US Congressional race likely to be decided by narrow margins, says Fox Business

The dispute for control of the American Congress tends to be decided by very tight margins, according to an analysis shown by Fox Business. In the opinion of presenter Bill Hemmer, who used historical graphs alongside his colleague Dana Perino, the numbers show why the electoral races remain so disputed.

Hemmer recalled that in 2008, Barack Obama and the Democrats had a nine-seat majority in the Senate, which he described as almost filibuster-proof. In 2024, with Donald Trump elected, the Republicans had a three-seat majority, which he classified as "not bad", but insufficient to shield the House against this appeal.

Before that, according to the presenter, Joe Biden and the Democrats operated with a majority of just one seat, in 2022, and the Covid years, in 2020, were the backdrop. During that period, Vice President Kamala Harris had to vote to break a tie in every vote in the Senate over four years, he reported.

Chamber also operates at the limit

In the Chamber, the picture presented is similar. Today, Republicans have a two-seat majority, and before the last midterm legislative election they had four. According to Hemmer, these are "really narrow margins", which make it difficult to build consensus around certain projects.

The problem, he noted, is not exclusive to one party: Democrats also faced difficulties with a four-seat majority in 2020. For the presenter, the last time there was an overwhelming majority in the Chamber was in 2008. He said he did not know if election night would repeat this scenario and stated that the result would be known throughout the broadcast.

Texas and Michigan: two distinct maps

Hemmer also compared two key states. In Texas, the president won by almost 14 points two years ago, and Governor Greg Abbott had a comfortable victory in 2022. Senator John Cornyn, according to him, won his race by 27 points in a previous cycle. The presenter's reading is that Republicans dominated the presidency, the state government and the Senate, which explains the difficulties of Democrats in the state.

In Michigan, the picture is more balanced. Hemmer said the president won by around 80,000 more votes, a race he classified as close. Governor Gretchen Whitmer won comfortably in 2022, and retiring Senator Gary Peters won by 13 points in the last race. According to the presenter, with the exception of Trump in 2024, Republicans have had little strength in the state. Peters' position is the one opposing Rogers and El-Sayed.

What to watch out for

The transcript does not contain projections of results or comments on the stock market, interest rates, dollars or public accounts. Still, the design presented by Hemmer helps to size up the political environment in Washington: thin majorities tend to make it more difficult to approve projects, a topic of direct interest to those who follow the United States' fiscal and tax agenda.

According to the channel's assessment, historical data serves to give context to election night, and not to anticipate who will emerge victorious. The outcome, for now, remains open.

Automatically translated from Portuguese.