Midterms success gives party potent leverage over Trump – expect tough campaigns of investigating and lawmaking

“Costs, chaos, corruption”: after almost two years spent relentlessly criticizing Donald Trump for failing to address those three, broad political concerns, Democrats won a monumental return to power in Tuesday’s midterm elections that will give them potent new leverage over the president.

Now the question becomes: what will they do with it?

Democrats gain hundreds of seats in historic victories – and party set to embark on aggressive legislative spree

The blue wave that swept Republicans out of power across the United States didn’t just strike Congress. In Tuesday’s midterm elections, Democrats gained hundreds of seats in state legislatures across the country, under-the-radar victories that may have major implications for life in America.

Though ballots are still being counted, the party’s success appears to be historic – Democrats haven’t won full control of government in Arizona in 60 years, in Pennsylvania since the 1990s, and Wisconsin since their wipeout in 2010. In Michigan and Minnesota, they regained trifectas lost after the 2024 election, while in Texas, they will control the state house for the first time since 2002.

Republicans routed as Democrats gain powerful new leverage over Trump for remainder of his presidency

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Democrats have regained control of the US Senate, routing Republicans nationwide with historic victories that will give them powerful new leverage over Donald Trump for the remainder of his presidency.

Together with their likely triumph in the House of Representatives, Democrats are expected to have full control of Congress beginning next year, for the first time since 2022.

Ashley Hinson loses heated contest in former swing state, a sign Republicans may be losing rural voters

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Democrat Josh Turek has won the US Senate race in Iowa, handing his party a significant victory in a Republican-led state where they have seen their power ebb in the age of Donald Trump.

Turek’s victory over his Ashley Hinson, a Republican congresswoman, marked the first time since 2008 that a Democrat had won election to the Senate in Iowa, and represents a milestone in Democrats’ quest to regain control of the Senate.

Sand, auditor for state with strong Trump support, defeats Maha-backed Republican Zach Lahn as Democrats win big

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Democrat Rob Sand has been elected governor of Iowa, the Associated Press projects, a milestone as his party seeks to rebuild its political standing in the midwestern state.

Sand, the state auditor who is the sole Democrat holding statewide office in Iowa, triumphed over Republican Zach Lahn, a political newcomer backed by Robert F Kennedy Jr’s “Make America healthy again” movement.

Populist Democrat defeats Jon Husted and says he will serve voters, not corporations or billionaires

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Democrat Sherrod Brown will return to the US Senate, as Ohio’s voters rejected the incumbent Jon Husted in a significant defeat for Republicans.

Brown’s bid for a comeback after being ousted from the seat he held for 18 years in 2024 became one of the marquee contests of this year’s midterm elections, and a key test of whether Democrats can regain support among the working class and rural voters who have deserted them in recent years.

Landmark victories in Texas, Ohio, North Carolina and South Carolina set to give party control of chamber

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Democrats are on the brink of returning to the majority in the US Senate, after their candidates won historic victories across the United States in a sweeping repudiation of Donald Trump.

Democratic victories in Texas, Ohio, North Carolina and South Carolina, projected by the Associated Press, will give them control of the chamber, assuming they can hold on to all seats they currently hold. It was a stunning turnaround for the party, two years after voters put them into the minority in Congress’s upper chamber as they returned Trump to the White House.

Control of the Senate and House of Representatives, both currently held by the Republicans, is at stake

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Americans are heading to the polls today in US midterm elections widely seen as a referendum on Donald Trump’s second presidency and a chance for opponents to rein in his untrammeled power.

At stake is control of the US Senate and House of Representatives, both currently held by Republicans, and in recent days, the two parties have scrambled to deliver their final pitches to voters. Additionally, there are elections for governor in 36 states, as well for state legislatures, sheriff’s offices, and on the approval of ballot initiatives nationwide.

Residents would welcome the development, but the president’s past false promises cast doubt on the proposal

On a Monday afternoon in late September, Donald Trump gathered Iowa Republicans in the Oval Office to make a big announcement: the firm Mesabi Metallics would invest $15bn to make the midwestern state the site of the largest steel mill in the country.

One month later, and just days before the midterm election, word has spread in the small town of Wever, population 142, that the mill will be built somewhere nearby. And that’s been about it – no shovels in the dirt, workers on a job site or machinery on the dirt roads leading down towards the Mississippi River.

Stevens’s decision sparked fierce backlash from members of the party, while Donald Trump praised the sudden switch

Democrat Haley Stevens’s shocking last-minute endorsement of Mike Rogers, the Michigan Republican Senate candidate, in the run-up to Tuesday’s midterm elections has sparked fierce backlash from members of her party.

Stevens, who narrowly lost in the Democratic primary for Senate to Abdul El-Sayed, announced her support for Rogers after a feud with the El-Sayed campaign over an outside group’s advertisement, which blamed the high cost of living on US support for Israel.

On the Bering Sea, Unalaska is the US’s most productive seafood port, employing thousands of workers. But Trump’s cuts, and his disastrous war with Iran, have caused chaos – and put Republican control of Congress at risk

It was less than 17 hours until the start of Alaska’s lucrative Bering Sea crab season, and Oystein Lone was standing on a dock in the city of Unalaska, preparing to embark in rough conditions.

The problem wasn’t the next day’s forecast of 60mph gusts, which would kick up white-capped swells and make crabbing, already one of the most dangerous jobs in the United States, even more hazardous. Nor was it the question of whether there’d be enough red king, tanner and snow crabs to go around – state regulators had, in fact, announced higher quotas for the season.

Democrat Mary Peltola’s campaign allegedly collaborated with party operatives to confuse voters in midterms

The US justice department on Thursday is reported to have issued subpoenas in response to a report that the Alaska Democrat Mary Peltola’s campaign collaborated with party operatives to get a challenger with the same name as the Republican senator Dan Sullivan on the midterm ballot.

ABC News and the Associated Press reported the subpoenas, citing sources familiar with the matter. The federal investigation comes a day after the New York Times found that the effort to recruit a second candidate named Dan Sullivan in the Senate race set to be decided on Tuesday was led by Peltola’s campaign, which had for months denied involvement.

These graphics explain what the Democrats would need to do to flip the Senate and House of Representatives

A turning point in Donald Trump’s second term has arrived. Voters across the US are deciding whether to keep the president’s Republican allies in control of Congress, or return Democrats to the majority.

Many indicators of voter sentiment suggest the Democrats are favored to take back control of the House of Representatives, and potentially the Senate. Winning either would be a significant victory for the party and give it the power to block Trump’s legislative agenda and more aggressively investigate his administration.