Democrats Take House in Midterm Wave Against Trump; Senate Control Hangs in the Balance

In Indiana, a district Donald Trump carried by 17 percentage points in 2024 went to a Democrat on Tuesday night. J.D. Ford ousted Republican congresswoman Victoria Spartz, and analysts who had been watching the race as a bellwether read it as an early sign that the evening could turn into what they call a blue wave. By the end of the night, that reading looked right.

CNN and CNBC projected that Democrats had won the House. The majority gives the party the power to block Trump's legislative agenda and to open sweeping investigations of his administration during the last two years of his term. Committees are expected to look into the war with Iran, mass deportations and allegations of corruption.

The Senate was still undecided. Republicans began election day with a 53-47 majority, so Democrats needed four net gains to take control. Two Republican seats had already flipped by the time the projections came in. In North Carolina, popular former governor Roy Cooper defeated a candidate Trump had handpicked. In South Carolina, Democratic pediatrician Annie Andrews defeated Darline Graham, according to media projections.

The South Carolina result was one of the night's biggest shocks. Graham had Trump's backing and had been appointed to the seat after her brother, longtime Republican senator Lindsey Graham, died in July. Democrats had not won a Senate election in that deeply conservative state since 1998.

Democrats also held seats they needed to keep. In Georgia, Jon Ossoff won reelection. In New Hampshire, Chris Pappas won and became the first openly gay man elected to the Senate. Ossoff described the results as a rejection of Trump's "depravity, corruption and incompetence." In Georgia, Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms, a former Atlanta mayor, won the governorship. She is the first Black woman elected governor in US history, and her win ended 24 years of Republican control.

Elsewhere the House map showed Democratic gains reaching into normally conservative territory. The party flipped a Republican-held seat in North Carolina. In Florida, results suggested that redrawn district boundaries were not delivering the gains Republicans had expected. Republicans still had successes there, though some came after tight, nervous counts. Trump-backed Byron Donalds won the governorship and became Florida's first Black governor, and Republican Ashley Moody kept her Senate seat.

The backdrop was a national verdict on Trump's turbulent second term. Voters were unhappy about living costs, tariffs and the US war against Iran, which has pushed fuel prices sharply higher, and Trump's approval ratings are near record lows. Taylor Cook, a 24-year-old voter in Los Angeles, told AFP that rent, groceries, utility bills and property taxes keep climbing, and that she wanted people in Congress who would act on costs.

Trump defended his record in a final Fox News appearance on Tuesday, praising his tariffs, his immigration crackdown and the military campaign against Iran. "We have to keep America great. We're great now. We were terrible two years ago," said the 80-year-old president. In a podcast released Monday he had already considered life with an opposition Congress, saying "I veto everything," before conceding he might eventually make deals with Democrats. A White House official told AFP the mood around him was "defiant" and that he would resist the "radical left" whatever the outcome. "Buckle up," the official said.

What to watch now is the remaining Senate count. Democrats need two more net gains to reach the four required for control, and a Senate loss would put Trump's judicial nominees and senior administration appointments at risk.