As 'blue wave' sweeps Republicans out of House and Senate, Trump floats claim he would've trumped them all

 

Donald Trump may not have been on the ballot, but that hardly stopped American voters from delivering a stinging rebuke of his presidency.

And as the Republican rout became increasingly apparent, the president, never one to let reality have the last word, took to social media to offer his own post-mortem.

"I wasn't on the ballot, and if I was, we would have won in a landslide!" he declared, before signing off with his trademark flourish: "Thank you for your attention to this matter."

He later posted on social media platform Truth Social a photo of a baseball hat with the word “Veto” emblazoned across the front.

When speaking to The New York Times, however, Trump struck a more conciliatory note, saying he would accept the election results and was prepared to work with Democrats, suggesting that both sides might yet find common ground.

In a stunning repudiation of the president, Democrats swept to control of both the Senate and House on Tuesday, breaching Republican bastions in a series of victories that would have seemed almost unthinkable just two years ago.

From the conservative heartlands that had helped return Trump to the White House to states long regarded as Republican fortresses, voters delivered a resounding rebuke to his administration, dramatically reshaping the balance of power in Washington.

War with Iran, rising costs

The electoral backlash reflected mounting discontent over the deeply unpopular war with Iran, the punishing cost of living and growing dissatisfaction with Trump's stewardship of the country.

Nowhere was the scale of the political upheaval more evident than in states where Republican dominance had long appeared virtually unassailable.

Iranian flag

According to Reuters, Kansas elected its first Democratic senator since the Great Depression, which was nearly a century ago.

In South Carolina, where Trump had triumphed by almost 18 percentage points in 2024, voters rejected his hand-picked Senate candidate.

However, the biggest political shockwaves emanated from Texas. Democrats ended decades of Republican dominance in the country's largest red state, capturing a Senate seat and unseating three-term incumbent governor Greg Abbott.

The seismic shift will usher in a new era of divided government in Washington, ending two years of Republican control of Congress during which lawmakers rarely appeared inclined to use their institutional powers to rein in the president.

Congressional scrutiny awaits

Come January, Democrats will have more than a symbolic victory to celebrate. They are expected to turn congressional scrutiny towards Trump's administration, family, and political allies, while wielding their newfound leverage to demand concessions on major legislative initiatives.

A Democratic-controlled Senate could also frustrate the president's appointments, including nominations to the US Supreme Court should a vacancy arise.

United States Congress

"There is now a generational remake of the Senate map that is going to change America," said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

"Americans voted for change, and now Democrats must deliver," he told Reuters.

For Trump, however, the consequences extend beyond losing control of Congress.

After nearly a decade of exerting an iron grip on the Republican Party, the president could find his political authority progressively eroded as Washington's gaze turns towards the 2028 presidential race.

Constitutionally barred from seeking a third term, Trump faces the prospect of an accelerated lame-duck presidency, with potential successors already eyeing the post-Trump political landscape and positioning themselves to inherit his movement.

Unlike the aftermath of the 2020 election, there was no attempt to challenge the legitimacy of the results. Trump accepted the Democratic victories, congratulating the opposition in an interview with Fox News and expressing a willingness to cooperate on certain issues, including immigration.

Democrats built their campaign around two issues that appeared to resonate far more deeply with voters than the culture wars favoured by their opponents: corruption and affordability.

They blamed Trump's tariff policies and the war with Iran for exacerbating the cost-of-living squeeze, while highlighting the billions of dollars his family had made since his return to the White House.

Republicans’ failed narrative

Republicans, meanwhile, sought to steer the contest towards familiar ideological battlegrounds, attacking Democrats over transgender rights and portraying them as radical and extreme.

It was a gamble that appeared badly out of step with the electorate's priorities.

The Democratic wave was not confined to traditional liberal strongholds or closely fought battlegrounds. It swept across an astonishingly broad cross-section of the country.

An analysis of approximately 1,700 counties by Reuters and USA Today found that Republicans lost ground in all but a handful.

Democrats registered gains among wealthy and poorer communities, in counties with high concentrations of university graduates as well as those with fewer educational qualifications.

Their advances were particularly pronounced in heavily Latino areas, including Texas border counties that had swung towards Trump in 2024 and agricultural communities across the Kansas prairie.

In Seward County, Kansas, home to one of America's largest beef-processing plants and where Hispanics account for about half the eligible electorate, Democrat Adam Hamilton led incumbent Republican Senator Roger Marshall by 13 percentage points.

The turnaround was remarkable. Just two years earlier, Trump had carried the same county by 39 points.

The congressional results offered further evidence that this was no isolated protest confined to a handful of states.

Democrats won all 20 closely contested House races decided by Tuesday night, while an unprecedented Republican effort to redraw congressional boundaries to improve the party's electoral prospects largely fell flat, with Democrats retaining most of the seats targeted.

‘Pretend I'm on the ballot’

Trump, for his part, had done little to discourage voters from treating the midterms as a referendum on his presidency.

In the final weeks of campaigning, he crisscrossed the country, holding dozens of rallies and repeatedly imploring supporters to "pretend I'm on the ballot".

He also intervened in several electoral contests to ensure his preferred candidates emerged victorious, brushing aside concerns within Republican ranks that some of his choices carried considerable political baggage.

US President Donald Trump

In Texas, he backed scandal-plagued Attorney-General Ken Paxton in his challenge to incumbent Senator John Cornyn.

In South Carolina, he threw his weight behind political newcomer Darline Graham following the sudden death of her brother, Senator Lindsey Graham, earlier this year.

Both endorsements proved to be electoral liabilities rather than winning tickets.

Republican Party supporters at a rally in North Carolina

Even Republicans who sought to distance themselves from the president were not spared the fallout.

In Maine, incumbent Susan Collins saw her three-decade Senate career come to an end, despite repeatedly emphasising her willingness to break ranks with Trump during the campaign.

Michigan, meanwhile, produced a historic breakthrough.

Progressive Democrat Abdul El-Sayed captured the state's vacant Senate seat, becoming the first Muslim elected to the upper chamber.

Abdul El-Sayed

He defeated former congressperson and FBI agent Mike Rogers, who had Trump's backing and sought to portray the Michigan-born Egyptian-American as a religious extremist.

"You chose hate, and Michigan chose hope," El-Sayed told jubilant supporters, taking a swipe at his defeated opponent.

The Senate races in Mississippi and Alaska, however, remained too close to call in the early hours of Wednesday. - Mkini