Republicans have lost their majorities in both houses of Congress to Democrats in Tuesday’s midterm elections in the United States. President Donald Trump acknowledged that the war with Iran was the reason for his party’s defeat, though he said he does not regret the decision to start it.
Americans voted Tuesday for all 435 members of the House of Representatives, the lower house of Congress, and for part of the 100-member Senate. Governors were also elected in 36 of the 50 states and in three territories. CNN and NBC reported that Democrats will win a majority in the House. They also flipped at least six Senate seats previously held by Republicans, securing a majority in that chamber as well.
In Senate races, Democratic candidates won in North Carolina and Maine, among others, as well as in Texas, Kansas, Ohio, South Carolina and Iowa, which had long been considered Republican strongholds. In Texas, the most closely watched and most expensive race, Democrat James Talarico defeated the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton. It is the first Democratic victory in a Senate race in Texas in nearly 40 years.
Adding to the Republican Party’s severe defeat in Tuesday’s congressional elections, it also lost governorships in at least five states. The losses are especially painful for Republicans in Texas, where the party’s gubernatorial candidates had won every election since 1994, and in Georgia, where they had won since 2002.
Republicans suffered a heavy defeat despite a financial advantage in the campaign. According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) data, eight of the 10 largest individual donors in the U.S. midterms backed Republican candidates. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and the owner of companies including SpaceX, Tesla and X, who has long supported Trump, topped the list of the biggest donors.
Reacting to his party’s defeat, Trump tried in a series of posts on the Truth Social platform to downplay his role in the rout. He stressed that he was not on the ballot. He also signaled that he would block legislation passed by the Democratic-controlled Congress.
Trump said Tuesday evening that the war with Iran had contributed to the Republicans’ poor showing. However, he said he does not regret attacking the country and would do it again. In his view, it is the rise in oil prices, not the war itself, that is the biggest political burden on his administration. The conflict with Iran drove up prices of gasoline and diesel, which caused discontent among American voters.
Vice President J.D. Vance, who is seen as a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2028, also acknowledged that Republicans lost the congressional elections because of the war with Iran, while criticizing the party’s campaign strategy.
According to CNN, Trump’s advisers do not expect the administration to attempt to challenge the congressional election results on a large scale, if it takes any such action at all.
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that House Speaker Mike Johnson has told associates that, after Democrats take control of Congress, he will not seek the post of Republican minority leader in the chamber. Among the leading candidates to replace him are Reps. Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise.
On Tuesday evening, Johnson said he was “disappointed” with the election results and assured that his party would regain the majority in 2028. Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, said that in some regions of the U.S. the Republican Party suffered an electoral defeat close to annihilation, on a scale not seen in 100 years. He also said the repercussions of the defeat would be felt for a decade.
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said Wednesday on CNN that the war with Iran must end immediately. Jeffries, who could become the next leader of the lower house and go down in history as its first Black speaker, said his party would focus on reducing the cost of living in the U.S.
The U.S. election results are being commented on by politicians and media around the world.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said that “American democracy is alive and well,” and that the results of the vote are not being contested and Trump has accepted the outcome. British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the election results create an opportunity for the world to unite in the fight against rising living costs and their causes: the wars in the Middle East and Ukraine. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said American society had rejected the policies of the far right and expressed hope that the same would happen in his country’s upcoming parliamentary elections.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz noted that Trump had already governed largely bypassing Congress over the past two years, using executive orders, and would continue to do so. Lithuanian Foreign Minister Kestutis Budrys noted that the Democrats’ victory could lead to a more intense debate in the United States about aid for Ukraine, and that the American position on the issue could move closer to that of European countries. Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš said that “a certain paralysis” of American politics could follow the Republicans’ defeat, and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk expressed hope that the election result would “stabilize the situation in our region, too.”
Iran’s supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, whose country has been at war with the U.S. since February, also responded to the election result. In his view, the Republicans’ defeat does not mean a change in Washington’s policy toward Tehran. Meanwhile, parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said Wednesday that Americans had said “no” to the war in the election.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, for his part, expressed hope that the results of the U.S. midterm elections will not negatively affect Trump’s “peace efforts” aimed at resolving the Russia-Ukraine conflict. (PAP)
