Analysis: What to know ahead of the US mid-term elections

1News US correspondent Anna Burns Francis says issues of transgender rights and abortion are fueling division ahead of the midterm elections.

She spoke to Q+A this morning from the outskirts of Little Rock, Arkansas, a Democrat-held city in the middle of a Republican-dominated state.

She's been travelling across multiple states, talking to locals about what they see as issues worthy of attention during this midterm election cycle.

This morning she discussed the political situation in four hotly contested states - Arkansas, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Arizona.

She started by highlighting the issues that are up for debate in Arkansas and the many restrictions imposed on its citizens by the state government.

She said that while she knew about the restrictions on transgender rights, she was surprised about how many other things are banned.

"We started by looking at the restrictions of transgender rights, but when we got here, we realised it was a whole lot bigger," Francis said.

"There are restrictions on a whole lot of things… healthcare, girls and boys being allowed to play sport at school if they don't identify with the gender they were born with, abortion rights,"

"Even book bannings in Arkansas, words that have been banned are going through the next legislative session, looking at banning words like gender-dysphoria."

"This is going to be a story tonight about a whole bunch of things that Republican-controlled legislature have done to restrict people's rights across America."

While Arkansas seems like it will reaffirm its allegiance to the Republican party ahead of the election, traditionally red Georgia appears to be turning purple.

In the 2020 election, the state swung, electing two Democratic senators in a hard-fought race.

Burns-Francis said the state senate race between Democrat Raphael Warnock and former footballer Republican Herschel Walker is turning into a battle.

Walker has been very outspoken on his opposition to abortion - standing firmly against it, with Warnock supporting legal abortion.

"There isn't a national abortion ban right now, and I think that's a problem," Walker said.

"Right now, I'm for life, and I'm not gonna make an excuse for it."

"I trust women more than politicians," Warnock said in opposition.

Burns-Francis said that a federal abortion ban could be on the cards in the US should the mid-terms swing in favour of the Republicans.

"The supreme court decision which rolled back Roe vs Wade pushed the decision around abortion and the access to abortion to states… well now republican senators or politicians going for the senate saying that the next thing they're looking at is a federal ban on abortion," she said.

"This decision to push it back to states will have much bigger consequences coming up."

However, Burns-Francis said that many Republicans are avoiding the issue of abortion due to how divisive it is, instead criticising the economy under president Joe Biden.

In an interview with CNN, the Georgia Gubernatorial incumbent and Republican Brian Kemp refused to talk about abortion, instead targeting the economy.

"I am staying focused on my race and what I can control and trying to help them fight through joe Biden's inflation," he said.

Burns-Francis highlighted how inflation is affecting everyday Georgians, with the price of petrol being an example, with prices in Georgia soaring above last year's cost.

"Americans drive a long way, and they are feeling the pinch with an economy that sees low wages as well," she said.

Three presidents, Obama, Biden and Trump, have swept into Pennsylvania to try and rally their support bases behind a candidate.

Pennsylvania has traditionally been a battleground state with voters divided on who would serve their state best - it's no different for this election.

"It is a battleground, just like we saw in 2020. This is one of those seats that the democrats must get because they need to if they want to hold onto their control of the senate and the house," Burns-Francis said.

She said that while it looks like the Democrats should be successful, that certainty was thrown into balance after Governor and Senate Candidate John Fetterman suffered from a stroke, drawing questions regarding his health from rival Republican candidate and former TV host Dr Mehmet Oz.

"This has brought the issue of healthcare, and Americans' access to healthcare into their lounges and into their living rooms and the impact of what healthcare in America can bring to someone who is trying to overcome the disability of a stroke," She said.

After a rough debate, things looked dangerous for Fetterman - he struggled to communicate with the same slickness as his opponent.

Most polls have both candidates neck-in-neck with a nervous election night ahead.

Burns-Francis said that Arizona was a microcosm, representing the rest of the country - where policy matters least and performance matters most.

"We are seeing this mover towards popularity, a really polished performance," she said.

"The actual message and the content doesn't really matter… It's about getting people to back you and follow along and get them behind your cause,"

She said this mindset is perfectly represented in Arizona, where Republican gubernatorial candidate Carrie Lake hasn't confirmed she would accept the election results if she loses.

This attitude mirrors the stand of Donald Trump, who refused to accept that he had lost the election.

Burns-Francis said that Republican conspiracies about election fraud committed by Democrats had caused massive divisions in the US's already rocky political landscape.

"It effectively means a Democrat cannot or will not win. It's either an illegal win, or it didn't happen at all, and that will be the problem next week because nothing has been done since the last election to reassure the American public," she said.

She said Joe Biden and the Democrats hadn't done a good of selling the idea of a trustworthy election to the public.

"There is no way that if Democrats start winning this election come next Tuesday (local time) that the results will go any better than the rhetoric that we saw come out of 2020," she said.

The US midterm elections are set to be held on 8 November (local time).