Timothy
Fadgen, University
of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
As
New Zealanders begin voting in their own general election,
Americans are also heading to the polls in Congressional
midterm elections with major implications for the years
ahead.
Despite being on the other side of the
Pacific, what happens next in Washington DC will have
potentially high stakes for New Zealand.
In the
United States, all 435 seats in the House of Representatives
(plus six non-voting seats from US territories) and 35
Senate seats are on the line.
Republicans control
both chambers of Congress and have largely
rubber-stamped President Donald Trump’s agenda for two
years. The Supreme Court has also done its best to insulate
the executive branch from legal liability for its
actions.
Even taking control of one chamber in
Congress would give Democrats real power.
The
House could check a president who has already refused
to spend money Congress appropriated. And it could use
committees to summon officials to testify, a prospect that
might trouble Trump appointees.
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The Senate could
confirm or withhold executive appointment of officials and
judges, including any Supreme Court vacancy. All of this
could affect US relations with small nations such as New
Zealand. But to what extent?
The turning
Republican tide
At his campaign rallies, Trump has
made the midterms – like his presidency – about him. But
midterm elections are historically a litmus test of a
president’s performance, and the president’s party
typically loses seats.
Add inflation, crushingly
high fuel prices driven by the administration’s unpopular
attack on Iran, plus widespread concern
about government corruption, and it’s unsurprising
only 32%
of Americans approve of Trump’s job performance.
In the House, indicators point
to Democratic gains of between five and 24 seats; only
five are needed to secure a majority.
The effect
of Republican
gerrymandering, designed to tilt local races in the
party’s favour, remains to be seen. And a promised
flood of federal “election observers” to polling
places on election day may have a chilling effect.
But these factors may have contributed to a surge
in early voting, too. Gerrymandering may shape the size
of the win, but with polls heavily in Democrats’ favour,
the safe bet is still a Democratic House in
2027.
The Senate is a tougher proposition (though
more
promising than it looked months ago). Democrats need 51
seats (they currently hold 47, counting two independents),
with Vice President JD Vance casting the deciding vote in
any split decisions.
Democrats must hold seats in
Michigan, Georgia, New Hampshire and Minnesota, where
Republicans are more competitive than they had hoped. There
are also opportunities to pick up seats in Alaska, Maine,
Texas and North Carolina.
Even Iowa, Nebraska and
Kansas have
become toss-ups. That the president is campaigning in
Republican strongholds like Kansas and Texas tells you how
the White House is reading the polls.
No
immediate change
A decisive Democratic victory
would change the political dynamics in the US for two years.
But what this means for New Zealand may be less than some
might hope, at least in the short term.
Geopolitical uncertainty and spiking oil prices
due to the Iran conflict, and the impact of trade tariffs on
economic activity, top the list of local
concerns.
But both are matters of foreign policy,
which has historically and constitutionally been the executive’s
remit in the US system.
Moreover, Americans
are living through a moment of nearly unbridled
executive authority, enabled by Supreme Court decisions
and Trump’s apparent belief in his own infallibility.
On the other hand, he is a self-styled dealmaker,
which suggests a resolution to the Iran war may be in the
offing in the coming months. That could be more heavily
influenced by Israel’s inconclusive
October 27 election and what happens next with
government formation.
Tariffs may be harder for
Trump to give up. New Zealand exports currently face
a 12.5% tariff, except for beef and kiwifruit. These
tariffs are unpopular
in the US, and Trump’s first attempt to impose them
was struck down in a rare disagreement with the Supreme
Court.
The revised
justification for tariffs is that most countries, New
Zealand included, rely on forced labour. That is undoubtedly
true of some nations, but the indiscriminate application of
tariffs is a dubious response.
Tariffs are likely
to remain Trump’s favoured economic cudgel. We can expect
him to hold course, but with more legal challenges to the
policy to come.
An end to MAGA
politics?
There is another potential effect of the
midterms which may prove the most lasting.
As others
have observed, New Zealand politics has not been immune
to the influence of Trump’s MAGA movement and its
polarising style.
New Zealand’s election season
opened with antagonistic
immigration messaging by New Zealand First. But some
policy proposals have noticeably faded during the campaign,
perhaps a tacit acknowledgement of the waning popular
influence of MAGA-style politics.
Should the
Republican party suffer anything close to the catastrophic
result many polls suggest, this brand of politicking might
be jettisoned beyond the US itself.
The serious
political, economic and environmental problems facing
Aotearoa New Zealand and the US demand a more thoughtful,
constructive dialogue. The outcome of the midterms may be a
turning point in that regard, at least.
Timothy
Fadgen, Senior Lecturer, Politics and International
Relations, University
of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
This article is republished from The Conversation
under a Creative Commons license. Read the original
article.
