With little hope of retaining control of the House of Representatives, where they have 221 seats against 211 Republicans, the Democrats trust the Senate with their chances of saving the furniture in Tuesday's mid-term elections. Among the 35 seats in the House that are renewed that day, four are decided in highly disputed fights where it will be decided whether the Democrats save at least the narrow majority they have today thanks to the quality vote of Vice President Kamala Harris after a distribution of 50- 50 in 2020, or else the organ passes into Republican hands. These are the seats in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada, where conservative candidates have Trump's support.
Among those four states with the closest battles, both parties pay particular attention to Pennsylvania. That's where Democrats are most hopeful of changing the color of a seat now under opposition control. If Biden's succeed, the Republicans should – in order not to lose the Senate – win in two of the other three territories where the polls indicate a technical tie (Georgia, Nevada and Arizona).
Not surprisingly, Biden, along with Barack Obama, faced Trump last night in Pennsylvania. The three coincided in the state to give one last push to their respective candidates: Democratic Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman, suffering from the aftermath of the stroke he suffered in May and whom Trump often insults for defending the legalization of marijuana and even for dressing often "in a rapper's tracksuit," and Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz, whom Trump chose for his communication skills stemming from the medical consultation shows and TV spots he directed for years. The polls yesterday gave an advantage of four tenths to Fetterman (46.8%) against Oz (46.4%).
In the last days of the campaign, Fetterman focused on the defense of the right to abortion and the efficiency of Biden's economic policy in a very adverse context. Oz, for his part, had an impact on the high inflation due, according to him, to Biden's inaction and repeatedly accused Fetterman of weakness in the face of crime.
Such an outline of the confrontation between Oz and Fetterman sums up well the terms of the electoral contest throughout the country, beyond the excesses that Trump and his most faithful followers always incur, as is the case of the candidate for governor in Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano; a far-right Republican and retired army colonel who wants to charge women with murder who violate his proposal to ban abortion after the first 24 weeks of gestation and who also seeks to outlaw gay marriage.
Candidates like Mastriano are pushing back not a few moderate and independent Republicans who do not want to vote Democrat but do not want to go to the bush either. America may need those kinds of voters more than ever.
