Today's US elections mean what do they mean for the state of Kosovo?

November 8, 2022 Today in the United States, semi-mandate elections are being held, or remiterm of legislation, as they are known in the election jar here. Out of 100 seats in the Senate, only 34 of them are in the election process today. And out of 435 seats in the House of Representatives, all are in the process of election today.

In the House of Representatives, the Democrats have had the majority since the 2018 elections when they had received 235 seats from 435, the majority then reduced to only 222 seats in the 2020 elections. It is expected that in today's 2022 elections, if you continue the 2018-2020 trend, then you can easily see a Republican majority in the House of Representatives. In the Senate, however, Democrats have had the majority only through the vote of Vice President Harris, who is at the same time serving as the Senate's president. Out of 100 seats in the Senate, the Democrats have 48, Republicans 50, and two are independent of Angus King from Maine, and Bernie Saunders from Vermont but who vote in line with the Democrats, giving them the majority only with the Senate Speaker's vote, so Vice President Harris (51 vs 50).

Besides the House of Representatives that can easily slip into a Republican majority tonight, even the simple majority of Democrats in the Senate is not safe. There are a lot of hot battlefields in the Senate race, which has been the most concentrated focus of Democrats. As it turns out, convinced that they have said impossible to preserve most in the House of Representatives, the Democrats aimed at this mining campaign and had the Senate. So the hot battlefields that will determine the fate of the Senate tonight are: Pennsylvania, Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin, Arizona, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Ohio, Florida, and Colorado. Of these battlefield states, in four are expected to win the Republicans (Wisconsin, Ohio, North Carolina, Florida), in the three Democrats (Colorado, New Hampshire, Arizona), and three others (Pensylvania, Nevada, and Georgia) are totally unintelligible because the candidates are head-head and a very small margin of votes will determine the winner. But even here, there is a tendency of electorate to embrace Republicans more than Democrats.

So what if the Republicans win most in both or one of the U.S. Congress chambers? Simply, where does Kosovo remain in this middle, and what are the advantages or disadvantages for our national interests?

President Biden's election in 2020 was also a victory for Albanians because in the White House, the chief had already become a man who knew very well our history and had supported Kosovo's freedom and independence since mid-1990s, when he was Senator and then head of the US Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. This support from Biden, we had achieved due to his extraordinary work by the Albanian-American Civic League, and by Joe Diogard and Shirley Cloyers DioGuard, respectively.

Normally, that a president in the United States, to get ahead of his agenda, needs most in both Congress chambers, and Biden has so far been very lucky because that majority has. But tonight, everything can change! And this change affects us, Kosovo, in particular Albanians in general -- not that we are all ideologically linked to Democrats, but because geopolitical circumstances are favourable today under this US political nomenclature as it is now.

A Republican majority in the House of Representatives or the Senate would strongly complicate Beden's decision making in general and its internal policies, but also foreign policy, however. To illustrate this, especially in foreign policy, because that's our interest, first we need to see which victorious Republican candidates will reach the majority either in the House of Representatives or in the Senate with those known as “M AGA Republicans” or Trumpetists, or those that are the most traditional and anti-Trumpist Republicans. Remember, this campaign has marked the most vocal evolution of former President George W. Bush in support of the most traditional Republican candidates, then anti-Trumpists. In reality, if the Trumpists win, this will be a major push for former President Trump to challenge himself once again in the upcoming presidential race.

But back to the concrete illustration: if the House of Representatives is taken by the Republicans, they also receive the leadership of all commissions and committees there. For example, we would lose an extremely powerful friend of ours, Congressman Gregory Meeks from the position of Chairman of Foreign Affairs of Congress, because instead a Republican would come. Also, we're going to lose out on his important position as Chairman of the Congress Commission for Human Rights and Congressman Jim McGovern, because he would be replaced by a Republican. On the other hand, we would also lose the key position as Chairman of the Legal Commission and Congressman and Albanian Minister Jerry Nadler. So these are some examples of how our unit would change at the U.S. Congress, respectively.

The same would happen in the Senate, if the Republicans took the majority, then we would lose from the extremely powerful position of Senate Foreign Affairs Commission Chairman Senator Bob Menandez, an irreplaceable friend of Albanians, the highest American official who has never hesitated to defend Kosovo (councilship of Serb municipalities), and to protect the rights of ethnic Albanians in the Presevo Valley. All these people I mentioned here are friends and close associates of the Albanian-American Civic League and, as a result, are supporters of our national cause.

So even if one or both of Congress rooms go in favor of Republicans, it is not the end of the world for us. Yeah, we had some of the processes that we've been channeled and going through with these current leaders in Congress, but we have something that historically saved from whether it was Republicans or Democrats in the majority, and that's the legacy of over three decades of Albanian-American Civic League under the leadership of Joe and Shirley Dioward who have all worked on bi-partisan bases (so, with both political journals) for the Albanian national cause. So even if in these key positions after today, the Republicans are coming, who will begin their mandate in January 2023, through the Civil League and because of their hard work with Republicans, we will be back where it is needed for Kosovo in particular and Albanians in general.

However, we should never forget or speculate that we have only two more years of a unique window of opportunity in the White House and have a friend like Biden that some vital processes for Kosovo are to be carried out without prolongation. Anyone who comes to the White House tomorrow after Biden will have no knowledge, no Senate, no will to see Kosovo more favouring than Biden! Time is the most valuable asset in this world. It has to be used now, tomorrow's just time!

Dr. Faton Bislimi is a foreign policy expert and particularly Albanian-American relations. He is a member of the Albanian-American Civic League Executive Board and former representatives of the Republic of Kosovo.