Democratic control of both chambers of Congress gives the party power for the remainder of President Donald Trump’s second term, with consequences for the direction of US policy and its relations abroad.
Voters’ frustration over high prices, the Iran war and concerns about government corruption drove the midterm result, according to the election account.
Trump had promised petrol prices below $2 per gallon during his 2024 campaign for a second term.
US strikes on Iran began on February 28, 2026, and the war that followed drove up energy prices. Diesel reached a record average of $6.25 per gallon in October, while gasoline averaged $4.31 per gallon that month.
On election day, Democrats took both the Senate and the House of Representatives. They flipped at least seven Senate seats in states including Kansas, Iowa, Texas, Ohio, Maine, North Carolina and South Carolina.
Kansas had last elected a Democrat to the Senate almost 100 years ago. Democrats also won in Republican strongholds including Texas, Ohio and Kansas, states Trump had carried by double digits two years earlier.
In the House, Democrats flipped more than two dozen districts, including some that had voted for Trump by double digits in 2024.
In Detroit, Abdul El-Sayed declared victory over the Republican Mike Rogers in the Michigan Senate race, which will make him the first Muslim senator in US history. “Mike, enjoy your retirement. You chose hate and Michigan chose hope. May we never have to see the likes of you in this state again,” he said.
Trump acknowledged that the US-Israel war on Iran had probably affected his party’s performance, saying voters were probably not ready “for the short-term consequence of the price of gasoline”. He told the New York Times, “I am absolutely willing to accept those results,” while writing on Truth Social that, if he had been on the ballot, “We would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!”
The results also shifted statehouses. Keisha Lance Bottoms, Amy Acton, Rob Sand and Gina Hinojosa won governors’ races in Georgia, Ohio, Iowa and Texas respectively, taking offices held by the Republican Party. Democrats will hold a majority of governors’ offices for the first time since 2010.
Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, said: “The American people don't want us to get even. They want us to get things done on their behalf because life is way too expensive.” He said Democrats “ran on affordability and won on affordability.”
Robert Garcia, the California Democratic representative set to chair the Oversight Committee, delivered a warning to people in Trump’s circle: “Lawyer up”.
The outcome prompted sharp responses overseas. Christel Schaldemose, a vice-president of the European Parliament, said she was “cautiously optimistic on Europe's behalf”.
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the Iranian parliament speaker and chief negotiator in talks with the US, wrote: “Americans said NO TO WAR, and we endorse this message”. Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said partisan changes in Washington would not change US “hostility” towards Tehran.
Yair Golan, an Israeli opposition figure, said the vote showed “just how toxic Netanyahu has become” among US Democrats and Republicans. Yair Lapid, Israel’s opposition leader, said it ruled out “any possibility of a unity government led by Netanyahu”.
Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called snap elections for 29 November, describing the Democratic victory as evidence of the global far right’s “unravelling”.
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