Washington woke up on Wednesday to a different balance of power. Democrats are on course to run both chambers of Congress from January, according to projections by NBC News and CBS News, the first time since 2006 that a minority party has taken the House and the Senate on the same night.
The Senate result is the one few strategists saw coming at the start of the year. Republicans went in holding 53 seats, and the battlegrounds ran mostly through states Donald Trump had carried comfortably. Yet Democrats picked off Republican seats in Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, both Carolinas and, most strikingly, Texas, where state lawmaker James Talarico beat Ken Paxton, the scandal-hit holder of the state’s top legal office, in what became the priciest race anywhere this year. Georgia and New Hampshire stayed in Democratic hands as well.
In the House the margin looks wide. NBC News estimates around 255 Democratic seats against the 218 needed for control. Among the casualties was North Carolina Republican Richard Hudson, the man charged with defending his party’s majority. Hakeem Jeffries is expected to become the first Black speaker when the new Congress meets on January 3, while Chuck Schumer looks set to return as majority leader.
Exit polling points to a vote driven by money worries, fuel prices that climbed after the war with Iran began in February, and a hunger for checks on the White House. Some 43 percent of voters said opposing Trump was one reason for their choice, and 71 percent said Congress had not watched him closely enough. The president distanced himself from the losses, posting that he “wasn’t on the Ballot” and would otherwise have won “IN A LANDSLIDE”.
The practical stakes are large. With gavels and subpoena power, Democrats can open investigations, stall the administration’s legislation and, in the Senate, reject nominees. Jeffries has listed reversing Medicaid cuts, reclaiming authority over tariffs and ending the Iran war among his priorities, and he has declined to rule impeachment either in or out.
