WASHINGTON: The battle lines for America’s November 3 midterm elections are now unmistakably drawn. With barely a month remaining, President Donald Trump is turning the contest for control of Congress into a personal referendum on his presidency, urging Americans to vote as though his own name were on the ballot.
For Republicans, the stakes could hardly be higher. The party controls both chambers, but Democrats are mounting an aggressive campaign for the House and see an opening in the Senate as well. Current polling shows Democrats with an advantage in the national House preference and competitive in a number of Senate battlegrounds, although the final result will depend on turnout and the individual contests.
Trump knows what is at stake. A Democratic House, or a Democratic-controlled Congress, would dramatically alter the final two years of his presidency, increasing congressional scrutiny and making his legislative agenda considerably harder to advance.
His response has been extraordinary: redistricting battles, efforts to reshape voting rules, federal investigations of voter rolls, government-funded advertising, direct payments to selected Americans and, most dramatically, a promise of a $5,000 “Trump dividend” to adult Americans if Republicans retain both chambers.
The $5,000 proposal may be the most audacious of all. At the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, Trump promised that every adult citizen would receive $5,000 if Republicans won the House and Senate. He suggested that tariff revenues could finance the payments. The arithmetic, however, is daunting. With roughly 240 million adult citizens, the program would cost approximately $1.2 trillion, far more than current tariff collections. It would also require congressional authorization. Trump has called it a dividend rather than a campaign payment.
That distinction matters legally. Federal law prohibits paying people to vote or inducing particular voting behaviour. But legal scholars consulted by several news organizations say Trump’s proposal is not necessarily equivalent to buying an individual’s vote because the promised payment would go to eligible adults regardless of whether they voted for Republicans, Democrats or did not vote at all. The Supreme Court has also distinguished broad political promises, such as tax reductions, from direct vote-buying.
That does not make the proposal ordinary. It makes it politically and legally unusual. The question is less whether an individual voter is being handed $5,000 at a polling station than whether the president is deliberately linking a nationwide financial benefit to the electoral success of his party. Critics have described the proposal as a bribe; Trump and his allies describe it as a dividend arising from the administration’s economic policies. The distinction will remain contentious unless Congress actually considers legislation implementing it.
The administration has already moved money in other ways. Nearly one million Americans have begun receiving $500 Affordable Care Act-related rebate checks, while Trump has announced plans for payments of roughly $90 to more than 20 million Medicare beneficiaries. Critics have questioned the timing of the payments so close to the election, while the administration describes them as legitimate government benefits or refunds.
At the same time, the administration has spent about $20 million in taxpayer money on Homeland Security advertising that critics argue is essentially political promotion. The White House calls the advertisements public-service announcements.
Then there is redistricting. Trump began an unusual mid-decade campaign to redraw congressional maps in Republican-controlled states, seeking additional House seats before the November vote. Redistricting normally follows the decennial Census, but new maps are now being used in nine states, including Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Tennessee. Several of the new maps favor Republicans, although the outcome is not uniform and some redrawn districts remain highly competitive.
Democrats have responded with their own redistricting efforts in states under their control. The battle over voting rules is equally intense. Trump’s administration has attempted to impose new requirements concerning citizenship and voter identification and sought greater federal control over mail ballots. Courts have blocked or limited key provisions, including elements of the citizenship rules, while the Supreme Court stopped the administration from imposing new mail-ballot requirements through the Postal Service for this election.
Federal authorities have also investigated alleged noncitizen registration. Administration officials say these measures are designed to protect election integrity. Democrats and voting-rights groups argue that they risk disenfranchisement and undermine confidence in the electoral system.
Trump has not stopped there. He has repeatedly accused Democrats of cheating, while some of his allies have floated the possibility of deploying ICE agents around polling places or invoking emergency powers. Trump himself has declined to rule out declaring a national emergency or invoking the Insurrection Act, although the chairman of the Joint Chiefs has said the military has no plans to deploy troops to polling places.
Yet beneath this extraordinary political machinery lies a much simpler problem: the price of everyday life. Americans may listen to arguments about immigration, tariffs, Iran, election security and political ideology, but the kitchen table remains the most unforgiving political battlefield.
An AP-NORC poll conducted in late September found that only 17% of Americans approved of Trump’s handling of the cost of living, while 26% approved of his economic management. About 65% said Trump’s policies contributed to persistent inflation.
That is the contradiction confronting the White House. The administration can point to low unemployment and strong headline economic growth. But millions of voters do not experience the economy through GDP figures. They experience it at the supermarket, petrol station, rent counter, mortgage office and utility bill.
Reuters reported Monday that unemployment remains around 4.2%, but hiring has slowed, wage gains have been eroded by inflation and real disposable-income growth remains weak.
For younger Americans, the equation is even more complicated. The administration is trying to bring younger voters into the Republican coalition through direct appeals on the economy, jobs, technology and Trump’s broader political message. But the Yale Youth Poll found substantial disapproval of Trump among voters under 35, including 68% among those aged 18-22 and 72% among those aged 23-29 in its spring survey.
The $5,000 promise therefore enters a political environment in which economic anxiety may be more important than ideology. It is also why the November election could become a referendum on something more fundamental than Trump himself: whether voters believe the administration’s promises are translating into improvements in their own lives.
Trump has responded by making the election unmistakably personal. His message is effectively that Republican voters must treat the congressional election as another presidential contest. Democrats, meanwhile, are attempting to turn the same dynamic against him, portraying congressional candidates as the means through which voters can check the administration.
The irony is that both parties are now campaigning around Trump. For Republicans, he remains the party’s most powerful mobilizer and fundraiser, capable of drawing enormous crowds and dominating the political conversation. For Democrats, he is the central reason they are seeking to turn the midterms into a judgment on the administration.
Thirty days from Election Day, the collision is becoming sharper. There is Trump’s promise of money, his fight over congressional maps, his attempts to reshape voting procedures, his attacks on alleged election fraud and his demand that Republican voters turn out as though he himself were standing for election. Opposing that is an electorate increasingly focused on prices, wages, housing, healthcare, fuel and economic security.
The final question may therefore be remarkably old-fashioned. Can political spectacle overcome the cost of living? On November 3, Americans will answer not with television advertisements, presidential rallies or campaign promises, but with ballots. And the result will determine whether Trump’s final two years begin with Congress as an ally—or as an increasingly powerful check on the White House. (IPA Service)
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