On Tuesday 3 November, the United States holds its midterm elections. If you live anywhere else, you will know this because your phone will fill up with maps, your group chat will contain one person who has suddenly become an expert on Pennsylvania, and the news will use the word “bellwether” as if you were born knowing it.
Here is the whole thing, explained from a safe distance. Zack is watching from Great Mudsworth. It is raining. Nobody here gets a vote, which has never stopped anyone here having an opinion. My notes are in bold.
What is a midterm?
The US president is elected every four years. Halfway through that term, the country votes again for much of the rest of its government. That is the midterm. The president is not on the ballot, but every campaign, advert and pundit will behave as if they were.
It is a performance review for the boss, conducted while the boss is out of the room, by tens of millions of people who all think the review is about them.
What’s actually being elected?
- All 435 seats in the House of Representatives. Members serve two-year terms, which means they begin campaigning for the next election roughly the morning after winning this one.
- About a third of the Senate. Senators serve six years, staggered, so only some of them have to pretend to like voters each cycle.
- Most state governors, plus state legislatures, judges, sheriffs, school boards and local questions on everything from taxes to dog parks.
Americans vote for more jobs than most countries know exist. Somewhere tonight, a county coroner is being elected. Nobody outside that county will ever learn their name. They will, however, see the map.
Why does it matter?
Whichever party controls the House and the Senate decides what can pass for the next two years. A president who loses one or both chambers usually finds it much harder to get anything done, which the losing side calls “gridlock” and the winning side calls “accountability”.
Both parties will tell you this is the most important election of your lifetime.
They told you that last time. And the time before. Your lifetime is now made entirely of the most important elections of your lifetime. It is exhausting, and it is fundraising.
Why on a Tuesday?
Federal elections are held on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. The rule dates from 1845, when voting meant a long ride by horse and cart, and the calendar had to fit around farming and church.
The horses retired. The farms became car parks. The Tuesday stayed, because changing it would require the two parties to agree on something, and that is not going to happen on a Tuesday.
Who pays for all of this?
Campaigns and the groups around them spend billions of dollars on adverts, which is why Americans in close races see the same faces on their screens more often than their own families.
The adverts all say the same thing: the other side will ruin everything, please donate $5 by midnight. Both sides. Every midnight.
When will we know?
Some results arrive on the night. Others take days, because states count postal and late-arriving ballots under their own rules, and television “projects” winners long before states certify them. We have explained why US election results take so long, and what “too close to call” really means, so you can be disappointed with accurate information.
How to watch from abroad
Print an Election Night Bingo card. Go to bed at a reasonable hour. Wake up, check the map, and learn that it is still too close to call and that someone in your group chat stayed up until four for no reason.
It’s not your election. It will still be on your phone.
Satire, but the facts underneath are real. For actual voting information, check your state or local election office, or vote.gov. Zack is not an election official. Zack is barely an official anything.