US Congressional Elections Look to Be Referendum on Obama

US President Barack Obama's ability to pass future legislation
will depend on the outcome of November's congressional elections (file photo)

Public opinion polls suggest Republicans will make gains in November; 40 seats needed to retake control of House of Representatives

President Barack Obama faces a major political test later this year when U.S. voters go to the polls in the November midterm congressional elections. Public opinion polls and political experts suggest Republicans will make gains in November, and that would have a significant impact on how Mr. Obama is able to govern over the next two years. Republicans are confident about their chances of gaining seats in the November elections.

All 435 seats in the House of Representatives will be up for election, as well as more than one-third of the 100 U.S. Senate seats. Republicans need to gain 40 House seats to retake control of that chamber, which they lost in the 2006 congressional elections. John Fortier is a political expert at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. He spoke on VOA's "Encounter" program. "I think the number of seats Republicans are likely to gain right now looks like 20 or 30, and I do not expect them to take a majority unless something different happens. But that will still be a very significant win if they do that and it will change Barack Obama's presidency," Fortier said.

Some analysts predict Republicans have a good chance to win the 40 seats they need to win a majority in the House. A Republican takeover of the House would drastically curtail President Obama's ability to get his agenda through Congress. Republicans are also likely to gain seats in the Senate this year. Democrats currently control 59 of the 100 Senate seats, but Republican gains would make it easier for the minority to block or defeat Democratic legislation, another potential setback for the president and his agenda. At the moment, much of the energy looking ahead to the midterm elections seems to be with Republicans, thanks in part to the grassroots conservative activities of the so-called Tea Party movement. The Tea Party is not an actual political party, at least not yet. But it is a loose confederation of conservative and libertarian groups opposed to taxes, deficit spending and government interference in the economy.

Independent voters who generally supported Democratic congressional candidates in the 2006 and 2008 elections now seem to be leaning toward the Republican Party, says David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report. "And I really think the key to this midterm election is independents, and independent voters, those voters who don't necessarily affiliate with either party, they basically behaved at the polls like Democrats in 2006 and 2008. And in the public opinion surveys, the data that we are seeing, they are behaving more and more like Republicans lately," Wasserman said. The party that controls the White House historically loses congressional seats in the first midterm election of a president's term. Political experts say President Obama and the Democrats are going to have to work harder to make sure their supporters get out and vote in November to match the energy on the Republican side.

The president and Democrats are expected to highlight the recent passage of health care reform in hopes of motivating their supporters, says Tom DeFrank, the Washington bureau chief for the New York Daily News. "The White House is hoping that now that something has passed and Obama will go into the history books for it, for better or worse, and that the White House can now pivot to the economy. They understand that Obama's future as a one-term or two-term president rides not really on what people think about health care but whether the economy turns around and I believe you are going to see a huge effort on the part of the White House to increase jobs, reduce unemployment and to get the economy moving again," DeFrank said. Historically, another key to the midterm elections is the president's approval rating. President Obama's approval rating in several recent polls has dipped under 50 percent. That can be a danger sign for Democrats looking ahead to the November elections, says John Fortier. "I think you see still a very strong base for Barack Obama but not a majority supporting him. Somewhere in the 40 percent range support the health care plan, somewhere like 48, 49 percent support him as president.

But the energy is a little stronger on the Republican side. He is not as unpopular as George W. Bush was by any circumstance, but he is not nearly as popular as he was at the beginning of his presidency. And those numbers at the end of the day are going to be important in those midterm elections," Fortier said. Democrats hope that signs of encouragement in the U.S. economy will improve their chances to hold their congressional majorities in November.

But another political distraction could come in the form of a Supreme Court confirmation battle in the Senate once President Obama nominates a successor to take the place of retiring Justice John Paul Stevens.

Obama Opens 47-Nation Nuclear Security Summit

President Barack Obama says the 47-nation Nuclear Security Summit he is hosting here in Washington will produce specific, concrete actions to make the world safer. The president says he wants new commitments to secure nuclear materials to keep them out of the hands of terrorists. With concerns about the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea a major backdrop to the conference, this is the biggest U.S.-sponsored gathering of world leaders in more than 60 years. With this summit and efforts to follow, President Obama faces a test of his ability to further a nuclear agenda focused on nonproliferation and countering potential nuclear terrorism, with support from like-minded nations. All of the world's major nuclear powers are here - Russia, China, Britain and France - along with South Asian nuclear rivals India and Pakistan. Israel, which is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, but has never confirmed their existence, is also represented. North Korea, which is believed to have tested a nuclear weapon in 2006, was not invited nor was Iran, which is still engaged in a standoff with the international community over its uranium enrichment program that Tehran maintains is for peaceful purposes and not for nuclear weapons. Syria was also not invited. Iran dismissed the outcome of the Washington conference in advance as it faces the possibility of a fourth round of sanctions under a U.N. Security Council resolution that President Obama says he hopes can be finalized in coming weeks with support from Russia and China. President Obama greeted each delegation on Monday at the summit site, before the leaders went into a working dinner. John Brennan, Assistant to the President for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security, called the threat of nuclear terrorism real and growing. Although there is no indication that al-Qaida has a nuclear weapon, he said every step must be taken to ensure that it does not acquire one. "I am determined to ensure that they are not going to be able to obtain that type of capability," said John Brennan. "And the best way to do it as we continue to degrade and destroy al-Qaida is to take away the opportunities they may have to acquire the fissile material, highly enriched uranium or separated plutonium, or the expertise that is required to use that fissile material to create an improvised nuclear explosive device." Saying some countries need to do a better job of "locking down" nuclear materials, Brennan added that a key goal is to ensure that nations understand their responsibilities. In bilateral meetings with countries such as Kazakhstan and Ukraine, President Obama appears to have achieved the support he wants for the final communiqué to be issued on Tuesday, committing nations to securing nuclear materials over a four year period. To that end, the White House announced an agreement in which Ukraine committed to eliminating its stockpile of highly enriched uranium by the time of the next Nuclear Security Summit in 2012, with a substantial amount to be removed by the end of this year. Saying this was something the United States had sought for more than a decade, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked about the commitments President Obama wants to see from the summit. "There are a host of roles that the countries represented here can play," said Robert Gibbs. "Again, some have that highly enriched uranium that we are seeking to secure, others can play an effort in how to secure that. Others can play an effort in the interdiction of these types of materials in the event that they leave where they are." President Obama's 90-minute meeting with China's President Hu Jintao produced what U.S. officials describe as an agreement that Iran must meet its international nuclear nonproliferation obligations. White House national security aide Jeff Bader said President Hu shared U.S. concerns about Iran's nuclear program and the overall goal of preserving the nonproliferation regime, adding that the two presidents agreed to instruct U.N. delegations to work with the P5 + 1 on a new Security Council sanctions resolution. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman told reporters after the meeting that China hopes the Iran issue can be resolved through dialogue and negotiations. On concerns about the safety of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal, a White House statement after the president's Sunday meeting with Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani said the Pakistani leader gave an assurance that his country "takes nuclear security seriously and has appropriate safeguards in place." Vice President Joe Biden hosted leaders and officials from 11 Non-Aligned Movement nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America, telling them that "adding more nuclear weapons or more nuclear-weapon states is the exact wrong approach at this moment in the world's history." President Obama has two additional bilateral meetings scheduled on Tuesday - one with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the other with Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey. As for the location of the next Nuclear Security Summit, White House spokesman Gibbs says there will be an announcement on that on Tuesday at the conclusion of the Washington conference.