By T.N. Ashok
Washington, Nov 12 (IANS): Despite Donald Trump-led Republicans' strong campaign against inflation, US President Joe Biden is emerging as the first President in American history to lose the least number of seats in a midterm election as the senate sits precariously with both republicans and democrats split at 49 seats each with the latter requiring just one more seat to get majority that could come from either Arizona or California or Nevada or the Georgia runoff.
In the Senate, the Democrats have wrested one seat from the republicans. Even if both parties split the ticket, Democrats stand a good chance of winning the run off in Georgia where sitting senator pastor Raphael Warnock is much ahead of the footballer anti-abortion activist Herschel Walker hounded by abortion scandals of his ex-girlfriends. Or even before if they get California.
The general trend in the midterms is that the incumbent president always loses and Trump have lost a huge chunk of seats. But Biden has bucked the trend. So far, they have lost none but gained one in the Senate and set to retain the upper chamber, and lost only about 11 seats in the House of Reps.
In the house, Democrats have now won 199 seats and Republicans 211 seats with the GOP requiring just seven more to retake the house from the Democrats. At present, Democrats have 220 against Republicans 212 seats.
Even if Republicans retake the house, they will still have only a wafer-thin majority in the 435 member house, media reports say.
"The party in the White House has gained seats in a midterm only three of 40 times since the Civil War," Jim Kessler, the executive director at the center-left think tank Third Way, told ABC News.
"Since the direct election of senators in 1914, it's happened in seven of 27 midterms. Gaining seats in the House is not going to happen, but losses will be small. A draw or one seat pickup in the Senate is within grasp."
For comparison, in Barack Obama's first term, Democrats lost 63 seats in the House during the midterms.
Republicans lost 40 seats in the House during the 2018 cycle when Donald Trump was president.
Former President Bill Clinton lost 53 seats in the House in his first midterm elections. Biden has lost only 11 seats despite predictions of a Red Wave or a Red Tsunami with most of Trump's handpicked candidates flopping in the elections.
In the senate, democrats depend on the Georgia runoff to gain a majority as neither candidate could muster the 50 per cent threshold of the popular vote to win, calling for a runoff election on December 6 between the candidates.
Democrats are favoured to win and retain control of the Senate as the main plank of the Trump campaign, inflation and high prices, has been knocked out.
Inflation for October declined to 7.77 per cent from projected near 8 per cent.
House rentals have declined. Markets have soared and grocery prices climbed by only 0.4 per cent.
Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman and noted economist Jeremey Siegel have both predicted that with inflation showing trends of coming down -- though groceries prices are high but gasoline prices have dipped by a dollar-markets have begun to soar by 4 per cent and the stocks could rally round by the year end.