United States: we explain the stakes of the midterms, the crucial midterm elections for Joe Biden which take place today

The Americans must appoint a large part of their representatives to Congress on Tuesday in a series of elections that promise to be hotly contested.

Amajor test, two years before the next presidential election in the United States . The Americans are called to the polls, Tuesday,  November 8, for the traditional mid-term elections. During these midterms, they will have to express themselves in referendums, sometimes choose their representatives in local assemblies, and above all appoint their elected representatives to Congress. This is a crucial moment for the Democrats , who must keep their very narrow parliamentary majority if they want to allow Joe Biden to continue his program.

If the midterms usually benefit the opposition, the presidential party hopes to mobilize voters around the right to abortion . For their part, the conservatives are counting on dissatisfaction with galloping inflation to win seats in Congress. Franceinfo summarizes the stakes of these elections.

Almost the entire Federal Congress will be renewed

Midterm elections are held, as their name suggests, in the middle of the presidential term. And it is a major meeting of American politics. In the United States, all of the 435  seats in the House of Representatives and a third of the 100  seats in the Senate are renewed every two years (the senators being elected for six years), recalls the Washington Post *. The Americans will therefore renew almost all of Congress.

But that's not all. In most states, voters will also have to appoint their governor, mayor, members of local assemblies, magistrates or even sheriffs. Many will also be called upon to express themselves on ballot initiatives , referendums allowing changes to local legislation. According to the specialized site Ballotpedia *, 129 proposals will be submitted to the vote of the Americans on  November 8, in 36 States. They cover subjects as varied as the legalization of cannabis, the right to abortion or the financing of the fight against forest fires.

As a result, the ballot (which is unique and includes all the ballots) will generally be spread over several pages. In the Californian county of Santa Clara, voters will thus have to express their choice in around thirty elections or referendums,  as shown in this example *.