US midterm elections reach voting day with tight races and Senate at stake

Americans went to the polls this Tuesday (4) in the midterm elections, and the assessment of the panel on Fox News' "The Five" program is that several disputes should prove to be much tighter in the final stretch. According to presenter Dana Perino, part of this fierce dispute stems from the way the Republicans chose to end the campaign.

President Donald Trump made his final appeal in an interview with the broadcaster, stating that the results will be better than anyone imagines and that the rallies he held over 30 days filled stadiums. On the Democratic side, the closing message focused on the cost of living. According to the panel, the word most repeated by the candidates was "affordability", in a context of gasoline prices described as the highest ever recorded on an election day.

Cost of living at the center of the dispute

Fox News analyst Emily Compagno argued that Democrats are united only by their opposition to Trump and differ widely on policy proposals. In her assessment, the country will not make progress if the opposition gains control of Congress, because legislative energy would be directed to investigations.

Compagno cited research according to which 4 in 10 Republicans consider prices and the cost of living to be the main concern at the moment, but only 2 in 10 point to this issue as the party's priority. For her, Republican candidates have the task of transforming enthusiasm into turnout, presenting concrete proposals and treating inflation as a short-term pain.

Economic agenda and risk of shift to the left

Presenter Greg Gutfeld stated that, if the Democrats win in the House and possibly in the Senate, they will have the option of moving even further to the left, which, in his view, would serve to remind voters of what they consider bad about the party. Dana Perino cited former Barack Obama advisor Jim Messina, who said he had not found an economic policy among the Democrats. Perino said that the only group with a clear economic agenda would be the party's left wing, and that proposals like Medicare for All run into implementation difficulties when examining the details.

Perino also stated that some results will be closer than expected, partly due to the way the Republicans closed the campaign, and that voters may find the alternative even worse when it comes to voting. She said she does not know if the Chamber's results will be known this evening.

What to watch out for

Commentator Jesse Watters said the Senate has "a lot at stake" and that no one knows what will happen. Journalist Jessica Tarlov, in turn, stated that a Democratic victory would be an important achievement and that the party's candidates in prominent races spoke about policies, such as expanding the Affordable Care Act and building more affordable housing, and not about investigations.

For the investor, the outcome defines the fiscal and regulatory policy environment for the next two years, with the potential to influence interest rates, the dollar and stock markets, including the Nasdaq. The transcript does not contain market projections, and the results of the polls are not yet known.

Automatically translated from Portuguese.