Will be tough to keep the House, says US President Joe Biden

Approval ticks lower for Biden as Democrats brace for midterm losses

President Joe Biden acknowledged that Democrats face a “tougher” challenge holding the House than the US Senate on the eve of Tuesday’s midterm elections.

“I think it’s going to be tough but I think we can. I think we’ll win the Senate. I think the House is tougher,” Biden told reporters Monday at the White House, after he was asked if Democrats would win the House. 

“I’m optimistic. But I’m always optimistic,” he added.

Americans on Tuesday cast the final ballots in US midterm elections that will determine whether Democrats lose control of Congress, and with it the ability to push forward on President Joe Biden’s agenda in the next two years.

 In a stark closing argument ahead of the US midterm elections, President Joe Biden on Monday warned that a Republican victory could weaken the country’s democratic institutions.

“Today we face an inflection point. We know in our bones that our democracy’s at risk and we know that this is your moment to defend it," Biden told a cheering crowd at Bowie State University, a historically Black college outside Washington.

The party that controls the White House typically loses seats in midterm elections. Nonpartisan forecasts suggest Tuesday’s results will be no exception, as concerns about high inflation and crime outweigh the end of national abortion rights and the violent January 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol in voters’ minds.

Biden’s public approval rating dipped to 39 per cent in a Reuters/Ipsos poll on Monday, reinforcing nonpartisan election forecasters’ expectations that his Democratic party was in for a drubbing in Tuesday's midterm elections.

The two-day national poll found that Americans' approval of Biden’s job performance had dropped by one point, nearing the lowest point of his presidency.

Thirty-five Senate seats and all 435 House of Representatives seats are on the ballot. Republicans are widely favoured to pick up the five seats they need to control the House, while the Senate —currently split 50-50 with Democrats holding the tie-breaking vote — could come down to a quartet of toss-up races in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Georgia, and Arizona.

But even before the midterm elections were completed, the 2024 presidential election was taking shape. Former President Donald Trump on Monday night sent his strongest hint yet that he would be kicking off his third consecutive White House campaign soon, telling supporters in Ohio that he would be making a “big announcement” on November 15.