Democrats teed up final get-out-the-vote rallies on Monday on the eve of midterm elections where they expect to win at least partial control of Congress and impose political constraints on President Donald Trump for the first time in two years.
Rallies — including by star Democratic Senate candidates James Talarico in Texas and Adam Hamilton in Kansas — were capping a campaign of breathtaking tension and bitterness.
For his closing argument, Trump chose a speech in Washington at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool — a landmark that has become synonymous with the 80-year-old president’s obsessive, controversial drive to redevelop the US capital.
“We’re going to win,” he said.
Polls, however, show that Democrats are near certain to take the majority from Republicans in the House of Representatives and have a real shot at winning the currently Republican Senate.
Even winning just the House would mean Democrats have voting power over the federal budget and would lead powerful committees able to investigate alleged corruption under Trump, the Epstein files and other explosive issues.
The loss of total Republican dominance would push Trump into unfamiliar and uncomfortable territory: a lame-duck period beset with high inflation at home, the sputtering war against Iran and hostile Democratic investigations into his activities in Washington.
But a decade into the Trump era, Democrats remain wary about predictions of victory.
“Nauseously optimistic,” Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock told CNN to describe the mood.
