Democrats take control of both US chambers in midterms, a blow to Trump

A wider defeat than usual

Democrats took control of both the House and the Senate in the midterm elections held on Tuesday, 3 November. Early tallies point to a gap of about 13 percentage points between the parties, a margin not seen since 1976, and the final count may take weeks. The sitting party almost always loses midterm elections, so the scale of the Republican defeat, the largest in half a century, points to a problem deeper than the usual pattern. Candidates who stood especially close to the president took the hardest electoral hits. In Kansas, Adam Hamilton is set to become the first Democratic senator from the state since 1932.

Latino voters and the Texas result

Latino voters stand out among the groups that swung most sharply, according to an early New York Times analysis of its Times/Siena poll. Nationally, 69% of Hispanic voters backed a Democrat, a swing of 29 percentage points compared with 2024. One likely reason is the enforcement by ICE, whose operations against undocumented migrants, mostly from Latin American countries, were harsher than expected. In Texas, where 40% of the population has Latin American roots, 70% of Latino voters backed Senate candidate James Talarico, up from 49% who chose Kamala Harris in 2024. Districts along the Mexico border, which backed Trump in 2024, proved decisive for Talarico and for the Democratic House candidate there.

2024 presidential (Harris)49%

2026 Senate (Talarico)70%

2024 presidential (Harris)

49 %

2026 Senate (Talarico)

70 %

Data from the article text

Approval, corruption and the cost of living

A CBS poll put Trump's approval at 38%, the lowest rating ever recorded for a president during midterms. More than 70% of Americans said the country was heading in the wrong direction, and nearly 90% viewed the government as corrupt. A Guardian poll ranked corruption as the most important election issue after the rising cost of living, and 76% said elected politicians cared more about their own financial gain than about improving ordinary Americans' lives. Conflicts of interest around Trump, his family and his businesses fed those concerns. Trade wars, a harsh immigration policy, close ties to the richest Americans and the war with Iran, which pushed up fuel prices, all weighed on voters.

Republicans look for someone to blame

Republicans are pointing at each other, but few want to blame Trump directly given the size and loyalty of his base. Vice President JD Vance, who is widely expected to seek the presidency in 2028, offered a careful first reaction on Wednesday, 4 November.

“We lost because of the Iran war.”

Vance must distance himself from Trump's unpopular policies without antagonising the president. Many Republicans point to defence secretary Pete Hegseth, with a narrative that he urged Trump to attack Iran, though it is unclear whether that is true. Representative Thomas Massie has announced he wants a removal procedure brought to a vote before all newly elected members are sworn in. Trump himself praised Hegseth and said he would attack Iran again if he could do it over.

Trump as a lame duck

At 80, Trump now faces the label of lame duck, with two years left in his term and Democrats in control of both chambers. In the hours after the vote he denied that the Democratic win was his fault, while his vice president said explicitly the opposite. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, 4 November, beside a steel beam for his ballroom project at the White House, he said:

“I will probably get along quite well with the Democrats, unless they want to be destructive.”

He stressed that he holds the veto, then turned to his renovation projects. A close adviser described the president after the defeat as dazed. Presidential decrees remain his tool, and Congress can amend or undo them but rarely does. A veto can only be overridden with a two-thirds majority in both the House and the Senate. A federal judge rejected the administration's demand for Harvard admissions data on 2 November, one day before the vote, and a lawsuit against Harvard over alleged tolerance of antisemitism was thrown out in Boston in August because the government had not supported it sufficiently. Democrats have vowed to pursue alleged abuse of power and corruption among the president's associates.