Democrats Win Senate and House, Exposing Trump’s Weakening Grip on Voters
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Democrats flipped multiple Senate seats and captured the House, while President Trump insisted the results would have been different if he had been on the ballot.
Democrats turned a widely predicted “blue wave” into a decisive political rebuke, winning seven Senate seats, more than two dozen House seats and increasing the number of Democratic governors. The Associated Press called the Senate race for Democrats shortly after polls closed, and the House was secured a few hours later, handing the party control of both chambers and the power to obstruct President Trump’s agenda.
The election produced a series of historic breakthroughs for the opposition party and underscored the growing vulnerability of Republicans in places long treated as safe. A Democrat won a Senate seat in Kansas for the first time in 94 years, and South Carolina elected a Democrat to the Senate for the first time in nearly three decades. In Texas, progressive newcomer James Talarico defeated incumbent Attorney General Ken Paxton, ending a 38-year Republican streak in that race. Other states, including Iowa and North Carolina, also elected Democratic senators for the first time since 2008.
President Trump responded to the losses by insisting he was not on the ballot and claiming that, had he been, “we would have won in a landslide.” He repeated the claim in an interview with the New York Times, arguing that the absence of his name on the ticket suppressed Republican turnout. The president also said he was “absolutely willing” to accept the midterm results.
Pre-election polling had suggested Democratic leads in several competitive Senate contests, though some pollsters warned that higher response rates among Democratic voters could skew the data. The outcomes also marked a sharp break from the usual success of candidates endorsed by President Trump, as several of his handpicked nominees were defeated in key races.
"I wasn’t on the ballot and if I was, we would have won in a landslide! Thank you for your attention to this matter," President Trump said.
"I wasn’t on the ticket, and because I wasn’t on the ticket, we couldn’t get enough people out to vote," he added in the interview.
The results highlight a noticeable shift in voter sentiment across districts that previously supported President Trump, with many Republican incumbents struggling in tighter contests even in traditionally red states.