American voters have given Donald Trump a partial rebuke in the midterm elections
In the first national elections since Donald Trump took office, opposition Democrats took control of the House of Representatives, but it wasn’t quite the “wave” election they were hoping for.
Greetings everyone, I’m Jeff, welcome back to Plain English for Thursday, November 15, 2018. This is episode 103 and you can find a transcript of this program at PlainEnglish.com/103. As always, that comes with our interactive translations of the hardest words and phrases from English into Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, French, Italian, and Japanese. PlainEnglish.com/103.
The big news this week was obviously the American mid-term elections. I was in Canada for most of the week, and this was the big news there—so although I generally don’t love talking about American politics on this program, I thought, if this is the big news even outside the United States, I probably should at least do one episode on it. So here we are.
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Setback for Trump in American mid-term elections
By now you’ve probably heard the news about the US midterm elections, in which voters gave what I would call a partial rebuke to President Donald Trump. It was the first time the whole country went to the polls since the controversial president took office in 2016, and the results let both Democrats and Republicans, the two main political parties here, claim a partial victory. But both suffered partial losses.
We elect presidents here every four years. Our legislature has a staggered election schedule. The larger House of Representatives, with 435 members, is up for election every two years, while one-third of the 100-member Senate is up every two years—meaning each Senator serves six years, but the elections are staggered evenly every two years.
The first election after a new president takes office is often considered a referendum on that president’s first two years. It is common for the president’s party to lose seats in this first mid-term election. The last time we had one of these was in 2010, when Barack Obama’s party lost 63 seats in the House of Representatives and six seats in the Senate. So with that historical trend, Democrats were hoping for what they called a “Blue Wave”—so-called because on the maps showing election results, Democrats are shown in blue and Republicans in red.
The Blue Wave many Democrats were hoping for did not materialize, but the party did win some important victories. They re-took a majority in the House of Representatives for the first time since 2010. They needed to win a net gain of 23 seats to have a majority in that chamber, and they have won 38 seats. Depending on how some recounts go, they may be able to increase that to 40. So they will have a comfortable majority in the House of Representatives, what we call the lower house of our legislature.
For the Democrats, the Senate would have been the big prize of the night, since the Senate has more power to stop a president’s agenda. In this case, however, the Republicans gained a net of three seats, expanding their majority to 53-47. Democrats can count several other victories, though. They won several governorships of important states and their issues won on so-called ballot initiatives, where a direct question goes on the ballot for voters in a given state. For example, questions about raising the minimum wage, legalizing marijuana, and expanding medical coverage for the poor all won support from voters in individual states.
So now that the dust has settled, where does this leave Trump and his adversaries? The Democrats have a majority in one chamber of our national legislature, though not the more powerful chamber. Democrats can use their new power to press their own agenda, hold hearings, and investigate the president, his businesses and his personal finances. Divided government is the norm in American politics. For six out of Barack Obama’s eight years, and for six out of George W. Bush’s eight years, the opposition party held at least one chamber of the legislature.
The president and his adversaries can either try to find common ground and pass parts of an agenda that both sides agree on, or they can spend the next two years fighting it out, trying to win the presidential election in 2020. Although Donald Trump is a Republican, and although many Democrats really, really hate him, there are some things both sides could agree on, if they put their minds to it. New funding for infrastructure comes to mind; that tends to be popular on both sides. There is probably also room for both sides to negotiate on immigration reform. Trump was a Democrat for most of his life, so I suspect that there are some deals to be done, if both sides want it.
However, Trump thrives on controversy and combat. That’s how he got where he is. Part of me thinks he’s probably glad the Democrats took one chamber of the legislature, since he’ll now have a place to focus his criticism in the final two years of his first term.
It’s sometimes said here that the day after an election is when the next campaign starts. The next big elections here will be in 2020. There will be a lot of Democrats who want to run against Trump; several have begun campaigning already. The 72-year-old Mr. Trump will have to decide if he wants to run for a second term, which would end when he is 78 years old.
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Before our expression today, I wanted to say hi to a few listeners. Fettah from Turkey says she’s an audio-visual learner and doesn’t do as well with written books as with audio programs. You know, as someone who reads constantly, I never really thought about the fact that some of you might learn differently, so I’m glad to be able to help out anyone who might be in the same situation as Fettah. Also hello to Johannes from Germany; Stefano from Sardinia, Italy; Rui from Brazil; and Tamas from Germany, who left a nice review for us on Facebook.
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