Democrats seized both chambers of Congress in Tuesday’s midterm elections, handing President Trump a sweeping repudiation two years before he leaves office.
The party flipped Senate seats in Iowa, Kansas, Maine, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina and Texas, while posting equally staggering House gains that positioned Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries to lead the Senate and House. It marked the first time since 2006 that an out-of-power party won back both chambers in a single midterm cycle.
“America is back,” Jeffries said. Schumer added that the Dems had won “against all odds” and that “relief was on the way.”
Trump, who had urged voters at an Iowa rally less than two weeks before Election Day to “pretend I’m on the ballot,” took to Truth Social late Tuesday with a different message. “I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!” he posted — directly contradicting his own campaign-trail plea.
The president said in a post-election phone call that he planned to work across the aisle during the lame-duck term and beyond. “The Democrats did a good job,” he said. “They fought hard.”
Trump placed significant blame for the losses on fallout from the Iran war, which drove energy prices higher. “I think a part of it was Iran,” he said, attributing more responsibility to the conflict’s downstream effects than to the decision to launch military action. “People agree with what I’m doing on Iran, but they really probably weren’t willing to do the short-term consequence of paying more for gasoline. I understand that. I don’t agree with it.”
He also insisted the results had nothing to do with his Cabinet, saying, “It had nothing to do with my Cabinet,” and pledging not to let any more administration members go.
The outcome will mire Trump in investigations for his final two years, block his legislative agenda and make confirming new Cabinet secretaries and judges — including to the Supreme Court — incredibly difficult. People close to Trump have already been retaining lawyers in preparation for planned House Oversight Committee probes into alleged corruption and business dealings seen as favorable to the first family.
The incoming committee chairman had a blunt two-word warning for GOP and Trump allies reeling from Tuesday’s losses: “LAWYER UP.”
Republican infighting erupted immediately as party leaders searched for scapegoats. “We got destroyed because of Iran,” said one top Republican strategist. “Iran is what caused gas prices and diesel prices to skyrocket — not tariffs.”
“Too many people sat silently, or even worse, misled the president into a war without a realistic exit,” added a Trump political adviser.
Others faulted candidate recruitment. “Tbh most Republican candidates this cycle were uninspiring, lazy, and thoroughly ineffective communicators. I’m not all that surprised by some of these outcomes,” posted Trump adviser Alex Bruesewitz on X.
Several Trump hand-picked candidates fell decisively, including South Carolina Senate hopeful Darline Graham, sister of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton, currently serving as the state’s attorney general. Trump defended his involvement in selecting them, saying, “I had no choice,” and adding that Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) “kissed my ass” when it was “fashionable” to do so.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who had acknowledged historic headwinds before Nov. 3, told reporters as results came in that “there’s a lot of reasons” for the Democratic victory with the GOP trifecta in place. “From the first day of this election, we knew that to keep the House and sustain our majority, we would have to defy more than a century of midterm history,” Johnson said. “It’s only happened twice in 90 years that a sitting president has picked up or held seats for his party in that first two-year cycle. It’s very, very difficult to overcome, and it looks like history will be kept.”
Trump had previewed a confrontational approach before the vote, telling The Post’s “Pod Force One” podcast that he was ready to become “Mr. Veto” if needed after 2026. “They’ll be sending stuff up. You veto it,” he explained. “And eventually, after a month or two of getting all vetoed, they’re just wasting [time], they come over, and you make a deal. I think that probably would happen, but hopefully we don’t have to worry about that.”
Tuesday’s sweep realized long-held Democratic dreams, including turning Senate seats in deep-red Texas and Kansas blue. The party also ended Republican governorships in Ohio and Texas, where three-term Gov. Greg Abbott’s loss ranked among the most shocking of the night.
Trump entered the midterms with historically low approval ratings fueled by cost-of-living concerns, with the outlet exit poll showing 62% of voters blamed his policies for higher prices and 71% saying Congress must do more to check the president. The final scale of the wipeout remained unclear due to slow vote-counting, including in the Alaska Senate race, which uses ranked-choice voting.
The White House blamed “candidate quality” for the losses, even though many Republican candidates were hand-picked by Trump himself.
Trump’s lame-duck period begins with his legislative agenda stalled and oversight investigations looming.