Considering the current evidence, support for Israel is dwindling at rates that are unprecedented.

Biden and McCarthy emerged from a meeting on the debt ceiling talking about the need to find bipartisan compromise, even as they cling to policies that expose the divides between the two parties.

Another run would test whether voters are ready to give Biden, already the oldest American president ever, another four years in office.

Republicans were closer to winning the House, having secured 211 seats compared to Democrats' 206, with 218 needed for a majority.

The new party is being formed by a merger of three political groups that have emerged in recent years as a reaction to America's increasingly polarised and gridlocked political system.