Sawt Falasteen - Biden agenda at stake and Trump looms as US votes

Biden's Democrats are facing an uphill climb to hang on to the House of Representatives and the Senate after a race the president has cast as a "defining" moment for US democracy.

"We need all hands on deck to elect Democrats," the 79-year-old Biden tweeted in a last-minute bid to drive voters to the polls.

Trump's Republicans campaigned hard on kitchen-table issues like inflation and crime and are hoping to capitalize on Biden's poor favorability ratings, hovering in the low 40s.

Casting his ballot in Florida, Trump again teased an expected announcement next week of a 2024 presidential run, telling reporters November 15 "will be a very exciting day for a lot of people."

Trump also dipped into his 2020 playbook and immediately began sowing doubts about the integrity of the vote.

At stake in Tuesday's election are all 435 seats in the House, one-third of the Senate and a slew of state and local positions. Five states are holding referendums on abortion.

Democrats currently hold a slim majority in the House and control of the evenly split Senate thanks to the vote of Vice President Kamala Harris.

But Republicans are heavily favored to win the House and possibly also flip the Senate.

Polls start to close at 6:00 pm (2300 GMT) and results are expected to begin trickling in an hour later, though with razor-thin margins in key races a full picture may not be available for days or even weeks, setting the stage for acrimonious challenges.

Senate races in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Ohio are expected to be close and any one of them could swing the balance of power in the chamber

- 'Mudslinging' -

The bitter political divide in the country was on the minds of many voters as they cast their ballots.

"Some of the candidates who have been up for office recently are into mudslinging and negative campaigns," said Quonn Bernard, a 39-year-old software engineer in Union City, an Atlanta suburb. "I just don't want those people representing me."

For others, it was abortion or the state of the economy.

"Abortion is probably the biggest issue for me," said Alexandra Ashley, 30, a lawyer as she voted in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. "I want to make sure it's available for everybody and safe."

Voting in Phoenix, Arizona, Kenneth Bellows, a 32-year-old law student, said runaway inflation is "hurting Americans who are just trying to get by."

At an election eve rally near Washington, Biden warned that "democracy is at risk" and urged Democrats to flock to the polls to defend it.

Biden said he believed Democrats would hold the Senate but it would be "tough" to retain the House and his life may become "more difficult."

If both the House and Senate flip, Biden's legislative agenda would be paralyzed as Republicans launch aggressive investigations and oppose his spending plans.

That would raise questions over everything from climate policies, which the president will be laying out at the COP27 conference in Egypt this week, to Ukraine, where some Republicans are reluctant to maintain the current rate of US military support.

An influx of far-right Trump backers in Congress would also accelerate a shift inside the Republican Party since the former real estate tycoon stunned the world by defeating Hillary Clinton for the presidency in 2016.

- 'Giant red wave' -

Despite facing criminal probes over taking top secret documents from the White House and trying to overturn the 2020 election, Trump has used the midterms to cement his status as the de facto Republican leader.

In a typically dark, rambling speech to supporters in Dayton, Ohio, the 76-year-old Trump said, "if you support the decline and fall of America, then you must, you absolutely must vote for the radical left, crazy people."

"If you want to stop the destruction of our country, then tomorrow you must vote Republican in a giant red wave," he said.

Trump, who falsely asserts the 2020 election was stolen by Biden, immediately began casting doubts on the midterm vote, posting repeatedly on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday.

"Reports are coming in from Arizona that the Voting Machines are not properly working in predominantly Republican/Conservative areas," he said. "Same thing is happening with Voter Fraud as happened in 2020???"

Officials in Arizona's Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, said about 20 percent of the 223 polling stations there were experiencing difficulties but it would not affect the probity of the vote.

More than 45.8 million ballots have been cast through early voting options, meaning the midterms outcome had already begun to take shape before election day.

J.AbuHassan--SF-PST