Donald Trump was back to his old tricks. Speaking before thousands of fans in western Iowa last week, the president conjured up a nickname for his latest target — a Democrat named Cindy Axne who is hoping to become the first woman to represent Iowa in the House of Representatives.
“Cindy Tax Me. It’s a very good name . . . I guess it’s actually Axne, but we call her Tax Me,” Mr Trump roared, sending ripples of laughter across the packed arena in the city of Council Bluffs. “That was so easy!”
Mr Trump was revelling in the sort of gamesmanship that helped him win the White House. But this year he has a very different goal. The rally was just one stop on a hectic tour designed to help Republicans defend their increasingly at-risk majority in the House and keep control of the Senate.
The midterm elections early next month are shaping up to be the most consequential in a generation. The stakes are high for the Republican party, which controls both chambers of Congress but risks a possible rout in the House of Representatives due to a large number of retiring members and anti-Trump anger energising Democrats.
For Mr Trump, the stakes are even more dramatic. Losing the House would allow the Democrats to open investigations — with subpoena power — into everything from his tax returns to his alleged affair with porn star Stormy Daniels. More critically, Democratic control of the House would enable the party to try to impeach Mr Trump — particularly if Robert Mueller, the special counsel, produces a damning report about ties between the Trump campaign and Russia and possible obstruction of justice by the president.
Political pollsters believe the Democrats are going into the final stage of the campaign in a strong position. Charlie Cook of the Cook Political Report notes that the party that controls the White House has lost House seats in 35 of the 38 midterms since the civil war.
The Democrats need a net gain of 23 seats to take control of the House. The Cook Political Report estimates that 69 of the 435 races are competitive — where both parties have a realistic chance of winning — while another 39 races have the potential to become competitive. Of the 31 seats in the House that it rates as a “toss-up”, 29 are currently held by the Republicans, while another 12 of the competitive seats are rated “lean Democratic”.
Facing a potential Democratic wave, Republicans are taking solace in the buoyant economy, with unemployment now down to 3.7 per cent. At his rallies, Mr Trump declares that there will be a Republican “red wave” because of the economy. “Historically . . . you don’t tend to do so well in the midterms,” he told New York magazine last week. “But . . . this is a different presidency and this is the greatest economy ever, so we’ll have to test that.”
David Young, the incumbent who is facing Ms Axne in next month’s election, dismisses the threat. “I don’t believe the blue wave is gonna come to Iowa . . . we have a red dam,” he says. “There may be some blue tornadoes that touch down around the country.”
The Democrats are confident, however, that they will win the House, even with the economy doing well. While they are campaigning on bread and butter issues such as healthcare and calls to reverse the recent tax cuts, the midterms are generally seen as a way to score the first two years of a president’s time in office.
“It is a referendum on Trump for the most part,” says Howard Dean, a Democratic presidential contender in 2004. “I expect to win the House and I actually think there’s a decent chance we will win the Senate.”
When a president has an approval rating above 50 per cent, the historical record suggests that the midterm losses for his party can be limited. Mr Trump’s rating has been hovering in the low 40s.
Aside from the tendency for voters to punish the president’s party, the Democrats should gain from a court decision to order a redistricting in Pennsylvania to reverse Republican gerrymandering. “I’m very optimistic about taking back the House,” says Brendan Boyle, a Democratic congressman representing Philadelphia.
Another driver of Democratic optimism is the mood among women voters. The party is fielding a record number of female candidates. Many of those candidates are running in competitive districts, and are being helped by strong fundraising campaigns.
Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA operative vying to oust Dave Brat, a Republican who stunned House majority leader Eric Cantor in the 2014 GOP primary, raised a record $3.6m in the third quarter. Her Virginia district was “solid Republican” a year ago, but is now rated “toss-up”. In February, Mr Brat told the FT that he would win, but said that if a Democratic wave caused him to lose, “it would be a tsunami”.
Democratic women candidates are also being propelled by the #MeToo movement. Many are angry at how Republicans handled the claims of sexual assault against Brett Kavanaugh, now a Supreme Court judge.
What’s at stake in the election
• If the Democrats win control of the House, they are likely to launch a series of investigations into Donald Trump’s tax returns, Russian interference in the 2016 election and the sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh
• Democratic control of the House could also lead to the opening of impeachment proceedings against Mr Trump
• If Democrats take control of the Senate, they would be able to block any further Trump appointments to the Supreme Court
• If the Republicans lose either chamber, they will not be able to push a more conservative policy agenda, including repealing Obamacare or further tax cuts
• The elections this year for state legislatures and governorships will have a big influence on the next round of redrawing of congressional districts from 2021
Women already comprise a majority of the electorate and have a greater tendency to vote than men. Anna Greenberg, a partner at polling group Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, says the percentage of women who say they would vote for Democrats had risen since the 2016 election. She added that the party was attracting more and more college-educated and suburban women.
“You see a mass influx of women to the Democratic party. The feminisation of the Democratic party feels like it is at an apex,” says Ms Greenberg, who adds that one of the biggest protests in Washington was when women marched against Mr Trump the day after his inauguration in January 2017.
Mr Boyle says the momentum will be clear in the Philadelphia suburbs where Democratic women should win at least three seats — a big shift in a state that has no female lawmakers in the House or Senate.
In an interview at Perk Perry, a coffee shop in a small town west of Des Moines, Ms Axne says women want a political voice. Only 107 of the 535 members of Congress are women, although 78 of those are Democrats.
“Any issue that occurs where women feel they’ve been short-changed
. . . they are going to step up and say ‘I want to make sure that my voice is represented’, and that is best represented through another woman,” she says. Mr Young, a two-term Congressman who won the Iowa third congressional district by 14 percentage points in 2016, admits his race is “tougher this time”.
Another crucial factor in the November election will be whether young people vote in large numbers or not. Monica Peitz, a retired social worker supporting Ms Axne, says the Kavanaugh controversy was “not a burning issue” for her but it was for other women. “Maybe . . . I am an old fogey, but I think that is more of a driving force with younger women and women who have had that experience, and there are a lot of them.”
Mark Wampler, a supporter of Mr Young, says he was “not sure that they [Democrats] are going to have any more success . . . than anybody has had any time in the past.”
Democrats are trying to address that gap. In a recent speech attacking Mr Trump, Barack Obama reminded young people that only one in five of them had voted in the 2014 midterms. “Is it any wonder this Congress doesn’t reflect your values and your priorities?” the former president said.
This campaign won a high-profile recruit last week — singer Taylor Swift. In endorsing Phil Bredesen, a Democrat running against Martha Blackburn for the Senate in Tennessee, Ms Swift told her 112m Instagram fans that young people should register to vote to help defeat Ms Blackburn.
In an effort to goad young Democrats into voting, a group called Knock the Vote has produced videos mocking millennials for being apathetic — all told in the voices of older voters. “We’re a generation of doers, not whiners, and we’re doing great,” retirees say as they dare young voters to share the video.
While many Republicans are pessimistic about their odds in the House, they are much more confident about retaining control of the Senate. Democrats face a very tough electoral map since 26 of the 35 senators up for re-election are from their party, and 10 of those are in states Mr Trump won in 2016. The Cook Political Report classifies five of them — Florida, Indiana, Missouri, Montana and North Dakota — as “toss-up” races.
The Republicans have a 51-49 majority in the Senate, so the Democrats need a net gain of two seats to win. While they have several narrow paths, they would have to hold their five most vulnerable seats and win two of the four “toss-up” Republican seats — Arizona, Nevada, Tennessee and Texas — or a similar combination.
The Kavanaugh battle may motivate Democrat voters in House races but it could hurt their Senate chances, where the party is defending several seats in conservative states. North Dakota looks out of reach after Heidi Heitkamp, who was already seen as the most vulnerable Senate Democrat, voted against the judge.
While Mr Trump has campaigned for many House members in recent weeks, he appears to be shifting to the Senate this week with rallies in Montana, Arizona and Nevada.
In Montana, the Democrat Jon Tester has recently lost ground in the polls, raising Republican hopes in a state Mr Trump won with 57 per cent of the vote in 2016. In Arizona, Martha McSally, the first female fighter pilot to fly in combat, is neck and neck with Democrat Kyrsten Sinema in a state Mr Trump narrowly won. In Nevada, a state Hillary Clinton won, Republican Dean Heller and Democrat Jacky Rosen are in a virtual tie.
The race that has sparked the most interest is Texas, where Republican Ted Cruz faces a stiff test from former punk rocker Beto O’Rourke. Mr O’Rourke has gained grassroots support because of his refusal to use pollsters and strategists or take money from special interests. In a stunning result, he raised $38m in the third quarter of the year.
The race has sparked talk about Mr O’Rourke being on the Democratic presidential ticket in 2020. But for now it is testing whether a surge in enthusiasm among Democrats can help win a conservative state.
Republican candidates face their own challenges getting Trump supporters out to vote. At the Council Bluffs rally, there were lots of banners that read “promises made, promises kept”, in a reference to Mr Trump having followed through on his campaign pledges — everything from withdrawing from the Paris climate accord and Iran nuclear deal to passing tax cuts. But there were very few campaign signs for Mr Young.
As the sound system played songs such as “Sympathy for the Devil” by the Rolling Stones, a woman rushed over to a Trump fan before the president took to the stage and made a request: would he hold up a Young banner so that the TV cameras would catch it in their shot of Mr Trump? He did, but the sign was lost among the thousands of Trump banners.
First-timers have dilemma on ties to leaders
Congressional candidates usually welcome help from their party leaders. But in this year’s midterms, some are distancing themselves from Democratic House minority leader Nancy Pelosi and Republican president Donald Trump.
Some Democrats running in conservative districts are eschewing Ms Pelosi, who is seen as an exponent for liberal policies and as part of the old guard by young Democrats.
In Texas, Beto O’Rourke, the congressman battling Republican Ted Cruz for the senate, has made clear that he wants no help from Ms Pelosi. Conor Lamb, a Democrat who earlier this year won a special election in a conservative Pennsylvania district, has also said that he would not support Ms Pelosi.
But other Democrats, including first-time candidates, are having to straddle the fence, partly because Ms Pelosi could become the powerful House Speaker if the Democrats win the lower chamber. Asked if she would support Ms Pelosi, Cindy Axne, an Iowa Democrat running against incumbent David Young, said: “I have yet to make up my mind on that.”
Her rival has a similar problem. Mr Young is one of many Republicans who want help from Mr Trump but are nervous about his tone and trade policies.
Mr Young has been forced to walk a fine line. He opposes tariffs because they hurt consumers and hopes that Mr Trump will quickly ease trade tensions with China. But running in a state where people pride themselves on being “nice”, he would also like a different tone. “I wish the president was a little more Iowa than New York in the way he speaks and conveys things, but you have to look at the policies,” he said.
Dean Heller, a Republican senator facing a tough challenge in Nevada, once said he was “100 per cent against Clinton, 99 per cent against Trump”. But last month, he called the president, who will campaign for him in Nevada later this week, a “great leader”.
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