Democrats Win Control of U.S. Senate and House in Major Setback for Trump
Democrats flipped seven Senate seats and retook the House, handing President Donald Trump a major midterm defeat.
Democrats won control of both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on Tuesday. The House was called earlier in the evening, with CNN calling the Senate at about 11:35 p.m. ET.
All 435 House seats and 35 of the 100 Senate seats were up for election. Democrats had 54 Senate seats and Republicans 44 early Wednesday, according to NBC News, with two races uncalled, including Alaska.
Seven Senate flips
Democrats flipped Texas (James Talarico), Ohio (Sherrod Brown), North Carolina (Roy Cooper), South Carolina (Annie Andrews), Kansas (Adam Hamilton), Iowa (Josh Turek) and Maine (Troy Jackson), where Jackson defeated Sen. Susan Collins.
Talarico’s win is the first statewide Democratic victory in Texas since 1994. Andrews is the first Democrat elected to the Senate from South Carolina since 1998, and Hamilton the first from Kansas since 1932. In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed held the seat for Democrats and becomes the first Muslim U.S. senator.
Republicans held seats including Wyoming, Kentucky, Tennessee, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Arkansas, Alabama and Florida, but had not flipped any Democratic-held seat in the races called so far.
What it means for Trump
Victor Bardou-Bourgeois, a researcher at UQAM’s Raoul-Dandurand Chair, told Le Devoir that a Democratic Congress raises “a risk of even more political confrontation” over the budget, and that House investigations are “where it can hurt the president and his allies.” (Translated from French.)
Trump told The New York Times, “I am absolutely willing to accept those results,” and said he was prepared to work with Democrats. He also told Fox News that Democrats did a “good job.”
Sources: NBC News, CBS News, CNN, Le Devoir, The New York Times, Fox News