Millions of Americans go to the polls on Tuesday to vote in elections and ballot measures that could offer an interim verdict on Joe Biden’s presidency a year out from his bid to retain the White House.
Voters will choose governors in Kentucky and Mississippi, decide legislative control in New Jersey and Virginia and determine whether the Ohio state constitution should protect abortion rights.
All 40 seats in Virginia’s senate and all 100 seats in the state’s house of delegates are in play. Democrats are aiming to hold or widen their 22-18 advantage in the senate and win a majority in the House, where Republicans currently have a 52-48 edge.
Voters’ decisions could be affected by events on the national political stage, ranging from Biden’s low approval ratings to the recent chaos in the House of Representatives as Republicans struggled for three weeks to elect a speaker.
“People say, oh, it doesn’t matter because it’s national but people don’t make those distinctions,” said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. “National is state and state is local. They’re measuring the worth of the parties, one against the other. I don’t know if there’s any way we can measure it but surely this Republican dysfunction in the US House is having some effect.”
Virginia is the only state in the south that has not imposed further limits on abortion since the supreme court overturned the landmark Roe v Wade ruling last year. But Republicans have pledged to pass a 15-week abortion ban – supported by the Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin – if they gain control of the legislature.
Youngkin, who upset Democrats in 2021 by making “parents’ rights” his signature issue, is not on the ballot this time but the elections will be watched closely for clues to his future political prospects. Republican donors opposed to Donald Trump could yet try to persuade Youngkin to make a last-minute entry into the 2024 presidential primary.
Republicans are also pursuing control of either legislative chamber in solidly Democratic New Jersey, where all seats in the general assembly and senate are up for grabs. Republicans have made headway since 2021, when they flipped seven seats, and are pushing issues ranging from the economy to parental rights in K-12 education.
Meanwhile, in conservative Kentucky, the Democratic governor, Andy Beshear, is running for re-election against the Republican state attorney general, Daniel Cameron. Beshear’s campaign is touting his record of bringing jobs to Kentucky, backing public schools, expanding healthcare access and setting strict policies to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
Cameron, who is African American, has been touting his endorsement by Trump. He is focusing on public safety, learning loss from school closures during the pandemic and culture war issues championed by Republicans nationally, such as opposing gender-affirming care for transgender children.
In Mississippi, the Republican governor, Tate Reeves, is running for re-election against the Democrat Brandon Presley, a former small-town mayor who is the second cousin of singer Elvis Presley. While Reeves is leading in the polls in the deeply conservative southern state, Presley has raised more money over the course of the campaign.
In political ads, Reeves has accused Presley of being backed by out-of-state liberals and opposing bans on gender-affirming care for transgender youth like the one Reeves signed into law in February. Presley has said he does not support gender-affirming care for minors, or transgender girls playing girls’ sports, and is running on the promise of tax cuts and expanding Medicaid.
A debate between the candidates last week proved an ill-tempered affair with Reeves and Presley trading insults and talking over one another.
A ballot question in Ohio asks voters whether to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution, a move that would render moot a six-week limit signed into law by the Republican governor, Mike DeWine. That law is on hold pending litigation at the state supreme court. The vote is being closely watched as Democrats across the country hope to add to their string of abortion-related ballot measure wins in 2022.
Ohio voters will also answer a ballot question about whether the state should legalise marijuana for recreational use. If approved, the statute would legalise, regulate and tax marijuana for adults over 21, expanding on the currently legal medicinal use of cannabis.
Cities across the country will elect mayors on Tuesday. In Philadelphia, Democrat Cherelle Parker and Republican David Oh, both former city council members, are competing for an open seat as Democrat Jim Kenney reaches the limit of his mayoral term. In Houston, a crowded field of candidates led by the US congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee and state senator John Whitmire, both Democrats, are competing to succeed the term-limited mayor, Sylvester Turner, also a Democrat.
A bad night for Democrats might been seen as a grim reflection on Biden, who approval rating stood at just 37% in a Gallup opinion poll last week. Surveys suggest he is running neck and neck with Trump in a hypothetical rematch.
