentially be in a position to take control of the Senate. This is made all the more significant bearing in mind that the Democrats are far from winning the majority in the House of Representatives. In fact, all the “Grand Old Party” needs to do now is win six seats in the Senate in order to seize power of both U.S chambers.

In spite of everything, the American president recently hit the campaign trail in both Maryland and Chicago in an attempt to urge Democrat voters to show their support. It seems that Obama is well-aware that the outcome of these midterm elections could have a considerable impact on his remaining two years in the White House. But in many other U.S states, Obama’s rapidly declining popularity has, in some ways, turned him into an outcast. For example, of Louisiana’s total white electorate, only 17 percent of voters admit backing Obama. This is a state in which the black community makes up 40 percent of the total population. Democratic candidates are faced with a far from easy re-election process, and are reluctant to have the president make any campaign trail appearances. In Kentucky, Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes, at loggerheads with Republican leader Mitch McConnell, refused to admit whether or not she had voted for Obama during the 2008 and 2012 elections.

In an ideal world, Obama would have liked Democrat candidates to base their campaign strategies on the current economic bright spell and the need to raise the minimum wage, but international crises just do not seem to want to give up their place in the limelight. Russia’s invasion of Crimea, the beheading of American journalists, the remarkable advances of the jihadi group Islamic State and the Ebola epidemic are, to name but a few, all good examples. “Voters see this as a chaos election where the country’s on the wrong track,” explained veteran journalist Hohmann. “The old line in America is just … get rid of the people who are in office right now.”

The facts are somewhat contradictory. Unemployment, currently at 5.9 percent, hasn’t seen such negative results since July 2008. However, faced with a diminishing world economy, it seems America has emerged relatively unscathed after having overcome the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. On the other hand, wages have either remained at a standstill or have deteriorated further, and a large number of citizens have left the job market, or are unable to find full-time work.

The midterm elections are proving to be all the more problematic for the Democrats, seeing as it tends to be primarily older, white, more conservative citizens who are more likely to vote in this type of election. Is there another October surprise in store this year, a last-minute event purposefully designed to influence the outcome of an election? Even if foreign policy tends to have only a marginal impact on this type of vote, it still remains difficult to determine the repercussions of the Ebola epidemic or the Islamic State group’s movement in Iraq and Syria.

Hohmann remains wary. Even a Republican majority in the Senate will not radically change the current situation, as it seems highly unlikely that the Republicans will obtain the 66 seats needed to prevent the Democrats from resorting to a filibuster. “Barack Obama may want to negotiate with the Republicans in order to save his track record, he’ll particularly want to establish a consensus on immigration,” Hohmann explained, “but all that will depend on the Republicans themselves, who are still caught up in a kind of civil war. One thing is certain: If the Republicans win the Senate, Obama is going to have to negotiate on the budget.”

The legislative elections will also shed some light on the 2016 presidential elections. In less than two weeks, a Republican victory could prove to be on the same scale as a Pyrrhic victory. However, by refusing any global reform on immigration and by concentrating solely on the needs of their traditional electorate, the Republicans have managed to overlook the Hispanic community, whose vote alone could be highly significant during the presidential elections.