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Runners and riders in the 2022 midterm elections: (from top left) Herschel Walker, John Fetterman, Kari Lake, Mehmet Oz, JD Vance and Stacey Abrams (Image: Tina Tiller)
Runners and riders in the 2022 midterm elections: (from top left) Herschel Walker, John Fetterman, Kari Lake, Mehmet Oz, JD Vance and Stacey Abrams (Image: Tina Tiller)

PoliticsNovember 7, 2022

US midterms: The races to watch, and why they matter

Runners and riders in the 2022 midterm elections: (from top left) Herschel Walker, John Fetterman, Kari Lake, Mehmet Oz, JD Vance and Stacey Abrams (Image: Tina Tiller)
Runners and riders in the 2022 midterm elections: (from top left) Herschel Walker, John Fetterman, Kari Lake, Mehmet Oz, JD Vance and Stacey Abrams (Image: Tina Tiller)

Americans go to the polls this week, and the stakes could hardly be higher. Yet amid hundreds of races, just a few are truly competitive, as Catherine McGregor explains.

Welcome back to the three-ring circus that is US elections, where every two years we’re treated to an onslaught of political absurdity while also being reminded that this election is, yet again, the most consequential in a lifetime.

On November 8 the midterm elections will decide who controls the two chambers of Congress – the House of Representatives (“the House”) and the Senate – as well as hundreds of state offices including governor and secretary of state, the official in charge of elections.

Right now Democrats control the House, where they have a 220-212 majority (with three vacancies), and the Senate, which is split 50-50 with vice-president Kamala Harris holding the tie-breaking vote.

House members come from districts across the nation and are elected for two-year terms, so all 435 seats are being contested this week. Senator is a statewide office, with two per state for a total of 100 senators, each serving a six-year term. Senate elections are staggered; around a third of the Senate is up for re-election this time around.

So who’s going to win? Let’s get this out of the way: it’s probably the Republicans – in the House at least. In the wake of the outcry over the overturning of Roe vs Wade it looked briefly possible the Democrats could defy political gravity and hold onto their majority. But their momentum didn’t last. The polls have swung firmly back towards the Republicans and the go-to aggregator FiveThirtyEight now has them favoured to win the lower chamber.

The outlook for the Senate is less certain. Control of it – and with it, the ability to confirm judges, pass legislation and launch investigations – hinges on the results in just a handful of key states. Here’s some of the most interesting.

Pennsylvania

Probably the most high-profile senate race in the country is in Pennsylvania, where unorthodox Democrat John Fetterman is facing off against one-man gaffe machine Mehmet Oz, better known as Dr Oz. This election has had it all: health scares, viral videos, social media pranks and an 11th hour intervention by Oz’s former TV colleague Oprah Winfrey (she’s backing Fetterman). Oz has proved to be a truly awful campaigner and the widely liked Fetterman seemed to be cruising to victory before the race tightened dramatically over the last few weeks. Some observers put that down to Fetterman’s stumbling debate performance where the after-effects of his recent stroke were plain to see. But it’s more likely the poll numbers in Pennsylvania, as elsewhere, reflect Republicans “coming home” to their party as election day approaches and economic worries continue to grow.

Pennsylvania senate candidate John Fetterman returns to the campaign trail in August following a stroke three months earlier. (Photo: Nate Smallwood/Getty Images)

Georgia

A close second to the Pennsylvania race in the drama stakes is Georgia, where incumbent Democratic senator Raphael Warnock is fighting off a challenge from Republican Herschel Walker, a former football star and current deadbeat dad who has admitted to holding a gun to his ex-wife’s head, among other horrors. Walker, a vocal opponent of abortion rights, is also reported to have paid for at least two abortions in the past – a fact that has been seized on by opponents in the wake of the Dobbs decision overturning Roe vs Wade. Yet neither that hypocrisy nor his manifest unfitness for the job – as one commentator put it, he holds “childlike views and struggles to communicate in even a semi-coherent manner “ – seems to have done much to dampen Walker’s chances. FiveThirtyEight now has him holding a slight lead. Surprising? Maybe. Depressing? Most definitely. But remember: control of the Senate is at stake, and Republicans know a Walker win would almost certainly hand them the reins.

The other high-profile race in Georgia is for governor, where Democrat Stacey Abrams is running against Republican Brian Kemp in a replay of their 2018 matchup which Kemp narrowly won. Despite Abrams’ popularity among the left, her campaign this time around has failed to catch fire. As with fellow Democratic darling Beto O’Rourke in Texas, Abrams is unlikely to be moving into the governor’s mansion anytime soon.

Ohio

In a state that’s become a reliable Republican stronghold, Republican senate candidate JD Vance has encountered an unexpectedly tough race. Vance, a venture capitalist and author of the bestselling memoir Hillbilly Elegy, was once a “Never Trumper” but is now an enthusiastic supporter of the former president. That won him Trump’s endorsement – “JD is kissing my ass, he wants my support so bad!” he recently crowed – which should be enough to get him elected to the open seat. His opponent, Democrat Tim Ryan, has put up an impressive fight, however, by keeping a laser focus on economic issues and unapologetically courting Republican voters in an effort to win.

Arizona

If you want to scare yourself about the future of American democracy, look no further than Arizona. Conspiracy theories and far-right views have taken hold throughout the Republican party there, and a GOP victory this week could have far-reaching consequences not just for the state itself but for the 2024 presidential elections as well. Running for governor, a role that involves overseeing elections, is Kari Lake, a charismatic former newsreader (and Democrat) with extreme rightwing positions and a seeming obsession with soft-focus camera filters. If she wins, she could be working alongside Mark Finchem, a fellow election denier and an Oath Keeper – he was at the Capitol on January 6 – who is running to become the state’s top election official.

Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake at a ‘Save America!’ campaign rally with former president Donald Trump, October 09, 2022. (Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images)

But wait, there’s more. Incumbent Democratic senator Mark Kelly is facing a challenge from Blake Masters, a Peter Thiel protégé who, as Politico put it, has become “the darling of the extremely-online right… with their masculinity-obsessed, reflexively anti-institutional, will-to-power view of politics”. If his own emails are to be believed, Masters is no fan of democracy either. He, Lake and Finchem are collectively a terrifying prospect; if you have prayers/good vibes to spare, I suggest sending them Arizona’s way this week.


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Jacinda Ardern, flanked by Liz Truss and Norman Kirk. Image: Jason Stretch
Jacinda Ardern, flanked by Liz Truss and Norman Kirk. Image: Jason Stretch

OPINIONPoliticsNovember 7, 2022

When Norman Kirk met Liz Truss in South Auckland 

Jacinda Ardern, flanked by Liz Truss and Norman Kirk. Image: Jason Stretch
Jacinda Ardern, flanked by Liz Truss and Norman Kirk. Image: Jason Stretch

The Labour Party conference was brimming with energy, but as storm clouds gather and National enjoys a poll surge, the relentless positivity is under strain, writes Toby Manhire.

Two prime ministers from history stalked the halls of the Due Drop Events Centre in South Auckland through the weekend. Norman Kirk was there. You couldn’t miss him. In name, image and words, Kirk was spirited up across the Labour Party conference to mark the 50th anniversary of their venerated leader becoming prime minister. 

Kirk’s contribution, despite a prime ministership cut short by sudden death less than two years into office, was acclaimed in almost every speech. A photographic exhibition hung in the lobby. Alongside pink retro hoodies at the merch store were tea towels emblazoned with his famous (if slightly misquoted) words: “Somewhere to live, someone to love, somewhere to work and something to hope for”. Sale price: $25, or $75 signed – “by PM”, was the annotation in pen, triply underlined. 

Hovering alongside Kirk in the Manukau rafters was another former prime minister. Liz Truss. Her time at the top was much more recent, dramatically shorter – 45 days – and ended not in death but ignominy. Though she might live 12,000 miles away and soon figure more in pub quiz questions than ordinary memory, the Ghost of Truss was made very welcome at the conference. Her part was bogeyman, the villain to hero Kirk. She did not get a tea towel. 

Everybody knew how the avatars worked. Jacinda Ardern: the heir to Kirk – principled, determined, kind. Among other things he achieved, Ardern happened to mention in her conference welcome, was introducing a new public holiday. Liz Truss, meanwhile, was the delicious archetype for Christopher Luxon: ideologically fevered, inexperienced, hellbent on cutting tax in defiance of both our modern gods: the moral mood and the financial markets.

Labour Party general secretary with part of the John Miller exhibition of Norman Kirk photographs. Photo: Toby Manhire

While historians might find merit in the first of those comparisons – author of Diary of The Kirk Years Margaret Hayward sees much of her former boss in Ardern – the latter is caricature. Luxon is not Truss, and National’s proposed tax cuts are not the same as the zealous, fiscally unhinged commitments of Truss’s since abandoned mini-budget. Yet still, the promise to ditch the top tax rate, the 39 cents for every dollar above $180,000 earned, is, as one observer at the conference suggested to me, a “complete gimme” for Labour. As long as it remains a first-term commitment, Labour will seize on the pledge as the broiling soul of their rivals. 

The recent, catastrophic experiment in the UK Conservative government was referenced throughout the conference, but by no one more than Grant Robertson, who, as expected, was relentlessly positing Liz Truss as Luxon’s ideological twin. “Even the UK Conservatives worked out that tax cuts for the wealthiest were a mistake. But here, National are sticking to it. Christopher Luxon is trying to out-Truss Liz Truss. Economic credibility be damned, there is an ideology to serve,” he railed in a Saturday morning speech, raising roars of delight at the idea of National being led by “Liz Luxon”. It was a “dangerous proposition for New Zealanders to have him in government”, Robertson said.

Jacinda Ardern in her keynote address at the Labour Party conference, 2022. Photo: Toby Manhire

Luxon last night shrugged off the invective as “petty politics” designed to “deflect and distract”. While it was ”incredibly flattering that they’re fixating on me”, they should be “fixating on the New Zealand people”. 

Luxon was dismissive, too, of the policy announcement contained in Ardern’s concluding conference address, calling the recalibration of thresholds for access to childcare subsidies, providing support for as many as 10,000 more children, “band-aid economics”. He was confident enough not to attempt to excoriate a cautious, well-designed pledge, which, alongside a tweak in the family tax credit, can be presented as non-inflationary. Ardern said it stood in contrast to National’s tax cut promise, pointedly noting that it defrosted a freeze in the childcare subsidy income bracket implemented by National during the global financial crisis. If they were really concerned about adjustments for inflation, countered Luxon, how about those tax brackets?

Covid in the corner

Luxon has had missteps along the way – most recently in his perplexing suggestion New Zealand might deal with its emissions issue by gazing out to sea and “using the ocean as a massive carbon sink … if we change the way we count it”. But he is leading a rejuvenated, hungry and increasingly functional party. Put it this way: a little over a little over a year ago, from the same stage that Ardern spoke yesterday, leader Judith Collins delivered a speech to the National Party conference surrounded by the blazing slogan “Demand the Debate”.

It feels like another time. Playing hype-man for Ardern yesterday afternoon, Robertson heralded someone “who has written the playbook for Covid-19”, but the response to the pandemic played a relatively muted role in the conference, shuffling around awkwardly like a foresaken friend. The paradox for Labour strategists is that the issue which delivered an unprecedented MMP majority to Labour is just not something people today want to talk about, let alone dwell on.

The walls of the events centre were plastered with posters proclaiming the successes of five years in government. Covid wasn’t there. A “little book of big progress”, folding out from credit card size to A4, filled with examples of “what we’ve achieved together”, was dealt out to members. Tacking the virus? Nowhere. In an extended slide show cataloguing Labour’s achievements across five years, played to delegates in the main hall ahead of Ardern’s opening address on Friday night, 36 different headlines lit up the big screen. Not one was about the Covid response. 

“I don’t know about you, but watching that,” said Ardern, deviating briefly from her speech notes when the five-year highlights reel finished, “it’s easy to feel potentially just a little bit weary – but also really invigorated.”

The merch. Photo: Toby Manhire

The delegate cheer-o-meter in response to that list of achievements saw the needle leap highest on banning conversion therapy, free period products in schools, and the ban on assault weapons. The noisiest ovation, however, was for the fair pay agreement bill made law in recent days, hailed the next day by CTU national secretary Melissa Ansell-Bridges as the most important change for workers in a generation. Its ministerial architect, Michael Wood, was applauded at every mention. He floated around the conference beaming, surrounded by fans. As far as they were concerned, he could have walked out of the arena and straight across the surface of the neighbouring whitewater park.

Down to earth

For any political party, the ambition of a conference in the 21st century is to minimise – if necessary suppress – any internal arguments, rally the faithful, preach the message through the hall and into living rooms, and spark some momentum. On that score, Labour will be delighted with the weekend, bullhorning the messages and chalking out the dividing lines ahead of 2023. 

They know, too, that their challenges are palpable, immediate and beyond the rhetorical summonings of Kirk and Truss. A few minutes up the road from the venue, Middlemore Hospital’s emergency department is creaking. To get to the conference from central Auckland on Friday afternoon, the drive took an hour. Public transport was worse. At the Chinese grocery store a few doors down, the checkout operator beckoned me through the exit, with the entrance boarded up. “We got ram-raided a couple of weeks ago,” he said. 

And members’ weekend high came plummeting down to earth just a few hours after they cheered Ardern off stage. At 6pm to be precise, in the form of a poll which Newshub political editor Jenna Lynch coolly diagnosed as a “disastrous result” for Labour. The Reid Research poll put National on 40.7% and Labour on 32.3%. Not just that: together with Act, National would have 50.7% of the vote, according to the poll, with Labour and Green on just 41.8% combined.

Ardern was at pains through the weekend to stress that politics is not a sport, but she acknowledged, too, that next year would bring an “old fashioned MMP election”. The eleventh-hour relentless positivity of 2017 and the team of five million Covid election of 2020 were in the grand scheme aberrations; 2023 means, in Ardern’s words yesterday, a “head to head”. That about summed up the mood among delegates on the year ahead. “Bloody close,” forecast one, untangling a lanyard to show security. “A fight.” 

Jacinda Ardern speaking to media after her conference speech on Sunday. Photo: Toby Manhire

“No, not at all,” said Ardern yesterday when I asked whether the focus on the National alternative meant relentless positivity was dead. “I’d still like to think that you’ll see exactly the same approach that I’ve always taken to politics and talked about the opposition. It’s always about the straight policy contrast. But we’ve got to remind people that it is ultimately a choice between the Labour government that they know and have experienced in the last five years, versus a plan which we’ve actually seen modelled recently in the UK, and how damaging that has been to our economy. I think it’s our job to draw that contrast, particularly in an election year.” 

We’re not, in fact, yet in an election year, but it feels like it. And, no question, Labour is now in campaign mode. When it was put to Robertson by a reporter on Saturday that his speech, with 19 mentions of National, nine of Luxon and a hat-trick of Trusses, suggested an over-emphasis on the opposition, he replied, “Not at all, this is an election,” before remembering where he was. “It’s also a Labour Party conference, but we’re heading into an election year. And there is a choice to be made.”


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