By Indianara Goz
President Donald Trump has lost control of the US Congress. In the midterm elections held on Tuesday, November 3, Democrats won a majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The Senate victory was projected by the Associated Press and CBS News. The House victory was projected by the decision desks of NBC News and Decision Desk HQ. It is Trump's biggest political defeat since he returned to the White House.
Starting in January, Trump will govern the last two years of his term with the opposition in charge of both chambers of Congress.
Democrats flip Senate seats in states where Republicans were favored
Republicans held 53 of the Senate's 100 seats and needed 50 to keep their majority. According to the projections, Democrats flipped seats in states where Trump's party was the favorite:
- Texas: Democrat James Talarico defeated Republican Ken Paxton.
- North Carolina: former governor Roy Cooper beat Michael Whatley, the candidate backed by Trump.
- South Carolina, Ohio, Kansas and Iowa: Republican seats also went to the Democrats.
Democrats also held their seats in Georgia, with Jon Ossoff, in New Hampshire, and in Virginia, with Mark Warner. In Florida, Republican Ashley Moody secured the win for Trump's party. The final size of the new Democratic majority still depends on the vote count in some states.
What Trump said
On election night, Trump wrote on his social network, Truth Social: "I was not on the ballot and, if I had been, we would have won in a landslide." In the early hours of Wednesday, in a phone call to Fox News, he congratulated the Democrats on their victories. He also promised to comment on "the reasons, good and bad," why candidates won and lost.
What changes for Trump and why it matters
Midterm elections are held halfway through a president's four-year term, and they work as a test of the White House. With both chambers, Democrats will now control the voting agenda, the committees, the investigations and the federal government's budget. Trump's nominations for the judiciary and for government posts will depend on the Senate, which is now in the opposition's hands.
The president keeps his veto power. Overriding a veto requires two-thirds of both chambers, a number the Democrats do not have.
VDD Analysis
The defeat is a hard one and there is no way to disguise it: Republicans lost seats in conservative states such as Texas, Kansas and Iowa. Persistent inflation, the war with Iran and the historical rule that the president's party loses strength at midterms all weighed on the result. It happened to Obama in 2010 and to Trump himself in 2018, who had a record vote two years later.
Trump remains president, with the pen and the veto power, and the American right has two years to regroup before 2028. For conservatives around the world, including in Brazil, the message is clear: elections are won through mobilization, and no victory is guaranteed.
