Trump's party loses Congress; Democrats seize House, Senate in historic midterm sweep | World News

Democrats won control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives on Tuesday, breaking through in Republican strongholds that had shut them out for generations as tens of millions of Americans delivered a damning verdict on President Donald Trump.

Supporters of Democratic US Senate candidate James Talarico cheer after news of his victory in the Texas race on Tuesday. (AFP)Voters in the conservative states that powered Trump’s return to the White House two years ago moved decisively towards the Democrats, driven by frustration over the war with Iran, worry about the cost of living and anger at the way Trump has run the country, polls suggested.

In an interview with Fox News, Trump said he would work with Democrats on issues such as immigration, but threatened to veto any “insane” bills they passed. Overriding a veto requires a two-thirds majority in both chambers.

Vice President JD Vance said voter frustration over the war in Iran and the US-Israel relationship doomed Republicans in the midterm elections, distancing himself from some of President Donald Trump’s policies before a possible 2028 White House bid. “The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night,” Vance said in a lengthy X post Wednesday.

Vance went further than Trump did in blaming the war for the Democrats’ landslide victory. “If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so,” Vance wrote. “Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that’s at least honest.”

Speaking later in the day, Trump - when asked about Vance’s comment - said: “it’s true to an extent, because of the spike in gas prices. But if I had to do it again, I would because Iran cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon”. The fallout from the results will be watched closely in New Delhi, because the Democrats’ stated priorities, the Iran war, Trump’s global tariffs and the Trump family’s business dealings, all touch India. The Iran war has disrupted shipping through West Asia and killed Indian seafarers, and Trump’s tariffs are the subject of India’s trade negotiations with Washington.

Gregory Meeks, the New York Democrat expected to chair the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has long backed the US-India partnership and has criticised the administration’s handling of ties with India. A Democratic House is also expected to scrutinise Pakistan’s dealings with businesses linked to Trump’s family and associates. Trump’s offer to work with Democrats on immigration will be followed closely by Indians, who receive most H-1B work visas and form the largest group of foreign students in the US.

The result returns Washington to divided government after two years in which the Republican-controlled Congress rarely exercised its power to rein in Trump.

From January, when the new Congress is seated, Democrats will be able to investigate the administration and Trump’s family and allies, and to extract concessions on major legislation. Every bill the administration wants, government funding included, will need their votes, and their Senate majority will let them block Trump’s nominees, including any Supreme Court justice should a vacancy arise. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate, said there was “now a generational remake of the Senate map that is going to change America”. “Americans voted for change, and now Democrats must deliver,” he said.

Texas, the largest Republican-held state, ended a Democratic drought that had lasted decades. James Talarico, a 37-year-old former schoolteacher, defeated Trump-backed state attorney general Ken Paxton to become the state’s first Democratic senator since 1988, and Gina Hinojosa unseated three-term governor Greg Abbott.

Kansas elected Adam Hamilton, its first Democratic senator since 1932. In South Carolina, which Trump won by nearly 18 points in 2024, Democrat Annie Andrews defeated Darline Graham, Trump’s pick for the seat held by her late brother, senator Lindsey Graham.

Trump, whom the US Constitution bars from a third term, has dominated his party for most of a decade. Losing Congress may hasten his slide into lame-duck status, as Republicans hoping to succeed him begin positioning for the 2028 presidential race. As it became clear on Tuesday night that Republicans could lose both chambers, Trump wrote on social media: “I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!” In later interviews, he conceded that the Iran war had contributed to his party’s losses but stood by his decision to go to war.

Democrats campaigned on corruption and affordability, blaming Trump’s policies for rising prices and pointing to the billions of dollars the Trump family has made since his return to the White House. Republicans, led by Trump, fought on culture-war issues such as transgender rights and cast their rivals as extremists, but polls consistently showed voters were more worried about household finances.

Inflation hurt Republicans even in Texas, where roughly 2 in 10 voters said rising prices had caused their families “severe” hardship and nearly three-quarters of them backed Talarico, according to The AP Voter Poll, a survey of midterm voters in all 50 states. Nationally, two-thirds of voters said Trump’s policies had made the economy worse, and about 8 in 10 of them voted Democratic. More than half said government corruption was “crucial” to their vote, slightly more than the share who said the same of the cost of living.

Democrats gained in rich and poor counties alike, and most sharply in heavily Latino ones, including Texas border counties that had moved towards Trump in 2024, and went on to flip more than two dozen Republican-held House seats to secure a majority, about a dozen of them in districts Trump had won by double digits.

In Michigan, progressive Democrat Abdul El-Sayed defeated Trump-backed Mike Rogers, a former congressman and FBI agent who had sought to falsely portray El-Sayed, an Egyptian American born in Michigan, as a religious extremist. Senate races in Mississippi and Alaska had not been called by early Wednesday.

In exit polls conducted by SSRS for a group of US media outlets including the Associated Press, half of voters said they saw the election as a chance to register their opposition to the President, and three-quarters said they were “angry” or “dissatisfied” with the country’s direction. And 70% said they wanted Congress to provide more checks and balances on the President, a view shared by about 4 in 10 Republicans, according to The AP Voter Poll.

Only half of voters viewed the Democratic Party favourably, compared with 4 in 10 for the Republicans, and roughly 2 in 10 said neither party was better equipped to handle the economy, foreign policy, healthcare, taxes or immigration, the AP poll found. Those sceptical voters broke largely for Democrats. “This is a rebuke by the electorate to the Republicans more than it is a victory for the Democrats,” Republican strategist Anang Mittal told HT.

Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House, is in line to become its first Black Speaker.

Shashank Mattoo is the Washington DC-based US Correspondent for Hindustan Times. Shashank covers the Trump administration, the India-US relationship and America's policies towards South Asia and the broader Indo-Pacific.Read More