For convenience, STATES, TERRITORIES, and STATES_AND_TERRITORIES can be accessed directly from the us module: >>> us.states.STATES [<State:Alabama>, <State:Alaska>, <State:Arizona>, <State:Arkansas>,... >>> us.STATES [<State:Alabama>, <State:Alaska>, <State:Arizona>, <State:Arkansas>,...
WITH nearly every American election cycle new spending records are broken. This autumn's midterm elections are nearly nine months away, but already candidates in Kentucky's Senate race have raised $19.4m and spent $7.3m. In the 2012 cycle candidates in the Massachusetts Senate race alone spent over $85m. That is small change compared with that year's presidential contest, in which $2 billion was spent (the total cost of the 2012 elections, including congressional races, topped $7 billion).
The elections in which Americans vote for their congressional representatives but not for their president are known as midterm elections. Every two years, Americans elect members of the U.S. House of Representatives to two-year terms and about one-third of their U.S. senators, who serve six-year terms.