WASHINGTON: Republicans made a final push Sunday to prevent a predicted thumping in US midterm elections where Democrats are gunning to win Congress and impose a first political check on President Donald Trump’s unprecedented pursuit of power.
Polls show Democrats are all but certain to take the majority from Republicans in the House of Representatives and — against all previous expectations — with a shot at winning the Senate.
But after a decade of Trump defying political gravity and two years of a second presidency in which he has ridden roughshod over every norm, Democrats remain nervous.
“Nauseously optimistic,” Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock told CNN to describe the mood.
Trump headlined the Republicans’ last-ditch charge, holding rallies for candidates in Iowa and Kansas — states where ordinarily his party should be confident of victory and not require presidential boosts.
Along with making lurid claims that Democrats will turn the country communist, Trump is dangling the promise of $5,000 payments to everyone in the country if his party wins.
“I feel good,” Trump told reporters at his luxury golf club in Florida late Saturday. “The country has never done better.”
Polls, however, show the Republican is the most unpopular US president in decades and while his efforts may galvanize a hardcore base of right-wing supporters, a growing majority has turned on him.
An NBC News poll released Sunday showed 60 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s performance, particularly over high prices exacerbated by his now eight-month, sputtering war against Iran.
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