Massive early voting is pointing to a record turnout in the midterm elections in the United States but rain on the eastern seaboard and other parts of the country could temper some expectations.
More than 35 million people cast their votes in early voting ahead of the official Election Day, a large increase from the 20 million people who cast ballots in the early voting in the 2014 midterms.
And while this is an election focused on who will control the House of Representatives, the Senate and multiple statewide legislatures and governorships, President Donald Trump is an ever-present subject in the minds of voters around the country.
D-Day for voting in America.
After what might feel like two years of campaigning since President Donald Trump’s surprise election, voters get to embrace the President and his party or reject it. Frederic M. Umane is a Republican Commissioner with the New York City Board of Elections.
“There’s been a lot of press and a lot of interest in this year’s election, there’s a possibility of, at least nationwide, either maintaining or losing one of both houses of congress. In New York State, especially, there’s a contested issue regarding the New York State Senate which the Republicans still control by a very small margin. So there’s lots of hot issues around and there’s been lots of press and I think the President tends to polarize people from time to time, one side or the other, that may have helped to get people out to vote.”
His Democratic counterpart Commissioner Alan Schulkin concurred.
“I think he gave you a very honest opinion, I can give it to you in one word though, Donald Trump. That’s what’s driving the vote.”
Q: What about him?
R: In Manhattan he lost ten to one, in his own district as well, so what they’re basically telling the President is they’re very unhappy with the way he’s running the country and the ways he’s treating people so I think that’s what’s driving the vote because it’s not the gubernatorial races, it’s the president.”
Voters around the country casting ballots for Governor, Members of Congress and the Senate, State legislatures and so on, but it’s how the balance of power in Washington is affected – that is on most people’s minds.
This is what they have to say:
– What do you think is the biggest motivator for people turning out today?
“I guess it really depends on where you are in the country, I think here in New York because we’re fairly much a blue state, its really about putting some checks and balances on the nut in the White House, pardon my French, but he is not quite right and we’re also from New York, he’s from New York, we know who he is, like he’s been here for his whole life, he’s not a mystery to people who have been in either business, politics or anything in certain areas within New York and particularly if you’ve been in real estate, everybody knows who he is.”
-What’s you sense of what this President has done since taking office.
“I think the results speak for themselves, the jobs, the economy, people are happy and that’s what people really vote for, is jobs and economy.”
“We’re progressive people, that the stuff that we thought was working before just isn’t and now we are voting in people who are gonna believe in the things that we believe in, that’s for change and positivity and inclusivity with everyone.”
Civil Rights leader John Lewis, who marched with Dr Martin Luther King Jr, voted in Atlanta where Stacey Abrams could become the first black governor of Georgia and the first black female Governor in United States history.
