For President Donald Trump, Democratic control of Congress will reshape his final two years in office and is likely to hamstring his agenda.
The AP Voter Poll found that most voters blamed the Trump administration for high costs and wanted Congress to place more checks on the president. The results reflected deep frustration over high prices, the Iran war and concerns about government corruption.
Trump had urged voters to act as though he were on the ballot. Before polls closed on Tuesday, he said he would become “Mr Veto” if Democrats won.
They did. Democrats swept the midterm contests for the US House of Representatives and Senate, taking both chambers for the remainder of Trump's presidency. By Wednesday evening, Democrats held 54 Senate seats and 237 House seats, with 376 of 435 House seats counted. Two Senate contests, in Mississippi and Alaska, had yet to be called.
All 435 House seats and 35 of the Senate's 100 seats were contested on Tuesday. Democrats flipped seven Senate seats and will have a majority in the chamber next year. The gains came in Texas, Kansas, Iowa, Ohio, South Carolina, Maine and North Carolina.
In Kansas, voters elected a Democrat to the Senate after almost 100 years without doing so. Iowa had an all-Republican congressional delegation before the election, although Democrats have now won three of the state's four House seats. Trump had carried Iowa by 13 percentage points two years earlier.
Democrats also won House districts that had backed Trump by as much as 18 points in 2024. They flipped five gubernatorial races and will hold a majority of governorships for the first time since 2010. The outcome was a rebuke to Trump and the Republican Party.
Once it was clear that Republicans had lost both chambers, Trump said he was willing to collaborate with Democrats. In an interview with Fox News, he said: “The Democrats did a good job. They fought hard” and “I don't view it as a hit on me. We've had the greatest two years in the history of the presidency”.
Trump also accepted that it was “largely true” that the Iran war lay behind his party's losses, while saying he would “do it again” if needed. Vice-President JD Vance gave a sharper assessment, calling the war “the reason we lost”.
Vance said he remained opposed to “amnesty” for undocumented immigrants, while adding that he was “open to the idea that we should change enforcement - by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labour, for instance”. After his comments on the war, Brent crude fell by more than 8% to about $95 a barrel on Wednesday afternoon, its lowest level in two months and below $100 a barrel. Stock markets rose after the Democratic victory: the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 3%, the S&P 500 closed 1.6% higher, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq rose 1.4%.
In the House, Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries announced his bid for speaker and is poised to become the first Black speaker of the House. Steve Scalise, the Republican House leader, said in a five page letter that he would seek the House Minority Leader post.
Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar said in her victory speech: “I am not going to be a rubber stamp for Donald Trump. And I will do my job without fear or favor”. Republican Senator Susan Collins conceded her race, ending her bid for a sixth term.
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