Joe Biden is fighting a rearguard action to stave off defeat in Tuesday’s midterm elections as Republicans look poised to make sweeping gains in the US Congress, setting up two years of political trench warfare, writes The Guardian.

“The president, along with former president Barack Obama, has been crisscrossing America in a last-ditch bid to persuade voters that a Democratic victory is critical not only to Biden’s legislative agenda but the preservation of American democracy.

But momentum appears to be with Republicans capitalising on frustration over inflation and fears of crime and illegal immigration. Election forecasters and polls say it is highly likely that the party of ex-president Donald Trump will win a majority in the House of Representatives and also have a shot of taking control of the Senate.

Midterms are held every four years but in 2022 they are far from routine and have seen a huge increase in early voting turnout. Tuesday’s election represents the first nationwide test of democracy since Trump’s followers staged a deadly insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6 last year.

At stake are all 435 seats in the House, 35 seats in the 100-member Senate, 36 state governorships, three US territory governorships and numerous city mayorships and local offices. Some 129 ballot measures in 36 states include laws on abortion in California, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana and Vermont.

A surprise Democratic victory in the House and Senate would give Biden a mandate to pursue a sweeping legislative agenda on issues such as abortion rights, police reform and voting rights during his two remaining years in the Oval Office. But Republican control of either chamber would be enough to derail such ambitions and raise questions over the US’s open-ended support for Ukraine’s war against Russia. Biden might face congressional investigations into everything from the withdrawal from Afghanistan to his son Hunter’s foreign business dealings”.