American mid terms?

Question

can anyone explain what these elections are for, I know nothing of American politics, I struggle as it is with British politics

Answer 1

Everyone in the House of Representatives is elected to 2 year terms. The Senate is elected to 6 year terms but these are staggered. So every 2 years you have all of the House and 1/3rd of the Senate up for election. (You also have many state and local elections).

They call them Mid-Term Elections because they fall in the middle of the President's term in office. So the President will be elected in 2008 and 2012, so the next "mid-term" will be in 2010.

Answer 2

In the US people are voted into the House of Representatives every 2 years, a third of Senate seats go up and a Senate term is 6 years. A Presidential term is 4 years, with re election a President can serve 8 years. Either way, leaders are elected to national office every 2 years. On the occasions where the President is in the middle of one of his/her terms, the election is called a mid term election.

Answer 3

The Federal Government in the United States has three separate branches - the Executive (President), Legislative (Congress) and Judicial (Supreme Court).

Unlike the British parliamentary system, the President is elected by the people every four years. Congress is divided into two houses - the Senate and the House of Representatives. Congressional elections are held every two years (in even numbered years.) Each one of the 50 States elects two Senators, regardless of the population of the state. The Senators are elected to six-year terms and their terms are staggered. (So 1/3 of the Senate is up for re-election every two years.) The House of Representatives has 435 members and each state is represented proportionally to its population. Each member of the House of Representatives stands for re-election every two years.

So basically every two years 1/3 of the Senate and the entirety of the House stands for re-election. Since the President is only elected every four years, there are some years in which there are Congressional elections but not Presidential elections - these are the Mid-Term elections and are so named because they happen in the middle of the President's term.

Control of Congress is particularly important because the President does not have legislative authority. The Democrats taking control of Congress this year means that now President Bush will have a very strong check on his power and will have to negotiate and compromise with Democratic leaders in order to pass legislation.

Answer 4

Midterm elections are right in the middle of the presidential term. Presidential elections were held 2 years ago and the next will be in 2 years.

This election was particularly vital to Bush because it determined the demographics of both the House of Representatives and the Senate (basically party affiliations, Democrat or Republican). The American people were looking for drastic change, and even many Republicans chose Democratic candidates. I worked the elections in my district and I was surprised (and delighted) that even though my town is strongly Republican, a vast majority of the voters chose Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton (Bill Clinton's wife) to return to the Senate.

Nationally, it looks like the Democrats have the majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate is balanced between the 2 parties. Coupled with the fact that many Republicans have distanced themselves from Bush, this means that Bush has lost a great deal of power.

In my opinion, this has not happened soon enough!

Answer 5

Non presidential elections take place between a president's single term of office. Since a president's single term of office is four years, elections that are held two years before or after, in America, are called American mid terms.

Answer 6

The President is elected every four years.

Members of the House are elected every two years (as they serve a two-year term) and one-third of the senate is elected every two years (as Senators serve a six-year term).

Mid terms are those elections that fall between the Presidental election (2002, 2006, 2010), but are a harbinger as to the upcoming presidental election

Answer 7

It's all about shafting a useless president! What a pity we cannot do it in England. Think along the lines of local authority elections rather than the UK nationals. And remember the Americans elect a President every four years, We don't elect a leader. We elect a government! THEY elect a leader and he/she becomes PM

Answer 8

You've already had some good answers so I will just add my two penny worth of thoughts.

This is simple democracy in action. As defined by Abraham Lincoln(I think), democracy is "government of the people, for the people and by the people".

Answer 9

Its known as a "balance and check" system of government. Basically if your getting screwed by the present administration, after two years you get the chance to screw them! Remember folks there is a big difference between kneeling down and bending over!!

Answer 10

The houses of parliment vote on laws. The laws can't be passed by the President alone.

More here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midterm_election

Nick