US midterm elections: three possible scenarios for the count
Polls favor Democrats, but the result could range from a blue wave to Republican resilience, BBC describes in a text reproduced by g1.
Translated from the Portuguese original by the Panorama newsroom. Read in Portuguese
Summary written by the Panorama newsroom from the sources listed below. Facts are attributed to the original publications.
Americans vote on Tuesday (3) in the midterm elections, the midterms, after months of campaigning and billions of dollars spent. g1 published a BBC analysis with three possible outcomes for the count.
The latest polls indicate a Democratic advantage, but the analysis notes that surveys are not always right. Historically, these elections favor the opposition party, and the current scenario combines an unpopular president, a war against Iran that raised the cost of living and controversial policies, such as the aggressive crackdown on immigration.
In the first scenario, a big Democratic wave, the party would comfortably surpass the 218 seats needed in the House and could win in unlikely Senate states, such as Texas, which has not elected a Democrat in a generation, or Kansas, in almost a century.
In that case, Democrats would have a cushion of one or two seats in the Senate, which would avoid complications such as a possible Republican legal challenge in Alaska, where a judge rejected a Trump administration suit over the dispute between two candidates with the same name.
The other two scenarios, according to the BBC, would be a more modest Democratic advance and a Republican resilience that surprises the polls.