AMERICANS voted yesterday in midterm elections deciding control of both houses of Congress, with President Donald Trump’s approval rating near a record low and courts rebuffing his administration’s efforts to purge voters.
All 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 Senate seats were contested, with Republicans holding both chambers.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Monday put Trump’s approval at 32 per cent, one point above last week’s record low.
Half of independents saw their vote as a vote against him, and just 13 per cent as a vote for him.
Seventy-eight per cent named the cost of living as a very important or the most important issue, as fuel and other prices have climbed since Trump launched his illegal war on Iran with Israel in February.
Voters preferred a Democratic Congress by 46 per cent to 38, and 49 per cent of Democrats were ‘very enthusiastic’ about voting, against 33 per cent of Republicans.
Rallying for Senator Lindsey Graham in South Carolina, Trump told supporters to pretend his name was on the ballot.
‘The problem that we have is, they say that Trump does great when he’s on the ballot, but when he’s not on the ballot, his people don’t come, and they don’t vote for senators, congressmen and other Republicans,’ he said.
On Monday, the Supreme Court rejected the administration’s request to strike more than 20,000 people it claims are non-citizens from California’s voter rolls.
On Friday, US District Judge Trina Thompson issued a temporary restraining order barring the administration from intimidating state election officials, finding it had likely breached the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
‘Although Defendants claim that their actions are designed to halt unlawful voting by non-citizens, their actions are likely to have the effect of interfering with election administration and disenfranchising lawful voters,’ she said.
The Justice Department has challenged the order.
On Saturday, District Judge Tanya Chutkan warned of a ‘chilling effect’.
‘The government has made no secret of their determination to purge the voter rolls’ of suspected non-citizens, she said.
‘Past efforts to do so have resulted in US citizens being swept up into this law enforcement dragnet.’