Democrats win both US congressional chambers in midterms, a sharp rebuke to Trump

The result

Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress in the US midterm elections, with voting for all 435 House seats and 35 of the 100 Senate seats. Republicans had entered the vote with a 53-seat Senate majority, while Democrats stood at 54 seats in projections made before all races were counted, with more possible. Democrats also won Senate seats in states long considered Republican strongholds, including Texas, Ohio and Kansas, where a Democrat had last won a Senate seat almost 100 years earlier.

Republicans at start of vote53

Democrats in projections before all races were counted54

Republicans at start of vote

53 seats

Democrats in projections before all races were counted

54 seats

Data from the article text

Trump's response

Trump congratulated Democrats in a phone call with CBS. He said he looked forward to working with them, while also pointing to his veto power over bills he opposes. Asked about the defeat, he attributed it mainly to his own absence from the ballot, saying Republicans would have won had his name been on it.

“Congratulations to the Democrats. I look forward to working with you for the good of our country.”

Trump also said some Republican candidates were unpopular with voters and that others had not stood with him, leaving the party's base insufficiently mobilised. He acknowledged that higher petrol prices had hurt his party. Trump's advisers, by contrast, blamed Fox News, so-called RINOs and what they called lazy candidates, and Trump singled out Texas Governor Greg Abbott, whom he called a RINO.

Republican infighting

Several Republicans have begun to blame Trump himself. Matt Dole, chair of the Republicans in Licking County, Ohio, said part of the party would push for a return to normalcy, rejecting Trump's style while not necessarily his ideology and policies.

“There is a certain amount of self-examination going on in the Republican Party about which path it should take.”

Bobby Charles, who lost the Republican bid for governor of Maine, said he was optimistic about the future because Trump would be gone in two years. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Politico.

Economic and policy drivers

BBC reporting cited by Focus named the high cost of living as a decisive factor, along with the war against Iran and higher fuel prices, which voters held against the government. Handelsblatt commentary listed the cost of living, petrol prices, healthcare and the economy as the main problems for Americans, with the Iran war weighing on Trump. The same commentary said many Latino and Asian American voters had returned to the Democrats, mainly for economic reasons.

What comes next

Democrats now control both chambers, but Handelsblatt commentary expects broad legislative gridlock on major projects because Democrats lack the two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto. Democrats could open investigations, block presidential nominees, especially judicial ones, and pursue another impeachment, though no concrete initiative had been reported. Trump had said in January before Republican lawmakers that they would find a reason to impeach him.

The Atlantic wrote that Trump had been forced to confront his political mortality, while the New York Times described the vote as a day for national pride, saying the system had held. The Sydney Morning Herald wrote that the end of the turbulent Trump era was in sight, and Reforma compared the election to a natural disaster.