Taking on Donald Trump: A sweep of Democrat successes is predicted in the upcoming US midterms

Down near Austin’s Lady Bird Lake, there is little room to move.

People are spilling into the road near stalls selling flags, T-shirts and lapel badges that read: ‘Science is not a Liberal Conspiracy’ and ‘Protect Kids Not Guns’. As 8pm approaches on this Saturday night in autumn, there are 50,000 people here; some reckon 60,000. Either way, it will come to be regarded as the largest political rally for a single candidate in the United States at least since the presidential election two years ago. And what is extraordinary about this one is that it is for a Democratic candidate for the US Senate, and is being held in deep red Texas.

Beto O’Rourke isn’t just any candidate. He represents an energised Democratic party, one that is ploughing head-first into the midterm elections early next month with a renewed sense of optimism. Texas last saw a Democratic presidential candidate win more than 40 years ago, but O’Rourke is part of the so-called ‘blue wave’ — the predicted sweep of Democratic successes in the US midterm elections on 6 November.

The midterms matter because they represent a referendum of sorts on the presidency. According to Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, even a popular president can expect his party to lose five or six seats in the House of Representatives. A president is considered unpopular if he is polling below 50 per cent, in which case he may lose as many as 30 or 35 seats. YouGov currently has Donald Trump polling at 39 per cent.

American Democrats resident in London — where the fall-out from anything that happens in the Trump government is certainly felt — are campaigning hard but fighting shy of triumphalism, after the chastening experience of Trump’s election. ‘We all learned a lesson but I wonder if we are overcompensating this time,’ says Mark Bergman, a London-based Democratic fundraiser and activist for engagement efforts.

"As a general rule, the party in power does less well. There are various incumbent Republicans who chose not to run again. I see 2018 as the election for and by women."

Is he right? Well, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28-year-old from the Bronx, won the Democratic primary in New York’s 14th congressional district, beating 10-term incumbent representative Joe Crowley by 4,000 votes. CNN called it ‘the most shocking upset of a rollicking political season’. Ocasio-Cortez stands on a progressive platform of healthcare for all, tuition-free college, justice reform, and the abolition of America’s controversial Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, responsible for the detention centres used to house almost 3,000 children separated from their parents crossing the US-Mexico border.

In March, Cynthia Nixon, who played Miranda Hobbes in Sex and the City, brought a touch of Hollywood to the midterms when she announced her bid for Governor of New York, challenging incumbent Andrew Cuomo. The fact that Nixon lost in September’s primary has now been all but obscured by the furore around her ordering a cinnamon-raisin bagel with lox, red onions, capers and cream cheese — an event that rivalled Ed Miliband’s bacon sandwich in frenzied absurdity (to New Yorkers, a savoury filling in a sweet bagel is sacrilege).

In Arizona’s Senate race, meanwhile, the state could be on the verge of electing its first Democrat in 30 years if Kyrsten Sinema beats her Republican rival Martha McSally. Sinema, a former Green Party activist, is pro-choice, supports gay rights (she’s the first openly bisexual person to be elected to Congress), wants more gun control and universal healthcare.

But CNN says the electoral race that ‘most encapsulates the potential of this political moment’ is happening in Georgia’s 6th congressional district, where Democrat Lucy McBath is hoping to beat Republican incumbent Karen Handel. McBath is the mother of Jordan Davis, a 17-year-old high school student who was shot dead outside a Florida gas station in 2012 by a 45-year-old man who thought Davis and his friends were playing their music too loudly. Following her son’s death — and after his killer was sentenced to life in prison — McBath got involved in politics in order to do something about gun violence and systemic racism in America (her son was black; the man who shot him is white).

Of the two chambers in the US Congress, the Democrats have a better chance of winning back the House of Representatives than the Senate, but neither is impossible. And the reason is Trump’s wildly unpredictable behaviour, which Londoners have been witnessing from this side of the Atlantic. Travis Ridout, a professor of government and public policy at Washington State University, agrees: "A lot of Democrats are angry he got elected, don’t like what he’s doing, and nothing is going to stop them voting in November."

Meanwhile, most polling also suggests Republican voters aren’t as excited to turn out this year. In addition to renewed energy, the Democrats also have money.

So far this election cycle, the party’s chief fundraising body, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, is out-raising its Republican counterpart by more than $50m.

For the Democrats, the midterms are crucial. If they win the House — which is increasingly likely — Trump ‘will have more than impeachment to worry about’, writes Melanie Zanona, a congressional reporter for political newspaper, The Hill. According to Zanona, among the ways the Democrats could ‘inflict pain on the President and his party’ would be to subpoena potentially revealing documents, such as Trump’s much-talked-about tax returns, and force White House officials to testify before Congress about his finances and any possible conflicts of interest. They could investigate allegations of sexual harassment against him, which first raised their head during his election campaign. And depending on the outcome of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible links between the Trump campaign and Russia to influence the election, they could reopen the House Russia probe, which in March concluded there was ‘no collusion’.

In short, they could make Trump’s life very difficult, causing a knock-on effect around the world and emboldening his critics in the British Government. What’s in no doubt if they win the House, is that Democrats will stymie his legislative agenda, blocking anything he sees as a priority, such as funding his much-vaunted border wall.

As far as the Senate races are concerned, all eyes are on Nevada, Arizona, Tennessee and Texas, where they are closest. In Texas, the race between O’Rourke and incumbent Ted Cruz has become something of a national fixation. The Washington Post said O’Rourke is getting more attention than any other 2018 candidate.

Despite O’Rourke’s impressive rally in the Texas capital, he still has tough competition in Cruz, the firebrand senator who vehemently opposes same-sex marriage, railed against the Affordable Care Act and once said President Barack Obama was ‘an apologist for radical Islamic terrorists’. Cruz is popular in Texas. He has called for more armed police officers in schools — something that resonates with his base — and has decried O’Rourke as being on the ‘extreme left’, pushing an agenda that includes gun control.

Chris Hooks, a political writer based in Austin, says that while O’Rourke is seen by some outside Texas as being a very left wing candidate, his message on the campaign trail at least has been far more about community and patriotism. "These are the ideas that Barack Obama hit in 2008 when he was campaigning and O’Rourke has said that was a big part of his political upbringing."

Hooks says O’Rourke has a sense of authenticity and spontaneity that follows his campaign around — ‘you can feel that’ — and that he has been very good at connecting with young people. O’Rourke has travelled to each of Texas’s 254 counties. "He’s been good at meeting young voters where they are. The campaign uses Facebook live streaming, and there really is a palpable sense of excitement, particularly in big cities like Houston, Austin and San Antonio, in a way I haven’t seen in previous campaigns."

There’s a trope us Brits in the States sometimes throw out when attempting to explain British politics to Americans. It goes like this: "Our Labour party is like your Democratic party. And our Conservative party is like your Democratic party." That seems truer now than ever. The Republican party that once promoted free market conservatism and boasted of its moral leadership around the world is almost unrecognisable today. God, guns and gays have been wedge issues for the Republicans for some time now. Trump just threw a Muslim ban, border wall and a lifeline to the coal industry into the mix for good measure.

Meanwhile, the Democrats who champion women’s reproductive rights, want to see affordable healthcare for all and support marriage equality, seem more in tune than ever with London-style liberalism across the pond.

A recent poll said voters were deeply rattled by Trump’s impulsive behaviour and protracted trade war, and that he had ‘diminished America’s standing in the world’. As Trevor Thrall, a senior fellow at US libertarian think tank the Cato Institute, wrote: "It turns out that heckling Nato and imposing tariffs on allies doesn’t do much for a president’s approval ratings." And by a margin of 63 per cent to 25, Thrall said Americans think maintaining good relationships with allies — which obviously includes those in London — is far more important.

"Hope springs eternal," says Elizabeth Frost Sainty, who runs the Stair Sainty gallery in Dover Street with her British husband Guy Stair Sainty. She says there are ‘too many’ exciting candidates emerging to mention, but has been campaigning for Jacky Rosen in Nevada against the Republican incumbent.

If the ‘blue wave’ happens, Frost Sainty says that a process of de-Trumpification can begin immediately: "Tax cuts can be undone by a Democratic Congress. The dismantling of environmental protection policies will not endure." Mark Bergman says the priority will be ‘to reset the balance and try to create a more bipartisan approach to things’. He adds that the midterms are being fought on domestic issues, while the presidential election in 2020 will be ‘about America’s place in the world’. But only once the midterms have shown ‘what messages have worked and what messengers have worked’ will it be time to think of a Democrat challenger to Trump in 2020.

And should such a challenger succeed, would he or she strengthen relations between the US and the UK, and perhaps even visit the London embassy that Trump refused to open? "Of course they will," says Frost Sainty. "I will make sure of it!" But Bergman sounds an ominous note. "I suspect the next president, whether a Democrat or a Republican, will readdress the conduct of foreign policy," he says. "However, I think it is fair to say the world has changed and we are not going back to a pre-2016 dynamic. We live in a very different world."

Illustration by Michelle Thompson