Democrats win the U.S. House, taking full control of Congress as voters express frustration with Trump

Democrats have won control of the U.S. House in addition to the U.S. Senate, delivering a shockingly decisive rebuke of Republican governance in Washington and ushering in a new era of congressional resistance to President Donald Trump.

The midterm elections that came to a close Tuesday channeled voters’ deep frustrations over high prices, the Iran war and concerns over government corruption. Democrats routed their rivals across the map, from Texas to Iowa to New Hampshire, including states Trump won by double digits just two years ago.

Even Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, a battle-tested survivor of difficult elections, lost to Democrat Troy Jackson.

The results from across the country were a major blow to Trump, who spent nearly every day of the last month holding rallies to energize his supporters but was unable to stop a wipeout.

Democratic control will profoundly reshape Trump’s final two years in office and likely hamstring his agenda.

Party leaders have signaled they’ll use a foothold in Congress to ensure Trump’s final two years in office feature a series of investigations against top members of his administration and deeper scrutiny of how he’s enriched his family. Impeachment of Trump and his Cabinet officials is not off the table.

In celebratory events Tuesday night, Democratic Senate Leader Chuck Schumer called it a “generational remake of the Senate map.” Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries said “the American people are crying out for transformational change.”

Trump immediately sought to shift blame for his party’s losses, posting on his social media site before polls even closed on the West Coast that he wasn’t on the ballot — even though he spent weeks asking voters to pretend like he was. He vowed to veto Democrat-controlled legislation, sharing a picture of a red baseball cap with “veto” stenciled in the style of his trademark “Make America Great Again” campaign swag.

In a late-night phone interview with Fox News, Trump said he didn’t consider the elections to be a personal defeat. Voters, he said, “didn’t like the candidates.”

Democrats had braced for Trump to again try to undermine the results if they won after he warned that noncitizens would cast ballots en masse and filed lawsuits in Alaska and California. Instead, he said on Fox that he would accept them.

Still, the Republican-controlled Congress had acted as a rubber stamp to much of Trump’s agenda. While the president has proven adept at steamrolling efforts to rein him in, Democrats will seek to reshape the remainder of his term. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and tech titan Elon Musk, a former top Trump adviser, are among possible targets for investigations.

Despite the results, Senate Majority Leader John Thune wrote on X that “Senate Republicans will not stand idly by as the far-left, socialist wing of the Democrat Party attempts to unwind everything we’ve done.” He said they will work with Trump “to stop the worst impulses of Democrat extremism.”

Democrats charted an extraordinary path to Senate victory

Midterm elections are typically difficult for the president’s party, but Republicans had originally expected that their Senate majority was safe. Instead, Democrats marched through some of the most conservative states in the nation.

Josh Turek defeated Rep. Ashley Hinson in Iowa, while Adam Hamilton ousted Sen. Roger Marshall in Kansas to become the state’s first Democratic senator since 1932. A cascade of surprising Democratic victories included James Talarico defeating Ken Paxton in Texas, Annie Andrews upsetting Darline Graham in South Carolina, Sherrod Brown topping Sen. Jon Husted in Ohio and Roy Cooper taking an open North Carolina seat.

Trump played an outsized role in the Texas, North Carolina and South Carolina races. He endorsed Paxton and helped him defeat incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the Texas primary. He sharply criticized North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, who opted not to seek reelection. He also supported Graham, despite concerns about her candidacy.

Less of a surprise was Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff winning reelection in Georgia, defeating Rep. Mike Collins. Rep. Chris Pappas also won a Senate race in New Hampshire, defeating former Sen. John Sununu to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen.

In the House, defeated Republicans included Rep. Tom Kean of New Jersey, who missed four months of votes in Washington this year as he underwent treatment for depression — a diagnosis he did not disclose until his return. Democrats who won included Jamie Ager over Jennifer Capps Balkcom in North Carolina and Lindsay James over Joe Mitchell in Iowa.

Bracing for a tough night, Republicans had spent the campaign’s final stretch pumping tens of millions of dollars into states and districts that Trump won handily two years ago, as Trump campaigned in heavily red areas. But even Republicans’ money advantage didn’t stem the Democratic tide.

“I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!” Trump wrote on his social media site.