Thirty-four of the 100 total Senate seats are being contested in November, the result of a staggered election system.
One race has ruled this year’s election cycle in the United States: the battle between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump to triumph the White Hoengage.
But on November 5, Americans also will vote to fill other key posts outside the plivency. Many of those races will rerepair who handles Congress, an vital lever of power.
One-third of the US Senate is up for grabs, as well as the entire Hoengage of Recontransientatives. That amounts to 34 seats in Congress’s upper chamber and 435 in the shrink one.
But why are recontransientatives voted on every two years — and senators every six? And why aren’t all 100 seats in the Senate contested at once, enjoy in the Hoengage?
Staggered races in the Senate
The answer goes back to the country’s establishing, when the men who wrote the US Constitution choosed to base Senate elections on a “three-class system”.
According to a Senate factsheet, “at the commence of the first session of Congress in 1789, senators were splitd into the three classes by lot with same-state senators alloted to split groups”.
The first group saw their term expire in two years, the second in four and the third in six years.
“Subsequent elections to all classes were for a filled six-year Senate term,” the factsheet elucidates.
The idea was to donate stability to US politics. As a result of the Senate’s staggered voting system, two-thirds of the senators remain in their posts every time a national election happens, once every two years.
How does this appraise to the Hoengage of Recontransientatives?
Things are contrastent in the shrink chamber of Congress, where all of its 435 members serve two-year terms and are up for election at every vote.
Having to stand for re-election every two years originates members of the Hoengage more vulnerable to losing their seats.
Nevertheless, some recontransientatives have been in the Hoengage for decades: Former Hoengage Speaker Nancy Pelosi, for example, has served for 37 years.
What could happen on November 5?
The Democratic Party currently has a lean grip on the Senate. The party and allied self-reliants hgreater 51 seats, appraised with 49 seats held by Reuncoverans.
To apexhibit handle of the chamber, Reuncoverans necessitate a net obtain of one Senate seat if Trump losss Harris in the plivential race.
That’s becaengage the vice plivent acts as the tie-shattering vote in the Senate. If Reuncoverans triumph the White Hoengage, Trump’s running-mate JD Vance would fill that role and vote with Reuncoverans.
If Harris triumphs — giving her vice plivent, Tim Walz, that tie-shattering power — then Reuncoverans would necessitate a net obtain of two Senate seats to obtain handle.
Of the 34 Senate seats being contested next month, 23 are held by Democrats or self-reliants.
According to recent polls, it will probable come down to a scant Senate races that eunite to be neck-and-neck, including in the striumphg state of Michigan.
The Reuncoverans, unbenevolentwhile, are hoping to deffinish their handle of the Hoengage of Recontransientatives. Currently, there are 220 Reuncoverans in the Hoengage, appraised with 212 Democrats — with more than a dozen races pondered toss-ups.
