U.S. midterm elections: Obama’s party faces major challenge in Senate

Americans are voting in midterm elections that could see President Barack Obama’s Democratic Party lose control of the Senate. Unprecedented amounts of money have been thrown at campaigns fuelling a vitriolic hate-fest of advertising. In North Carolina alone, more than 10,000 ads have been produced, most of them negative and costing a record $100 million. That is more than three times what was spent by all the parties in the UK’s last general election. The entire U.S. House of Representatives is up for reelection, and a third of the Senate as well as 36 governorships.

I’ll be glad when it’s Tuesday and all the signs have gone away.

Teacher in Durham, North Carolina

The Republican-controlled House is not expected to change hands, but Republicans need to pick up only six Senate seats to end up in control of both chambers of legislative government. Their hopes are buoyed by dissatisfaction with the Obama presidency, a barely recovering economy, general anxiety about the country’s direction and more specific fears about Ebola and the Islamic State. Out of the 36 Senate races, only a handful are competitive but nearly all those “in play” races are in states that have been leaning Republican. Despite all that, a Republican Senate takeover is still not a certainty. Voters fatigued with political gridlock and negative advertising appear to wish a plague on both parties, blaming the entire political class for the sense of drift and paralysis gripping America.

I think they’re equally bad, there’s not a lot of integrity on either side. You can’t find a particular side that has any amount of integrity.

Elvis impersonator in Durham, North Carolina