On November 3, United States citizens will vote in the midterm elections. These won't decide who gets to sit in the White House; instead, Americans will be voting on who they want to see in the Capitol. Midterm elections are held every four years, at the exact halfway point between presidential elections.
The people of the United States decide who will represent them in the two chambers of the US Congress, the House of Representatives and the Senate. Some states are also voting for their governor. These are the decisions on the ballot paper — but they are not the only thing voters will be taking into account.
Miles Coleman, an election analyst at the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, explained before the last midterms that they were "often a referendum on the president and party currently in power." If the people are content, the party of the leader in the White House does better than if the people are predominantly dissatisfied. President Donald Trump's approval ratings are currently at a record low. All the seats in the US House of Representatives are up for election.
Its 435 members are elected by eligible voters across the country. Each member represents one electoral district. These are allocated based on population size.
As a result, relatively large US states where few people live, such as Wyoming, have only one seat in the House of Representatives. New Jersey, a much smaller state by surface area but with a larger population, has 12. Representatives are elected for a two-year term of office.
US senators, on the other hand, are elected for a six-year term. The Senate, the other chamber of the US Congress, has 100 seats: two for each of the 50 US states, regardless of size. Around one third of these senatorial seats come up for election every two years.
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