On the eve of Bonfire Night, the peculiar celebration of the foiling of Guy Fawkes’ plot to blow up British democracy, our American cousins will voluntarily tear apart their own.

Replacing gunpowder with the ballot box, all 435 members of the House of Representatives are up for re-election whilst one third of the Senate fight for a renewal of their more grandiose six-year tenure. Besides these headline races, the fortunes of 38 state governors and 46 state legislatures are intertwined amongst this electoral jumble. Midterm madness is well and truly upon us, there is no cure and containment is out of the question.

Do Midterms Matter?

In a political climate dominated by the powers of Congress, midterms matter. Who controls the House and Senate is oftentimes more important to the domestic destinies of the American people than who sits in the White House.

For us Brits, the US midterms may seem as eccentric a phenomena as our ritualistic burning of terrorist effigies every November appears to them. One can only imagine how the British public would react if every other year, the entire House of Commons and a third of the House of Lords relinquished all sense of power and dignity and bombarded the media channels with re-election campaigns. This is of course a far-off reality; the British political system has a long way to go before it reaches such levels of accountability – or is even awarded an elected second chamber. But our methods suit us for now.

Yet for reasons that only the ghosts of the Founding Fathers (and various constitutional diehards) can justify, this hyper-electoral state of affairs is the American way.

End of an ‘Obam-era’

These midterms have proven to be a hot-bed of political chatter and analysis for a multitude of reasons. It is the last major election that Obama will preside over as he reaches the end of his two terms. Commentators, journalists and academics alike began debating Obama’s legacy from his very first year in office. The results of this election will certainly help seal whatever fate History has in store for the 44th President.

But Obama certainly isn’t the centre of attention this year (for once). All eyes are fixated on the Senate. The Republicans are expecting to regain their majority in the Senate which would send shockwaves through the domestic political landscape. It would mean the Republican Party wield control of both houses of legislature, essentially dictating the legislative agenda until 2016. This would make Obama’s final two years in the Oval Office even more of a headache than the first six and has the potential to jeopardise his ambitious plans for immigration reform.

In addition to all of this, there are tremors and whispers emanating from the Supreme Court. With the liberal lioness, Ruth Bader Ginsburg expected to retire in the next two years, this would open up one of those highly venerated seats on the Court. It is difficult to say whether a Republican-controlled Senate would allow Obama to nominate another equally powerful liberal as her replacement.

Valley of the Polls

One can pore over the unending polling analysis flooding out of American news outlets and commentators. For a particularly helpful representation of what’s going on where in the States, infographs on websites such as The Guardian and The Economist provide endless interactive data. But for those interested in more precise figures, statisticians like Nate Silver have been providing a steady stream of analysis during this election; he currently holds chances of the GOP winning back the Senate at 68.5%. Whether one chooses to pay close attention to these sorts of undoubtedly useful but never wholly accurate predictions may depend on whether you’re the kind of person that checks the weather forecast app before you look out of your window (guilty).

Amidst all this indecision, one thing’s for sure; election season in the States is always a source of electrifying and bizarre entertainment – only last week a North Carolina Republican state senator released a House of Cards style radio advert. Truly, anything goes. For the more politically-minded among us, it’s as addictive and thrilling as any other primetime reality show, our very own Big Brother albeit with much more significant evictions.

So this year, as you’re deciding which firework display to while away the hours at, think of our neighbours across the pond. Remember the 4th of November. It’s not quite gunpowder, treason and plot (but it’s just as explosive).