The Democratic Party gained control of the United States House of Representatives on Tuesday during the midterm elections, taking the majority from the Republicans in what NBC News described as “a resounding rebuke of President Donald Trump by voters”.
NBC News projections placed the Democrats at around 244 seats, well above the threshold of 218 needed to control the 435-member House. CBS News, cited by the BBC, confirmed that the Democrats would secure at least 218 seats compared to the 160 or more projected for the Republicans.
"I wasn't on the ballot, and if I had been, we would have won BY A LANDSLIDE VICTORY!" Thank you for your attention to this matter, said Trump on his social network.
The result marks the biggest electoral setback for Trump since his return to the White House in January 2025 and signifies the first time in his second term that Republicans have lost control of a chamber of Congress.
The White House is trying to distance itself from the election results and is adopting a defiant attitude. "Trump was not on the ballot," a senior administration official assures us via text message, attributing the losses to the Republican candidates themselves. "The president has done more to promote many of them than they have done themselves," he adds, reported Spanish journalist David Alandete, correspondent for the ABC newspaper in Washington.
"The argument contrasts with Trump's strategy during the campaign, when he urged voters to cast their ballots as if his name were on them. Now, in light of the poor results, his team is trying to prevent the punitive vote from being interpreted as a direct rejection of his presidency," Alandete noted.
One of the most striking outcomes of the night was the Democratic victory in South Carolina, a Republican stronghold that Trump won by nearly 18 points in 2024. «There is no other way to describe it: it's a Democratic tsunami. Annie Andrews' victory in South Carolina, a Republican stronghold that Trump won by nearly 18 points in 2024, is particularly revealing. She defeats Darline Graham, the candidate that the President himself personally endorsed. The Democrats had not won a Senate seat there since 1998. The backlash against Trump reaches even territories that seemed impregnable,» noted the reporter.
The victory was interpreted by NBC News as a punitive referendum against the administration's most unpopular policies: the war with Iran initiated in February, the tariffs on allies that drove the price of gasoline from $2.98 to $4.48 per gallon between February and September, cuts to Medicaid, and immigration policy. Exit polls revealed that 62% of voters disapproved of Trump's management and that 65% believed the tariffs were harming the country.
The Democratic leader, Representative Hakeem Jeffries from New York, is on track to become the first African American president of the House when the new Congress convenes on January 3, 2027, the source added.
With the control of the committees, the Democrats gain subpoena power to investigate the Trump administration. Representative Robert Garcia from California, appointed to chair the Oversight Committee, announced that his panel will focus on the “corruption of the Trump family”, including the president's cryptocurrency operations that are said to have generated over $1 billion. The actions of the immigration service and the files of Jeffrey Epstein will also be examined.
Regarding the possibility of a third impeachment trial for Trump, Jeffries stated on the program "Meet the Press" that the Democrats "have not ruled anything out or taken anything for granted."
Trump announced that he will resort to the presidential veto as his "ultimate power" against the new Democratic majority, while the presidential approval rating had dropped to historic lows —31% according to Reuters/Ipsos and 33% according to ABC News–Washington Post–Ipsos— in October.
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