Donald Trump, Inevitable Winner of the Upcoming Midterm Elections?

Midterm elections are elections to both Houses of the United States Congress and are held two years after the election of the President of the United States. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives and a third of the 100 seats in the Senate are renewed. These elections are crucial and almost as decisive as the 2016 presidential election: our Special Advisor, Dominique Moïsi, tells us why.

Why are the key issues dominating the American midterm elections so particular? How are they decisive?

The campaign lines were deliberately transformed into a"For or Against Donald Trump" referendum, and by Donald Trump himself. This referendum underlies two questions, which he formulates as follows:

• "If you want more migrants, i.e. a growing concern for your security, then vote Democrat."
• "If you want the vote you cast in 2016 to be challenged by an elite class of judges, elected parliamentarians, and journalists, then vote Democrat."

The agenda was set and dominated by Donald Trump. In doing so, he is following Steve Bannon’s advice, who recommended that for these elections, the President's personality be emphasized as a sufficient issue of its own. This is how he indirectly transformed the elections into a referendum.

How could these elections impact American domestic politics?

These midterm elections are in fact a kind of second presidential election, which aims to confirm or invalidate the 2016 result, but also to prepare for the 2020 elections. The main question to ask is thus: "will Donald Trump be strengthened or weakened by the elections?".