The official campaign for the US midterm elections usually begins after America celebrates Labor Day on September 7. But over the summer, the battle for votes has intensified between Donald Trump’s Republican party and a freshly emboldened Democratic party.

In November’s elections, all the seats in the House of Representatives will be contested, as will one-third of the Senate. Throughout the year, Republican and Democratic hopefuls have been engaged in the primary election process.

These are now nearing a conclusion. Primaries have now been held across the country for gubernatorial, Senate and House contests. Following the August 18 primaries, polling showed the Democrats with a six-point lead.

The Democratic party has also been buoyed by data from earlier in the month from a Reuters/Ipsos poll that revealed for the first time in nearly a decade that voters prefer the party’s approach to the economy. This could be a decisive factor come election day on November 3.

Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a thinktank, has asserted that in America’s current bitterly divided political climate “where more congressional districts than ever before are considered ‘safe’ for one party or the other, real change plays out in congressional primaries”.

Results from the August 18 primaries in Florida, Alaska and Wyoming have underlined the current shifts in voting preferences among both Republican and Democratic supporters.

On the Democrat side, there appears to be a developing trend of candidates on the........

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