CAIRO: The US midterm election results indicate “a shift in power that now creates a divided government, which means it will now be more difficult to get things done,” said John Sides, a professor of Political Science at George Washington University, during a video conference held at the US Embassy in Cairo.
A divided government means there will be a long road ahead with many struggles, and it may prove more difficult to pass laws through Congress, according to Sides.
In a surprisingly close United States midterm election for seats in the House of Representatives and Senate, the Republicans did better than expected as they took control of the House from the Democrats, while the Democrats — with fewer seats than before — still managed to maintain a majority in the Senate.
“The Democrats did not foresee losing as many seats as they did in both the House and the Senate, so they are planning their next moves now [along with] the Republicans,” said Sides.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) has been quoted by the media as saying that “the single most important thing we [Republicans] want to achieve is for President [Barack] Obama to be a one-term president.”
“The main focus for Democrats right now will be to figure out which Republicans they can approach for support, and ways [Democrats and Republicans can] compromise on issues so that things do get done,” said Sides.
The dominating issue during this election season was the economic recession, and the way voters cast their ballots this year seemed to directly reflect their respective frustration with the current American economy.
Sides noted that not only did this frustration greatly influence Americans’ votes, but the president’s current decline in popularity also contributed to the Democrats losing seats.
“Voters are angry with the Obama administration due to the amount of money being spent by the government, health care reform, and the state of the economy, so they voted against the Democrats,” said Sides.
Democrats won in a number of states, such as Delaware and Nevada, by portraying their Republican opponents as too out of touch and conservative for the job, while the conservative views of Republicans in other states actually contributed positively to their election.
A few other results which seemed to surprise those following the elections were the number of conservative/libertarian Tea Party movement members elected this term, including Senator-elect Rand Paul (Kentucky), Senator-elect Marco Rubio (Florida), and Governor-elect Nikki Haley (South Carolina).
If the Tea Party movement’s members want to have an influence in politics, they will ideally need to work well with Republicans given that the views of the two groups share a lot of commonalities, said Sides.
Although many issues could come to a standstill now that Congress is divided along party lines, foreign policy should not be affected greatly by the results of this last election, mainly due to the global influence of President Obama and his team in charge of handling foreign affairs.
“The next two years will be a rough time to get [new laws] passed, but if both major parties can compromise and the economy improves, then things will hopefully get accomplished,” Sides said.
