The Democrats promised to use their resounding victory in the midterm elections to curb President Donald Trump, which could lead to two years of gridlock in Washington, while Trump took advantage of his first public appearance after the elections to display the ballroom that is under construction at the White House.
A wave of outrage over Trump’s policies, especially the role of the US-Iran war in driving up the cost of living, helped the Democrats win the Senate, where they flipped seats in states traditionally Republican, securing a majority of at least 54 to 44. The Democrats also won at least 30 seats in a wave of flips in the House of Representatives.
It will be the first time that Trump, a Republican who also occupied the White House from 2017 to 2021, will have to deal with Democrats controlling both chambers of Congress.
The Democratic leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, said on Wednesday that the future majority would focus on affordability and accountability.
“We do not work for Donald Trump,” Jeffries said, a New York lawmaker who is on track to become the first Black speaker of the House, telling reporters on Wednesday. “We work for the American people. And the days when the House of Representatives functioned as a full subsidiary of Trump’s administration are over.”
FOR ME, IT’S RELAXING
Trump, who had devoted his last public appearance before the elections, on Monday, to talking about the renovations he is carrying out at the Reflecting Pool of the Lincoln Memorial, summoned reporters the morning after his party’s crushing defeat in the midterm elections to show off the ballroom he is building at the White House.
“When I’m criticized, the kind of criticism like: ‘Why are you remodeling the White House?’ I respond that I am doing this because the White House is the supreme symbol of the United States and needs to be immaculate, needs to be perfect,” Trump said. “For me, it’s relaxing.”
He only briefly referred to the elections during his nearly hour-long appearance, telling reporters: “I’ll probably get along with the Democrats, unless they want to be destructive, but I have a veto power.”
Trump presented the midterm elections as a referendum on the first half of his second four-year term in the White House, repeatedly urging his Republican base to “pretend I am on the ballot,” a message that Democratic Party leaders were happy to amplify.
The result: voters in conservative strongholds who propelled the president to his second term just two years ago shifted dramatically in favor of the Democrats, motivated by deep frustration with the unpopular war against Iran, anxiety about the high cost of living, and anger at the way Trump has governed the country.
In Texas, the largest state led by Republicans until Tuesday, Democrats ended a decades-long losing streak in a crushing fashion, winning their first Senate seat in the state since 1988 and defeating Governor Greg Abbott.
Kansas elected its first Democratic senator since the Great Depression, nearly a century ago, and in South Carolina — a state where Trump won by almost 18 points in 2024 — the Democrats defeated the Senate candidate handpicked by him.
