Democrats take Congress with wins deep in Trump country
WASHINGTON — Democrats won control of both chambers of the US Congress on Tuesday after victories in states Donald Trump had carried comfortably two years earlier. In Texas, they captured a US Senate seat and defeated three-term Republican Governor Greg Abbott. Kansas elected its first Democratic senator since the 1930s. Trump rejected the suggestion that voters had delivered a verdict on his presidency, telling reporters, “I don’t view it as a hit on me.”
Democrats went into election day favoured to win the House of Representatives, but their route to a Senate majority required a net gain of four seats. By Wednesday, the Associated Press had called at least seven Republican-held Senate seats for Democrats. Alongside Texas and Kansas, the party picked up seats in Iowa, Ohio, Maine, North Carolina and South Carolina. In the House, more than two dozen Republican-held districts changed hands, including some Trump won by double digits in 2024.
Trump disputes what the losses say about him
During the campaign, Trump had urged supporters to vote as though his own name were on the ballot. After the results came in, he defended his economic record and told journalists that the war with Iran accounted for only part of the Republican losses. Reporting by Reuters identified both the cost of living and opposition to the war as sources of voter dissatisfaction.
When the new Congress takes office in January, Trump will need Democratic support to pass spending bills for the final two years of his term. Democrats will also control the committees that can investigate his administration. The Senate victories give them a power a House win alone could not deliver: a decisive vote on whether Trump’s nominees, including any future Supreme Court nominee, are confirmed.
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