if. nine hundred eighty nine forgot to w.'s november focus. the first ballot counting is no underway in the united states will there be a shift in the balance of power the world is waiting for the first verdict from american voters on u.s. president. this is news and special coverage of the u.s. midterm election. we will make america safe again. america the crossroads of.

what texans want we want to build the wall character of our nation is on the ball we will make america great again thank you missouri thank. you we'll americans choose to follow the lead of a president and the republican party or push for changes to be brought by the democrats the battle for control of both the house and senate is being decided tonight d.w. news special coverage starts right now. in berlin it's good to have you with us tonight much of the world is shifting its attention to the united states waiting to see if there will soon be a shift in power there. tuesday was the most closely watched midterm election in

modern u.s. history voters are choosing a new congress with all seats in the house of representatives up for grabs and a majority of seats in the u.s. senate as well as of the first exit polls are giving us an idea of what motivated voters today the issue of health care is topping the list and the president himself according to those first exit polls was the deciding factor for more than fifty percent of the voters well a very important part of our coverage of this historic midterm election is coming from the capital of the united states our washington bureau chief alexandra phenomena she joins me now from capitol hill good evening to you alexandra we've got these first exit polls a c.b.s. exit poll reflecting what we've been hearing this midterm election in the minds of most voters has been an unofficial referendum on the trump presidency.

yes right and this is not coming as a surprise i have to say because trump is such a polarizing figure a divider in the white house and because he wanted this to be all about him at every reli he was calling upon his supporters telling them to pretend that he is on the ballot even though his name is not on the bell at this time and i was traveling across the country in the last weeks talking to his supporters and they told me that there are many issues that matter to them such as immigration or economy but they also wanted to show their support in this midterm elections and i also talked to trump's critics to vulturous registered democrats or independents and they told me that they want to send a strong message to the white house that they are upset and angry with the president actions and with his views if and divisive rhetoric you know his anger this c.b.s. exit poll it also shows that more people work in certain about health care then

immigration does that suggest that the president was wrong to hammer the point about the caravan coming across the border and you know bad u.s. immigration policy. it can of course but frankly speaking i'm not so sure about that we know that health care is a very important topic for the democrats and for many people here in the u.s. because they are afraid that the trump administration is going to roll back every provision of the obamacare then they are afraid to lose their coverage but i also talked to many from supporters who told me that they think people in arizona or texas they think that immigration is also a very important issue the question here is however whether more people are supporting supporting charmes a hardline stance on immigration or if more people are repelled by his

strategy of fear mongering on such issues such as in gratian and race and alexander turnout has been a big topic covering the campaigns leading up to this election we know tonight that forty million people took advantage of early voting compared to about twenty nine million in the last midterm election back in two thousand and fourteen i mean this significant increase is seen as a positive for the democrats why is that is that a given tonight. well i would say that nothing is given tonight when you remember what happened in twenty sixteen so we have to be very cautious but normally would say that it's the republicans who turn out to cast their vote in the midterm elections and now seeing this huge turnout many experts it's you that it is positive for the democrats and i have to say that's troubling

a lot throughout the country showed me that the democrats are really. and enthusiast sick about being part of the selections. were washington bureau chief alexander phenomenon helping us to kick off our special coverage as the results come in and this is stuart u.s. midterm election alexandra thank you very much. all right we want to take a look now at the standings in the midterm elections the house of representatives how things stand right now we know that we're just talking about polling places on the east coast of the united states if closed so there's not a lot of news to report but it doesn't hurt to look at the numbers right now the magic number two hundred eighteen that's how many seats in the house of representatives that either the democrats or the republicans need to win tonight to be able to have control of that chamber all right let's take it over now and look at how the u.s.

senate is doing we do have some news there one race we can report for certain and that is the independent bernie sanders has won reelection for his senate seat from the state of vermont you see right there the magic number fifty there are one hundred u.s. senate seats fifty have to be taken by one party fifty one if you're the democrats because the u.s. vice president is allowed to vote in the senate and that is mike pence he is a republican and he's going to vote for the republicans or the democrats tonight they've got a lot of work ahead of them if they want to regain control of the u.s. senate. are joining me now here in the studio is john tesh now he is director of the german marshall fund of the united states here in berlin a familiar face to our viewers john it's good to have you here at the big table i mean this is a momentous evening these results coming in. how important would you say that this midterm election is for europe i mean the the interest that we've seen in

europe looking at these midterms is quite enormous i mean midterms traditionally have been a bit of an obscure oddity of the american political system to most europeans and now they've become the obsession over here and the reason of course the strum just as you said earlier on the program he was the decisive factor in bringing people out to vote on both sides of the of the aisle it's the same here people want to know whether this trump thing and america is for real whether the americans are actually serious about trump and the midterm is the next best thing to an indication you know it's interesting that this trump thing we know that german media have invested a lot of resources to cover this midterm election trump seems to be a winner for them when it we're talking about a boost in circulation to a boost in readers in users but is there more there to this infatuation with trial but is it just a love hate relationship or is there something more there i think there are two

things at play here first the europeans either intrinsically you know or really consciously understand that you know they relate to a certain extent on the united states on the security guarantee on extended deterrence still the guaranteeing kind of forests behind you know their freedom the you know their lifestyles over here and so they must have an interest in how the political landscape and america is shifting and the other thing and that's perhaps a bit of a german thing also in this country really learned democracy from the united states so it has this kind of neurotic look at the united states if democracy in the u.s. looks you know at risk you know a wobbly german start to fear about their own democracy that's a bit of a psychological thing like a mirror being held in it of america it's a projection. our europeans expectations realistic when we're talking about the democrats possibly taking power again in the house of representatives particularly we're talking about foreign policy because we've heard a lot of people's. that they they think their foreign policy would change if the

democrats win the house yeah but that's probably too much of an expectation in this case first of all the house is the chamber that has the least of a say in the foreign policy of the united states it would of course be some sort of limiting factor on the president mostly psychologically a guest but you could also make the other calculation saying that you know if he loses the house meaning that you know domestically his entire agenda is is is stifled or you know has a has a hard time coming through then he might look at foreign policy as the kind of playground for his next big win wins and big victories and you know and whether we want more from activism on the european side and more of trump on the scene this is something that you know i wonder whether that's the kind of expectation that we have one or two does this midterm election does it have more importance in the minds of germans because now they know that until americans days are numbered in terms of political power certainly michael the decision to resign as the chairman

of her conservative party at still the overall sense of uncertainty you know marco you know but even if you do not particularly like her you had a sense that she was a reliable kind of you know a force out there a rock out there that wasn't easily moved and if you take too many of these you know bedrocks out of the political scene people start to get nervous because the one thing they don't want is too much turmoil out there you know we will be checking in with you a little bit later on that throw through throughout the night but also in this program thank you you thank. well the tino's represent one of the fastest growing demographic groups in the united states a record twenty nine million are eligible to vote in this year's midterm their votes could be key in helping democrats win back the house but typically latino turnout is low on the election day democrats are now hoping that they can turn discontent over president trump's migration rhetoric into more latino vote for their party in his campaigning trump repeatedly seized on the migrants making their

way to the us mexico border from central america. joining us tonight is yvonne garcia doggo he is the president of the hispanic leadership council mr garcia doggo is considered a republican party insider he has worked for a number of prominent republican leaders including mitt romney and newt gingrich mr garcia doug oh it's good to have you on the show the u.s. president he has said that this election is about himself and about immigration policy democrats have said that it's about health care for everyone you have said that the mid term is a fight for the soul and i did of the of the u.s. and i'm quoting you here you say it's about the america as we know it verses it becoming when it's way into what do you mean. well it's very clear the democratic party is pushing and embracing socialism very openly and that

is where eventually it will lead us to if we we have candidates that are openly socialist the the agenda and the policies that they're pushed the they're pushing is socialism and you know it it's a very serious proposition if that's the direction the democrats want to take us we all end up like venezuela like nicaragua on a venture like cuba well though it is where one of those policymakers lorton more for an election mr what what are the policies then that could take the united states to get its way let me we have an international audience we have a lot a lot of people around the world watching what is socialistic about the democratic party candidate platforms. or just about everything right they want universal herrick health care so single payer which is something that is impossible unfunded it would cause trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars in deficit you good raise taxes on everybody on the super rich you know the fifty sixty percent and

still not be able to pay for it so those are things that are on attainable they want to they want to reverse the economic growth they want to increase regulations they want to reduce increase taxes on everybody you know those are things that just don't work we went through for eight years with the previous administration we had a one point seven g.d.p. growth right now we're over four percent and those are policies that work you know we either go back towards towards obama towards a very dismal economy and in a horrible of the worst economic recovery is for the world you know the united states or we continue going in the right direction which is creating jobs or on the economy lowest unemployment for women for minorities for hispanics for blacks for everybody you know we're we're seeing real wage increase for the first time in ten years well let me let me just briefly here let let's have a little conversation here let me ask you two years ago you wrote. a piece for the hill and i'm quoting here one thing that i'm one hundred percent certain of the two

thousand and eight season will be an election on steroids and you said most if not all establishment politicians will be targeted in the primary and else did well that didn't happen what happened well things change where we ended up winning the white house i promise saying that the if we lost the white house this is what was going to happen there isn't a you said you were at usage didn't know you understood what is the thing you were one hundred percent certain of. right so have you read the whole article i was saying how how the or how the republicans lost the white house and you know an entire new set of voters so that didn't happen because trump was able to pull it out like i said in the article if you manage a poll out that isn't a change everything right but you know this is this is what's happened you know this there's a great article that came out you mentioned the hill yesterday that said the revenge of the rhinos right the republicans. how they've how they've gone out and

they have targeted you know key races against trump candidates and voted on for democrats like in florida you know they have you have gillum who's the mayor of of tallahassee who is openly socialist you know and you have the former two time chair of the republican party openly supporting this guy because the sands is a trump candidate you know the anti of the anti trump group the establishment republicans are so angry and just so out of control that there was power access you know with this administration well let me as it will be to destroy this party miss usa is just because of their personal gain we were running out of time let me get this question in see before we run a time do you think you're talking about how good the economy is and that you don't want to return to how the economy might have been two or three years ago do you think the president was wise in focusing then cements on immigration and not

focusing on the good economic data. well i think he did focus on it if you look at all his rallies he talked about the economy talked about the unemployment we talked about camorra and he talked about the labor force participation he did never really define well the thing is the thing is the thing is that the media chooses to push a narrative you know the fake news the left wing media that is the majority of the media in this country they are anti trump they are a p.r. arm well that where you can see that he does ask those with a bruise that's what they poor mr garcia he was asked about this and he said that it didn't keep people's attention if you talked about good things a good data so he wanted to talk about something that would yeah they did i think it was i think it was a tongue in cheek kind of joke what he said he's like well you know it's talking about the economy is boring right i know you're talking about you know it was kind of a tongue in cheek kind of joke but immigration is extremely important we have you know

in a very serious situation with tens of thousands of people you know attacking our border ready to invade dream yelling down the streets for our triumph what a trump which means out with trump so you have over you know over ten thousand people marching towards your border yelling that they're going to throw out overthrow your president your government i mean that doesn't seem very friendly it doesn't look like a lot of women and children this is obviously organized and well funded groups and immigration is a serious problem when you already visit our immigration laws the democrats are against doing that and they haven't been want to fix it but we're going to we're going to have try to get some of those democrats on the show this evening as the what they think about this about what you're saying about the u.s. being under attack by these people on foot in mexico mr dog and we appreciate you taking the time to talk with us on this election night thank you you thank. there's a as you can see right there people would say that the truth is also up for

election or reelection or this midterm in the united states being called the most important midterm election in a generation it's all about getting people to the polls or as proles with what was about in some cases about for existing people from going to the polls you've been looking into voter suppression you haven't you know every vote counts right but voter turnout that is the key during these midterm elections getting people to go to the polls unfortunately lots of examples on social media of trying to keep people from going to the polls and here's just a few examples of what we've been seeing on social media brant this is a north dakota the state's democratic party they're trying to dissuade hunters from turning out with this misleading added warns them that they could lose their out of state hunting license if they vote in the midterm election of course very misleading it seems designed to keep conservatives from voting also saying a lot of information this is different from asian from republican supporters of trump supporter here a rumor being spread that the immigration officials will be there at these polling

stations checking i.d.'s that's also not true even seeing the president himself president trump kind of reinforcing these rumors here he is on twitter yesterday claiming that law enforcement has been strongly notified to watch closely for any illegal voting anyone caught will be subject to the maximum criminal penalties allowed by law kind of steering that fear that if you go to the polls you might need arrested you know people into that reporters looked into those claims that we didn't find any evidence and enforcement agencies would be on site of their reports to of platforms like facebook being manipulated to skew the yoakum of this election yeah of course has been a big focus for facebook right they've been trying to safeguard their platform in terms of there's still some problems though when it comes to political advertising on facebook this is something that was just uncovered. recently actually by the investigative news outlet pro publica in the us and this is kind of

a very strange facebook page that we found here it's called american progress now it really does look like a left leaning political organization but really its goal is to convince liberal voters to vote for the green party instead of the democrats so it's been running ads for real green party candidates you see an example of one of them here it says people of color need marcia squier in the senate to represent them turn up to vote for her for u.s. senate to put that white male patriarchy in its place it's really got the the tone and the language down is problematic though because marcia squire had no idea about this is not funded by her it's not linked to the green party at all we don't know who is behind this page it's clearly though designed to try to convince liberal voters to go for the greens and said the democrats of course that would favor the republican there in the u.s. to she would probably have a lawsuit you know on her hands and she could find out who was responsible for that is there any reason to believe that this will affect turnout it doesn't seem to be

affecting turnout right now twenty fourteen the last midterm election it was one of the lowest we've seen since world war two this time around it looks like many states are actually setting records especially in terms of early voting so a lot of this stuff may not be having an effect although you know every vote counts it could come down to a few hundred in that case you never know you never really progress and as always that you will be talking with you also through the night thanks well the key deciding factor in these u.s. midterms could be who is capable of winning over the most female voters more women candidates are in the running than ever before one woman who is pushing boundaries is the bronx native alexandria ocasio cortez she's looking to secure a seat in the u.s. house and represent her home district in new york city. alexandria kozhikode has a community activist publisher. running for congress in new york's fourteenth's just strict she could become the youngest woman and the house of representatives. a

rally in the crowd to reckon restaurant and liberal. alexandria because you contest knows almost everyone she shocked her party when she almost a ten term incumbent congressman and the democratic primary for her this is just the beginning it's all about every day people coming together and believing in their ability to change this country. the bronx native is now a political rock star. she was like border is the neighborhood which is the body of the bronx and i just love like this community activism and getting involved she's bold she's progress that she's not afraid to you know take pride heels and the platform that she believes in and really take it to where it needs to go and to really galvanize people towards that goal cortez him her fellow activists once universal health care a federal job scar on t.

tuitions and free universities campaigning in the neighborhood they are reassured that these issues do matter here. are some. issues really. but too many on the right alexandra because you cortez is a dangerous revolutionary who calls herself a democratic socialist who pledged just not to accept any money from corporations it was it's hard especially when i was running. it is it feels almost impossible. people are ignoring you or they are calling you naive or they're calling you. an educated on a. formed uncommitted. alexandria because it could have been her problem and she is highly favored to win this the new district in november for many here she is just to hold the commission they have

been waiting for for a carried on time. and back here with me is young to show the director of the german marshall fund of the united states here in berlin you know you know when we see candidates like that maybe pushing the envelopes and saying we want to change. millennialists they will say that the word socialism is not necessarily a derogatory term for them but how do you how do you see that i mean you saw the interview i did earlier with the head of this is spanish organization saying that anything that reeks of socialism is bad and coming from the democrats yeah i mean it tells you that when americans talk about socialism they talk about something very different from a store of peons when they use that term for us europeans it's really the memory of the cold war behind the iron curtain these unfree societies it's state ownership of the means of production and that's never the case when americans talk about it and none of these self-proclaimed socialists in the united states is

a real socialist by european standards but what it tells you in the us context is how much the the the coordinate system in the us in terms of affiliations and where ideology stand how much it is shifting it is now no longer a bad time for a large part of the population and it tells you that the polarization the moving to the fringes has increased in the u.s. one of the reasons why trump is an office and it also tells us that it's becoming more and more difficult to have political discourse that with the goal of finding a common ground of coming meeting point yeah that common ground has gotten a lot more narrow in an article that i wrote i called the united states you know a country without a public a public meaning of a shared space and a commonly accepted space in which you. can come together and fight your disputes and because society is now so fractured and partitioned into echo chambers into into into individual constituencies that don't talk to each other that common ground that public the original sounds of the world where it seems to be seems to

have disappeared and that's poison for democracy and is that divide is it most apparent when you're talking about the split between urban and rural voters yeah that's once one split that has always been the case that's a split that the founding fathers usually you know had on their minds when they drafted the constitution and that has gotten you know has gotten more polarized as well but we see those splits you know running through the middle classes we see you know a blue collar white collar split you know the fragmentation is is so complicated i mean that would warrant another show altogether here. but you know it tells you that the that the old big chunks on society on which you could rely some big blob somewhere in the middle you know moderate center left center right politics has gotten so much thinner and the fringe is so much stronger and so the distant discourses is just harsher than they used to be good analysis there john tesh are we will be checking in with you again at the top of the hour when our special

coverage of the u.s. midterm elections continues you're watching the news live from berlin we will be back in about thirty minutes as the results come in from the historic midterm election in the united states they would be news. to reach and. leaman capitalist truth. a city where essential divides a stone. to make street wealth and extreme poverty

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the us mid-term elections a battle for control of the u.s. congress and a referendum on the trial of the presidency of the what could it change in the balance of power mean for europe going to war criminal law breaking as the results come in joining us here for special coverage of. the u.s. and midterm elections d.w. new. this week on global three thousand we take a look at how people live around the world from a corrugated iron huts to an apartment or even a mansion when it comes to security and

a sense of well being few things matter to us more than already homes but there are many different living models around the globe. as we head off to to sell.