Washington: Americans voted on Tuesday in a midterm election seen as a nationwide referendum on Donald Trump that could wrest control of Congress from his Republican Party and impose major restraints on the remaining two years of his presidency.
Polls predict the Democrats will win a majority in the House of Representatives and possibly seize the Senate on the back of voter resentment at an unpopular president, soaring energy costs and the ongoing conflict with Iran.
Republicans losing the House would give Democrats the power to stall the 80-year-old Trump's legislative agenda and launch sweeping investigations of his administration.
A Senate defeat would threaten his ability to appoint Supreme Court justices and senior officials.
"It's just about the cost of living, gas prices, those kind of things," Donta Comer, a 38-year-old project manager voting in an Atlanta suburb, told AFP. "It needs to change for the everyday person and I'm an everyday person."
Trump defended his record in a final TV phone-in pitch to voters on Tuesday, saying he had rebuilt the country through his immigration crackdown, war on Iran and tariff policies.
"We have to keep America great. We're great now. We were terrible two years ago," Trump told "Fox & Friends."
All 435 House seats and 35 of the 100 Senate seats are at stake, along with governorships in 36 states. Democrats need only three House gains and a net four seats in the Senate to wrest both chambers from Republican hands.
Trump returned to office promising to bring down prices, but inflation, tariffs and fuel costs inflated by the Middle East conflict have squeezed Americans.
- Economic discontent -
Republicans insist that Trump's tax cuts and anti-migrant stance will benefit voters, and they are portraying Democratic candidates as left-wing radical socialists -- a message that seemed to resonate with Daryl Ruley, an 84-year-old voter in Austin, Texas.
"A lot of today's younger people think socialism is the way to go," Ruley told AFP. "They don't understand history if they believe that's the case."
But in his final public campaign appearance on Monday, Trump barely touched on the election and gave a rambling talk about his problem-plagued renovation of Washington's Reflecting Pool.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer branded it a "pathetic closing message."
Republicans currently hold a 53-47 Senate majority, but the battlefield has extended into once reliably conservative states like Kansas, Texas, Iowa, Ohio and Alaska.
Democrats must also defend competitive seats, including in Michigan, where a bitter internal dispute saw congresswoman Haley Stevens endorse Republican Mike Rogers rather than the Democratic nominee, Abdul El-Sayed.
Decision Desk HQ's final forecast projected 241 House seats for Democrats against 194 for Republicans, and a narrower 52-48 Democratic Senate majority.
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