Global News Podcast - Bonus: The Global Story - The other races that could shape the US election

Episode Date: November 3, 2024

Your weekly bonus episode from The Global Story podcast.As well as electing a president, Americans will also choose governors, representatives, and senators. Although these races may have been overshadowed, they could determine how much power the next president has.The Global Story brings you trusted insights from BBC journalists worldwide, one big story every weekday, making sense of the news with our experts around the world.For more, go to bbcworldservice.com/globalstory or search for The Global Story wherever you got this podcast.

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Here's my colleague Katrina Perry. Today we're looking at an aspect of the US election that one of you suggested deserves more attention. Hi Katrina. This is Ian from Rhode Island in the United States. Everyone is focusing on the presidential race and whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris will win. But there's been so little courage of the US Congress and how the congressional elections will shape the environment that a president of either party will be working in when they are elected.

Can you look into this? Thank you. Thanks for that, Eam. That is a great question. Control of the US Senate and House could determine how much power the next president actually has. And with less than a week to go until voting ends,

polls suggest the Democrats might take back the House but lose their hold on the Senate. Other issues are on the ballot too. Some states are asking voters to decide the local laws around abortion where they live. So with election day just around the corner, this is your guide to the races to watch

and the votes that will matter on election night. Now there's a lot to get through, nearly 500 national representatives and thousands more at state level. So let's jump right in. I'm joined by my colleague here in DC, digital reporter Sam Cabral. Hi Sam. Hello Katrina. So Sam, with all of these races and issues for voters to decide upon, it's worth us pointing out that voters get a very big ballot paper here and they don't have to vote for the same party throughout.

Absolutely not. We can see a voter vote Republican for president, which is Donald Trump, and then they can choose every other Democratic candidate further down the ballot. I would say that given how partisan this country has become and tribal in a sense with its politics, we do see the ticket splitting as we call it, much less than we used to. But there's certainly cases where rather than vote Democrat all down the line or Republican all down the line, we certainly see voters take into account how they should be voting differently to balance out power in Washington. Let's jump into looking at the congressional races then. Just who will be representing Americans in the Senate and House come January? Tell us about what voters are deciding on there. Well, in the House we have all 435 seats up for election as usual every two years. And in the Senate, we have

one third of the 100 seats in there also up for election. And the Democrats backs are really up against the wall when it comes to the Senate. Obviously, they've had a one seat majority through the Biden administration, and they have used that one seat majority to great effect to pass bipartisan legislation. Pretty much the signature accomplishments of the Biden administration have been accomplished with that one seat majority. But now they're in a position where if Donald Trump wins the race this November, Republicans only need to flip one Democratic held seat to win back power there. And if Kamala Harris wins, Republicans can still flip the Senate with just two flips.

So let's talk a little bit about the Senate then for people who aren't maybe familiar with how the Houses of Congress break down. The Senate has a particular role and it has a particular role in relation to certifying the election results. Absolutely. So both chambers of Congress meet in a joint session to certify the election results. Absolutely. So both chambers of Congress meet in a joint session to certify the election results. Madam Speaker, the Vice President and the United States Senate. And that is what we saw on January 6, 2021,

ahead of the US Capitol riot. And then, of course, lawmakers returned to the chamber and certified the election results together. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of the state of Delaware has received 306 votes. Donald J. Trump of the state of Florida has received 232 votes. And so the makeup of both chambers is tremendously important. The Senate also plays a really crucial role in shaping the federal judiciary of this country, the judges from the circuit level to the appeals level to the Supreme Court. We saw under Donald Trump, he elected three justices to a nine-member

bench of the Supreme Court. And obviously, that played a huge role in the overturning of the right to abortion in this country. And if Donald Trump gets in for another four years, there's plenty of speculation that, you know, maybe he gets one more seat added in there. Possibly even two, but that's a whole other podcast discussion on the Supreme Court. So as we said there, Republicans need to flip one seat if Donald Trump wins, two seats of Kamala Harris wins. What seats are they targeting? What's most in jeopardy there?

So there's two seats that are almost practically assured of flipping to the Republicans. One is in West Virginia, a seat that has been held by the most conservative Democrat in the Senate. And pretty much as soon as he announced that he was leaving the Senate at the end of this term, it was known that Republicans were going to win that seat. And the state's current governor is actually running as the Republican candidate, and he is almost certainly going to win the race. In Montana, a state that has also been held by one of those really rare conservative Democrats is also in jeopardy. Hey, everybody, this is John Tester.

Today is the first day of early voting. So get out there and make sure your voices are heard. It's important. Why? Because there are folks that move to this state that want to make this a playground for the rich. That's my opponent. He is polling well behind his Republican challenger.

Montana is my home and I'm running for the U.S. Senate to protect our values and ensure that my children and yours can pursue their dreams here. I'm Tim Sheehy, and I approve this message because like you, I love Montana. So it looks quite likely that by the end of election night itself, those two seats could be gone. And so that puts the Democrats in a position of really defending a whole bunch of seats that they currently hold and are hoping that they will still be holding at the end of this election. Danielle Pletka Are there any that they can pick up?

Dr. Anil K. Patel So there's one seat that has become really interesting to watch. Kamala Harris is actually campaigning there. That's Texas. Now, of course, Texas you think of as a very conservative state, but the current senator, Ted Cruz, is somebody who is well known in the national scene, quite an unpopular figure on the national scene, though he remains popular in the state among conservatives. His Democratic challenger, Colin Allred, is a former NFL football player and is somebody who's also been in the House of Representatives. He is running very competitively with Ted Cruz and with Harris campaigning there, All Red could finally be the one to topple Cruz.

Cruz has been in a tight race in the previous cycle as well, but Democrats came just short that time. There's also eyes unexpectedly on Nebraska, and this is not a Democratic challenger to the Republican incumbent senator there, but a union mechanic who's running as an independent. The U.S. Senate is a bunch of millionaires controlled by billionaires. My opponent, Deb Fischer, is part of the problem. She's taken so much corporate cash, she should wear patches like NASCAR. If you want someone who works for you, consider me.

I'm Dan Osborne. I approve this message because the only thing on the back of my jacket is Nebraska. He's promised that he would not caucus or vote with either the Democrats or the Republicans. He would kind of make independent-minded decisions. This race really came out of the blue. Nebraska is not typically a state we watch, just because it always ends up in the Republican column for the past several decades. But Dan Osborne, the candidate, is running very competitively with Senator Deb Fisher. And Republicans at the national level are actually pouring investments now into the race, because they're worried that they could face an upset there. And it's interesting you mentioned Kamala Harris going to Texas because we talk so much about the presidential candidates going to the battleground, the seven swing states for their own votes at the top of the ticket.

But they have a kind of responsibility to campaign with some of these people as well to try and bring their influence and their popularity to those Senate and House candidates as well. Are there other interesting Senate races that you've been looking at? Absolutely. Well, you mentioned the swing states. There's Arizona, there's Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Nevada. They're all up for election one Senate seat each there. And in Wisconsin, where Senator Tammy Baldwin was supposed to be quite a popular senator, but she's running in quite a tight race

because Republicans have dumped money behind their challenger there, Eric Hovde, a former businessman. And he's tough and he's a hero and he's a success. Eric Hovde is great. Come on up, Eric. Come on up. So much so that he seems to be helping Trump in Wisconsin and pulling Trump's numbers up there,

where Trump had not been polling so competitively and now he is. Let's give President Trump a big Wisconsin hello! And Arizona is the other interesting one, isn't it, where the Democratic candidate Gallego is polling way ahead of the Republican Senate candidate, Carrie Lake, even though Donald Trump is doing better than Kamala Harris there. That's right. Carrie Lake is a divisive figure of the state. Arizona is a state that is quite given to moderation and working together. And Carrie Lake is a figure that really not just doubled down on Donald Trump's election denial claims from 2020, but really made them

her own in her own campaign for governor in 2022. And she made a lot of enemies in the state during that period. And it doesn't seem that she's mended many of those fences because she is polling so poorly at this point against Ruben Gallego, the Democratic candidate, that it does seem as if even the Trump campaign who once loved to have her around and parrot claims about the 2020 election no longer even seem to want her around for that reason. Yeah, so many fascinating races to watch on election night. So we've had a quick look at the Senate. Let's move on to the House now. Again, just for those who aren't familiar, tell us a little bit about the role of the House of Representatives.

So the House, once again, involved with the certification process, but the House is often also the starting point for a lot of legislation. We see a lot of the discussions and negotiations that lead to legislation in Washington coming up through the House. And while Democrats have their backs against the wall in the Senate, it's really the Republicans who have their backs against the wall to hold their slim majority in the House. For anybody that's been following U.S. politics, the Republican majority in the House. For anybody that's been following U.S. politics, the Republican majority in the House has been making headlines this term for all the wrong reasons. This is a CBS News special report on Major Garrett in Washington. We're coming on the

air with breaking news. The House of Representatives has, after three weeks of legislative paralysis, elected a new speaker of the House of Representatives. His name? Mike Johnson of Louisiana. Whether it's trying to elect a speaker or dealing with members of their own party who make errant decisions or say make errant remarks and Republicans will really struggle I think to hold hold onto the House this term. Because the majority in the House can really put a lock on any progress in US politics, can't it? I mean, it's quite a powerful thing to have. Absolutely. Well, the majority that the Republicans have had in the House under the Biden administration

has helped them block key pieces of his agenda, especially the most ambitious elements, whether it's on climate infrastructure. They've held issues like the US national debt and government funding up in the air, hostage, some would say. And the House Republican majority has really been the first line of defense for the party in pushing back against the Biden administration's agenda. So everyone in the House is up for election, every one of the seats as they are every two years. It's different to the Senate. Of those races, what are you looking at?

What are the most competitive ones? Well, there's competitive races all across the country. I'll be keeping a close eye on New York. Democrats believe it's the path back to their majority. They in fact lost the majority in the House four years ago because they squandered a bunch of seats that they did not pay much attention to and was stolen away from them by Republicans on a message of crime and public safety and immigration, which have become on a message of crime and public safety and immigration, which have become major topics of discussion in New York. And it'll be interesting to see if Democrats can win back these seats,

if the message that they're now sounding on these issues is breaking through to voters in those states who are starting to feel the impacts on the New York streets or shelters where migrants are being accommodated. So aside from New York, where else are you looking at that would change the balance of power in the House? There's certainly interesting races in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and also Arizona. In Arizona, I was particularly interested in Amish Shah, who is this Democratic candidate

running against the Republican incumbent, David Schweickart. Dr. Shah is really running on a message of protecting abortion access, and he has really spotlighted that his Republican opponent has been a little mealy-mouthed on the issue. He's declined to directly state whether he would vote in favor of a federal abortion ban or not, which is something that some Republicans in the House are pushing. And Schweikart will be able to, given that Arizona is a border state, also push on the topic of immigration. So we really have the two most compelling issues on either side of the political spectrum kind of coming to bear on that race.

Arizona really is going to be one to watch on election night and we'll be talking more about abortion in just a moment. That's an example of how Democrats are making abortion access a key part of their campaign. Next, how some Americans will get the chance to vote directly on that issue and a local race that might have an impact nationally. My talent as an athlete is swimming long halls over the curvature of the earth. Lifeless Ordinary is the podcast with astonishing personal stories from across the globe.

My past is very bad and I survived it. You have to tell the story. Expect the unexpected. All of a sudden the car exploded. Lifeless Ordinary from the BBC World Service. Here's a thing that happened to me. exploded. Lives less ordinary from the BBC World Service. Here's a thing that happened to me. Find it wherever you get your BBC podcasts. This is the global story from the BBC World Service.

You can listen to a fresh episode each weekday wherever you get your BBC podcasts. I'm here in DC with Sam Cabral and we're also joined now by our digital reporter Holly Hondryk. Hi Katrina. Holly you're joining us from an airport which is where you seem to spend a lot of your life over the last few months. You've been traveling around all these races, crisscrossing America to bring your reporting to the world. I have. It's been a busy few weeks and going to get even busier as we head into the election. Of course, it isn't just through candidates that Americans will be able to make their voices heard on the issue of abortion in terms of what positions candidates support. But

also there are states where the voters will have an option to vote directly on abortion rights. And Holly, you've been reporting on ballot measures in 10 states that will give people that option. What are these ballot measures? How do they work? So like you said, there's 10 coming up in the election in November. We've seen six abortion related ballot measures already that have happened since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which rescinded the nationwide right

to an abortion. Since then, we've seen a sort of new way of legislating and controlling abortion access state to state. This is the highest number we've had so far. We've got liberal states like New York and the more conservative states like Florida or South Dakota. Each measure varies. Many of them are seeking to establish abortion rights in the state and many of them are trying to establish what's known in some areas as a row standard. So allowing abortions up to 24 weeks, which is around fetal viability, which is the same way things were under row. And others are different. In some, you're establishing a right to an abortion earlier in pregnancy.

In other states like Colorado, it's to go far in abortion rights to allow states to fund abortion with public money. Now tell us which are the 10 states so people can look out for this on election night. Right. So we've got Florida, New York, Missouri, Colorado, Nebraska, Nevada, South Dakota, Maryland, Arizona, and Montana. So a nice spread all across the country. Now, as you said, the propositions vary from state to state in terms of what

voters are being asked to do and the impact that it would have on state constitutions. So let's start with Nebraska, which interestingly has pro-life and pro-choice propositions on the ballot. Yeah, Nebraska is the only state of the 10 to have two competing abortion initiatives. So the anti-abortion initiative is trying to establish the current state law and put that into the constitution, which allows abortion up to 12 weeks and no further.

And then the pro-choice initiative also in Nebraska is to establish a right to an abortion up to 24 weeks. That's the sort of fetal viability standard I talked about earlier. Experts are saying it's going to at least generate attention in the state, tons of money pouring in from both sides. These poor voters are being inundated with ads. So I think we're going to see high turnout on both these initiatives, although it remains to be seen obviously which way it'll go. Arizona, of course, is one of the states that has one of these propositions to enshrine

into the state's constitution the right to an abortion up to the point of viability between 22 and 24 weeks. Generally, that's to be. Currently it's allowed up until 15 weeks in Arizona. I was just there last week and I met a lot of people who are Republican who are going to vote for Donald Trump but who said that they were also going to vote to extend the right to abortion in the state's Constitution. Did you notice that? Yeah I think there is that division and I I think in some sense, this gives voters a chance to have both parts of their vote known, right? These are very strongly pro-choice women and perhaps, I don't know those voters you met, maybe they're happy with Donald

Trump on the economy or on the border and they want to express their support for him while they also express support for abortion. So I'm sure we're going to see those sort of split votes across the country. Now, in addition to going around those states where it is on the ballot, you've also visited some places where it had previously been on the ballot. What did you find? I mean, so far, I should say, right, of the six ballot initiatives on abortion since Roe fell, every single one has come out as a victory for the pro-choice side. So far, every time voters are asked in both conservative and liberal states,

do you want to support abortion rights? They're saying yes, even as they're voting for anti-abortion candidates, conservative leading candidates. I was on the ground on Kentucky two years ago in the midterm elections, a conservative state, and there was an anti-abortion initiative up for a vote at that time. And it failed. Even really conservative men and women who had voted Republicans their whole life felt it was not the state's role to legislate women's health is how they put it to me, and so came out in support. Republicans and former president Donald Trump in particular had argued that

overturning Roe v. Wade would allow states to decide on the issue that it shouldn't be right across the nation at a federal level. Has that become a reality? It's a reality in that states do have total autonomy to legislate abortion, right? So they could ban it at the moment of conception like some states have done, or they can take out regulations and allow it up until any point throughout gestation. So that is true. What's not true is that sort of ends here. I think many would say that anti-abortion activists have done a little bit of a bait and switch. They certainly said before Roe fell, this is about state rights. We simply want to get it back to the states. Now that Roe is behind us, they're again looking to the federal level.

So there's lots of efforts on both sides, I should say, both pro-choice and anti-abortion activists trying to push for federal legislation. And do we know if the voters in these states who have an option to vote directly on the issue. Do we know if it makes it then less of an issue for them when they're considering the candidates that they need to vote on, whether that's for the House, the Senate or for the presidency? I think it is too early to say. As I said earlier, we do know that whenever a ballot question comes up with abortion, so far abortion has won. But we don't know for certain yet

if, let's say I'm historically a Republican voter, but I believe in the right to choose, if I exercise that vote through a ballot initiative, does that mean that, okay, I'll continue to vote Republican? That's unclear yet. Women who are strongly pro-choice, we know they are leaving the Republican Party in part, which suggests a sort of double down, right? So both vote for an abortion initiative and vote for a Democratic candidate. But I'd say it's too early to say. And these 10 states will give us more information on that question. So we've talked about the House, we've talked about the Senate, we've talked about those abortion ballot measures. The other really significant thing to vote on, of course, are governors.

They have so much power in states. Why are they so important? Well, the governor is practically the chief executive of the state. So they're the ones that are coordinating funding for the state. They're the ones signing budgets into law, signing legislation into law. And also, you know, in natural disasters, we've seen this in Florida, for example, in Georgia, responsible for making the most important decisions that could end up saving thousands and thousands of lives.

So for voters really, in a way, the governor is kind of more important than the president to their day to day life at least. Absolutely. The governor has oftentimes a much bigger impact on the average Americans life. OK. So let's have a look at a couple of those races. One that people are watching quite closely is New Hampshire. New Hampshire is a state that has been held by a moderate Republican for the past two terms. He is not somebody quite in the Trump wing of the party, but he has endorsed Donald Trump this election.

New Hampshire is a state that has voted Democratic in the presidential races. So Democrats are hoping they can flip that seat. It remains to be seen. There's a former Republican senator who's running as the Republican candidate and is putting up quite a strong challenge there. So another race then that has been very high profile is that in North Carolina. Tell us about that one. Perhaps the most important governor's race in the country. We have Democratic candidate Josh Stein, who is the current attorney general of the state, running against Mark Robinson, who is the current lieutenant governor.

Lieutenant governor is essentially the deputy chief executive of the state. And Mark Robinson is somebody who rose to prominence by giving a speech in favor of gun rights at a conservative event. And he is somebody that has a laundry list of outrageous statements. Get mad at me if you want to. Some folks need killing. It's time for somebody to say it. It's not a matter of vengeance. Calling LGBTQ community filth. This is a black man who has said that he would like slavery to return. And Donald Trump has called this man Martin Luther King on steroids. I told that to Mark. I said, I think you're better than Martin Luther King. I think you are

Martin Luther King times two. And he looked at me and I wasn't sure, was he angry because that's a terrible thing to say or was he complimented? I have never figured it out. But just the recent reporting on Mark Robinson has really forced the Trump campaign to push him away because he appears to be hurting them in the state. North Carolina has not been competitive since Barack Obama in 2008 for Democrats. And this time around, it looks like Kamala Harris is polling very, very competitively. And part of that is because as vice president, she has actually visited the state quite often as compared to the rest

of the country and has a good working relationship with the governor. But one of the reasons she is polling as competitively as she is, is because Mark Robinson is having what is known as a reverse coattails effect when a candidate further down the ballot from the president has an effect on the presidential race. And that certainly seems to be the case with Mark Robinson. Which as you say is a recent development. I mean, I was at a Donald Trump rally in August that Mark Robinson was at and when he walked into the room, he got almost a louder cheer than Donald Trump did.

So popular was he. But that of course was before all of that reporting that you've just been describing there. So it's interesting that that's turning into a drag. Okay, last question for both of you. There is so much to look out for on election night. If you had to narrow it down to just one race, apart from the presidential one, but one race that you will be keeping the closest eye on, whether that's out of interest or importance or the characters involved or whatever it is, what would you pick? Holly, to you first.

I think I'd bring it back to the abortion question and I'd be looking at the ballot initiative in Florida. It's interesting to me as it's a 60% threshold there, so a higher threshold to pass than in many of the other states. And then politically, it's going to be really significant as Florida until its six week ban came into effect effect this spring was sort of the last access point for any person in the US South seeking an abortion. So lots of people are going to be watching this race with keen interest to see if that sort of pathway to abortion access opens up or remains closed. I'll be watching a house race in Pennsylvania between Janelle Stelson,

a Democratic candidate who is a former news anchor, the ultimate familiar face in the state, versus Scott Perry, who is a Republican who's held that seat for quite a while now. He's a former chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, which is the rabble-rasers in the House of Representatives. And he led the effort to overturn the 2020 election results in Pennsylvania on behalf of Donald Trump. Stelson is trying to run on some of those kitchen table issues of economic costs and inflation. And it'll be interesting to see if she prevails in an era when obviously partisanship and who can scream the loudest seems to win out a lot of the time. So so much to watch for on election night.

And of course, we'll have that right across all of our BBC platforms here. Really lovely to talk to you both, as always. Holly and Sam, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. If you want to get in touch, please do. You can email us at theglobalstory at BBC.com or you can send us a message or a voice note on WhatsApp. at bbc.com or you can send us a message or a voice note on whatsapp. Our number is plus four four three three zero one two three nine four eight zero. You can find

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