Republican leaders are plotting how to make President Obama’s final two years in the White House a misery amid mounting optimism that they can seize control of Congress.
Campaigning for the midterms now begins in earnest, with only nine weeks to the November elections that could bring the curtain down on Mr Obama prematurely.
The President has been consistently thwarted in passing laws on his pet issues such as gun control, immigration and tax reforms since the Democrats lost control of the House in 2010.
Election spending by both main parties, mostly on attack advertisements paid for by outside groups with funds from secret donors, is estimated at more than $1 billion (£600 million), and experts predict that it will exceed the $3.6 billion spent on the 2010 mid-terms.
Midterm elections to determine the make-up of Congress fall halfway into the four-year presidential cycle. This time, President Obama risks losing control of the Senate and abandoning the legacy he is desperate to leave at the end of his second term in early 2017.
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Republicans need to win only six seats to capture control of the Senate and dominate both sides of Congress — and with Mr Obama’s approval ratings at an all-time low, they are buoyant about their prospects.
Three states where Democrat senators are retiring — Montana, South Dakota and West Virginia — are accepted as certain Republican gains. Outcomes in nine other states, from Alaska in the north to Louisiana in the south, will decide the race.
Top Republicans from every Senate committee have been meeting for some time to work on an agenda to pass bills that the President would have either to sign or block using his veto.
One senior Republican strategist said: “With Republicans in charge of the Senate, they can, and will, bring bills to the floor, pass them, and then make the president use his veto to reject them. Thus the president might be cast as the person blocking legislation.”
Measures they want to pass include approval for Keystone, an oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, which would create thousands of short-term jobs but which Mr Obama has stalled over because he fears upsetting the environmental lobby.
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The Republicans also plan to repeal modest elements of Mr Obama’s health-insurance reforms, and they hope to pass a new international trade agreement and give the green light to energy exports that could help to loosen Russia’s grip on Europe.
At present, Democrat control of the Senate means that legislation opposed by the White House never sees the light of day. However, there are tensions inside the Republican party about how boldly they should push their own agenda if they do grab the Senate.
The deeply conservative wing of the party wants to try for wholesale repeal of the Obamacare health reforms, a move it calls a “no-brainer”. However, more cautious Republican leaders believe that victory in November would give them two years to show voters they can govern responsibly — and paint Mr Obama as the obstacle in Washington.