Explained | US Midterm Elections — how they work and why Joe Biden is worried

There is less than a month to go for the United States midterm elections, where a third of the Senate — 33 members — and all of the House of Representatives, 435 members,  will be contesting the elections on the second Tuesday of November, referred to as Super Tuesday. This year, Super Tuesday falls on November 8.

Before we go into how these midterm elections are a political ticking bomb for US President Joe Biden's administration, let's take a look at how the American government works.

The United States federal government is divided into three branches — the executive, the judiciary, and the legislature.

The executive in this case is the President of the United States, while the legislature is the United States Congress.

Simply put, the US legislature is bicameral and comprises the Senate and the Congress, the latter being the House of Representatives. US representatives are referred to as congressman, or congresswoman.

The official name for the US legislative branch is the United States Congress, whose total strength of 535 members. The Senate comprises 100 members — two from each state in the US — each of whom is elected for a term of six years. The House of Representatives comprises 435 members, each of whom is elected for a two-year term.

Think of the Senate as the Upper House, and the House of Representatives as the Lower House, though their functions are markedly different from the Indian legislature. Anyone elected to either House can propose a law, but only the Senate has the power to confirm presidential nominees to the Cabinet, courts, key diplomatic posts, etc.

Every two years on Super Tuesday, 33 senators and all 435 representatives contest the elections. If Super Tuesday also coincides with a presidential election, it is referred to as the general elections. But, as is the case this year, if Super Tuesday comes halfway through the president's term, it is referred to as the midterm elections, or just the midterms.

The Democrats control the White House, Senate and the House of Representatives for the first time since the 2010 midterms, when the Republicans won a majority in both.

Currently, the Senate is split evenly, more or less — 50 seats are with the Republicans, 48 with the Democrats and two are held by Independents, who support the Democrats. A vote on any Bill in the Senate will notionally result in a tie, in which case the chairperson of the Senate — the US vice president — casts the tiebreaker. Since US Veep Kamala Harris is a Democrat, the party has the edge in the Senate.

As for the House of Representatives, of the 435 seats, the Democrats hold 220, which gives them a wafer-thin majority over the Republicans, who have 212 members. Three seats are vacant.

When Joe Biden was elected to the highest office in 2020, the Democrats too took control of both houses. But, as explained earlier, their majority is wafer slim, and there is a real possibility that the Republicans could take either or both houses come November 8.

For one, former US president Donald Trump continues to be a force to reckon with in the Republican Party, which is sharply divided into Trump loyalists (the far right) and traditional conservatives, with the latter's numbers dwindling.

CNBC, quoting a US university poll, said the Republicans had a slight edge as the state of the US economy and the record inflaton has become a key election issue. As per the poll, the voters surveyed felt Biden has not been able to handle the crisis properly.

In the Republican primaries for both houses, Trump loyalists have challenged incumbents — especially pro-impeachment members — with varying degrees of success.

In Wyoming, Representative Liz Cheney — daughter of former US VP Dick Cheney — who was the most prominent of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after the January 6 US Capitol riots, lost the primary to Trump-endorsed Harriet Hageman.

Similarly, two more 'Trumpers' defeated pro-impeachment representatives in primaries in Arizona,

Other results are more mixed, with former vice presidential candidate and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin getting trounced in the primary for a Senate seat.

A CNBC report said "candidates who deny the results of the 2020 election have advanced to November ballots in statewide races for positions that will oversee, defend or certify elections in 27 states, according to a nonpartisan group tracking the races."

Trump, despite facing criminal investigations at the federal and state (New York) levels, is still among the favourites to be the Republican nominee in the 2024 presidential race. He is, in fact, being considered the presumptive nominee, though he will still have to, at least notionally, fend off other Republican presidential candidates in the primaries. All of this is assuming, Trump is able to beat the criminal investigations.

When anyone is elected to the Oval Office, it is said that they have 18 months to pass laws, reforms and take other key policy decisions before the focus inevitably shifts to the midterms.

Biden too is not immune to that. The veteran politician, after taking the oath of office in January 2021, chose to be moderate and focused on passing relief measures and signing Bills that would fund massive infrastructure projects. He ignored calls by the more progressive side of the Democratic House members,  led by Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, to forgive student debts and pursue more left-leaning policies.

While Biden did forgive student loans last month, and recently pardoned thousands of people who were jailed for possession of marijuana, experts feel these have perhaps come too late in the race to the midterms.

Are these measures too late? Will the Democrats prevail over the Republicans, or will the Grand Old Party or GOP (as the Republican party is called) reclaim either or both houses? We'll find out early on November 9.

Until then, CNBC-TV18.com will continue to apprise you on key updates and the important races to watch out for in the midterm elections.