Kate Andrews Kate Andrews

The US midterm results are a wake-up call for the Republicans

Credit: Getty images

There was no ‘red wave’ in America last night. This became obvious fairly early on, when congressional seats the Republicans hoped to pick up in New England failed to flip. Many on the American right had made the assumption that seats won by Democrats by a few percentage points in 2020 would easily turn red. This turned out to be wrong. In fact, there has been very little turnover in the House of Representatives or the Senate in either direction so far. The election map looks stuck in time, a close replica of how politics panned out two years ago, with both Democrats and Republicans holding their seats.

Yet much has happened since the last election: mainly economic turmoil. The US, like the UK, is dealing with inflation rates at a 40-year high. There is consensus that the US is headed for a shallow recession, the effects of which are already being felt by voters.

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