MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Democrats retake control of the US Congress in a heavy blow to Trump

CBS News projected a Democratic majority in the House shortly after 10 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday; with dozens of seats still to be decided, Democrats had passed the 218 needed

The Democratic Party on Tuesday regained control of both the US House of Representatives and the Senate in the midterm elections, winning in Republican strongholds such as Texas, Ohio and Kansas in a heavy blow to President Donald Trump, who will govern for the remaining two years of his term with Congress in opposition hands.

CBS News projected a Democratic majority in the House shortly after 10 p.m. Eastern time on Tuesday; with dozens of seats still to be decided, Democrats had passed the 218 needed. In the Senate, they secured a majority with victory in Iowa and hold at least 53 of the 100 seats, with results in Alaska and Mississippi still pending. According to El País, it is only the seventh time the party in power has lost both chambers in a midterm election.

Democrats won Senate seats in states where they had not done so for decades. In Texas, James Talarico defeated Republican Ken Paxton; in Ohio, Sherrod Brown regained the seat from Jon Husted; in Kansas, Methodist pastor Adam Hamilton became the state’s first Democratic senator in almost a century. They also won in Iowa, with Josh Turek; in Maine, where Troy Jackson defeated Republican Susan Collins, a senator since 1997; in North Carolina, with Roy Cooper; and in South Carolina, with Annie Andrews. In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, the son of Egyptian immigrants, will be the first Muslim senator in US history. Republicans held seats in Florida, Idaho and Montana.

In governor’s races, Democrat Gina Hinojosa defeated Greg Abbott in Texas and will be the first Hispanic woman to lead the state; Xavier Becerra will be California’s first Hispanic governor since 1875; and Deb Haaland, in New Mexico, the first Native American woman to govern a state. In Florida, Republican Byron Donalds will be the state’s first Black governor.

Trump told Fox News he was “a little surprised” and that the Democrats “did a good job”, attributing part of the defeat to the Iran war and higher fuel prices. He told The New York Times he would accept the results and hoped to reach agreements with the opposition. On his social network, however, he wrote: “I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!”, and posted an image of his cap bearing the word “VETO”, a reference to his threat to veto the new Congress’s laws.

With majorities in both chambers, Democrats will be able to block the White House’s legislative agenda and open investigations into the first half of the term. Former president Barack Obama said voters had sent “a clear message” in favour of “a politics that brings people together rather than divides them”. China said it was ready to “keep working” with Washington, and the Kremlin said it expected Trump to maintain his foreign policy. Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said “Americans have said no to war”.

Polls had identified the cost of living, corruption and the Iran war as voters’ main concerns, and turnout was at record levels for a midterm election.