A Canadian guide to the US Midterms

Frequency podcast network. Stories that matter. Podcasts that resonate. There's no doubt the upcoming U.S. midterm elections will be one of the most consequential in recent history. A compliant Republican-led Congress has largely given Donald Trump a free hand over Washington and the world. With all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and about a third of Senate seats up for grabs,

think of the midterms as a referendum on the party in charge. But while America reckons with a political moment with no clear precedent, the elections feel like a high-stakes moment for this country too,

as Democrats eye congressional majorities to act as a crucial check on a president who's made Canada the enemy. I'm Karen Seolan and today on The Big Story, I'm joined by independent journalist, Erin Parnas, to discuss why the midterms matter, how they work, and whether Democrats are really

coming to save Canada. Erin, welcome to The Big Story. It's a pleasure to have you on. Thanks for having me.

Super excited. If we could just start with the most basic of questions, what are the midterms and why Why do they matter to the U.S. president if his name is not on the ballot? Yeah, so the midterms matter.

Well, the midterms are the elections, right? Every two years we have elections in the United States of America. Every four years we have a presidential election. Every two years our Congress is elected.

So our House of Representatives, our senators, depending on who's on the ballot and when their term's up, that's what a midterm election is. And it's so important because they decide who controls the Congress. Sometimes when you have a Republican president in power, trends tend to say that Democrats

will over-perform in the midterms and vice versa. So it's very important because it really sets the tone for the final two years of this administration. If we could delve into that just a little deeper, if we could start with the House, the party that controls the House would have the power to do what?

It would have the power to impeach the president. It would have the power to subpoena the president, his family, his companies, anyone associated with this White House launch investigations into this White House. It would also have the power to really be a check on this White House in many

respects, for example, passing a war powers resolution to rein in the President's ability to wage war overseas and things like that. And at the very very basic sense, it would have the ability to pass legislation that would then force the President to have to, first force the Senate to either

vote it down or accept it, and then ultimately pass the Senate, force the president to potentially veto legislation that a lot of Americans support. And as for the Senate, the party that controls the Senate, it has the power to do what? How would it complicate the president's agenda?

Yeah, so the Senate has the power to do everything the House does, everything I just laid out. Instead of impeachment, they have the power of conviction. Ultimately, if the president's impeached in the House, the impeachment articles get sent to the Senate, and then you need, I believe, it's 67 votes to convict

a president or remove him from office. That'll never happen in our lifetimes, But that is a power the Senate has the Senate also I think the most important power in all of this has the power to confirm Cabinet appointees to confirm political appointees judges Justices on the Supreme Court that the president nominates they need a simple majority of 50 plus one in this case

They would just need 50 just because vice president Vance holds the deciding vote the tiebreaker But ultimately if Democrats take over the Senate a lot of Trump's judicial nominees will be blocked a lot of his cabinet appointees, political nominees will have to be much more watered down. They won't be too kind of closely aligned to the MAGA movement.

So Trump would essentially then be a lame duck president if Democrats can flip both chambers. But I wonder what happens if they only flip one? Like, would that still have any practical effect on Trump's power? And is it more important to flip one than the other? I think he's a lame duck if they flip one or two. I think if they flip two,

They have the power to actually pass legislation and kind of force Trump's hand on vetoing certain pieces of legislation that they pass. But I think if they only win one of the chambers, it already in effect has the lame duck effect because it'll stall any legislation going through.

Essentially you'll have a frozen Congress for two years, which creates that lame duck effect. I do have questions about how both parties are approaching these midterms. But I think some of our Canadian listeners may be curious to know why the US has these

elections in the middle of the President's term. What would be the purpose of reshaping the balance of power in government two years into the President's term, rather than perhaps voting for a united government formed by the majority party in the same manner that our parliamentary systems work?

Well, so I think that's the difference between a parliamentary system and the system that we have here in the United States. In our Constitution, it's prescribed that members of the United States House of Representatives serve two-year fixed terms, and then members of the United States Senate serve six-year

fixed terms. And so as a byproduct of that constitutional requirement, you have to have elections every two years because every single member of the U.S. House of Representatives is up for a re-election every two years, and then senators are up for every six years, and so you

have pretty much half the Senate up every two years or so. And so it's just a requirement of the United States Constitution and that's kind of how we do it. Yeah, it is certainly interesting.

And I guess what I want to get into with that question is because these elections would not necessarily be influenced by presidential election, would your vote actually matter