Democrats snatch Congress in sweeping midterm vote

WASHINGTON: Democrats seized control of both the ​Senate and House of Representatives, scoring sweeping victories in Republican strongholds for the first time ​in generations as tens of millions of voters delivered a scathing rebuke to President Donald Trump. Voters in conservative bastions who had propelled the president to his second term in office just two years ago swung dramatically toward Democrats, fuelled by deep frustration over the unpopular war with Iran, anxiety over the high cost of living and anger at Trump's stewardship of the country.
In Texas, the biggest Republican state, Democrats ended a decades-long losing streak in seismic fashion, winning a Senate seat and ousting three-term Governor Greg Abbott. Kansas elected its first Democratic senator since the Great Depression nearly a century ago, and in South Carolina, a state that Trump carried by nearly 18 points in 2024, Democrats turned aside his hand-picked Senate candidate.
The results will usher in a new era of divided government in Washington, following two years in which the Republican-controlled Congress rarely exercised its power to rein in Trump. Once seated in January, Democrats are expected to use their power to investigate Trump's administration, family ⁠and allies and demand concessions on major legislation. The Democratic Senate can block Trump's nominees, including any US Supreme Court justices should a vacancy arise. 'There is now a generational remake of the Senate map that is going to change America,' said Chuck ⁠Schumer, the party's Senate minority leader. 'Americans voted for change, and now Democrats must deliver.'
Trump has exercised an iron grip on his party for most of the last decade. But the new balance of power in Washington may accelerate his lame-duck status, as attention turns toward the 2028 presidential race and potential successors begin competing for political influence in a post-Trump world. Despite worries from Democrats that Trump might seek to overturn the election results, as he did in 2020, the president accepted the outcome, congratulating Democrats in an interview with Fox News.
Democrats focused their campaign on ​corruption and affordability, blaming Trump's tariff policy and the war with Iran for ⁠driving up costs while highlighting the billions of dollars the Trump family has made since he returned to the White House. Republicans, led by Trump, attacked Democrats over culture war issues such as transgender rights while ​portraying their opponents as radical and extreme. But in poll after poll, voters made it clear they were far more concerned with pocketbook issues.
The Democratic wave flooded huge swaths of the country. Republicans lost ground in all but a handful of the approximately 2,100 counties where most votes had been counted, according to tallies. Democrats made gains in the richest counties and the poorest; in counties where more people have college degrees and where fewer do. Democrats' advances were particularly ​sharp in heavily Latino counties, including the border counties of Texas that shifted toward Trump in 2024 and the agricultural towns of the Kansas prairie.
In Seward County, Kansas, home to one of America's biggest beef processing plants and where about half of eligible voters are Hispanic, Democrat Adam Hamilton led incumbent Republican Senator Roger Marshall by 13 points, two years after Trump won the county by 39 points. Democrats flipped more than two dozen House seats currently held by Republicans, locking in a majority. Democrats won all the closely contested House races that have been decided so far, and they won about a dozen races in districts that Trump won by double digits two years ago.
An unprecedented Republican gambit to redraw several House districts to make them more favourable largely failed, with Democrats hanging on to most of the targeted seats. Midterm elections are typically seen as a referendum on the sitting president, and Trump did little to disabuse voters of that notion. In the campaign's final weeks, he held dozens of rallies, telling supporters repeatedly to 'pretend I'm on the ballot.' He also intervened in several Republican primaries earlier this year to ensure his preferred candidates reached ​the ballot, despite concerns from some Republicans that his choices carried significant liabilities. — Reuters