The broad trends from the mid-term elections in the United States make at least two things clear. First, the much-anticipated Republican sweep of the American legislature has not materialised. Republicans will likely wrest a narrow majority in Congress but Democrats seem poised to hold on to the Senate in a neck-and-neck race. The close election bucks the trend of Democrats facing routs when they controlled the White House — in both 1994 and 2010 (when Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were in office), they lost considerable ground in the mid-terms. This is significant also because Joe Biden’s popularity stands deeply...