Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress in Tuesday’s midterm elections, a sweeping rebuke of President Donald Trump that will hand the opposition the power to check his agenda for the final two years of his term.
Democrats flipped at least seven Republican-held Senate seats, in Kansas, Iowa, Texas, Ohio, Maine, North Carolina and South Carolina, while holding on in Georgia and Michigan, according to the Associated Press. They also flipped more than two dozen House districts.
By Wednesday, Democrats had won 228 House seats and were leading in 34 more, while in the Senate they had won 54 seats to 44 for Republicans, Al Jazeera reported citing the AP tally. It is the first time in 20 years that a Republican president has lost both houses of Congress, after George W. Bush in 2006.
The results include several firsts. Abdul El-Sayed’s win in Michigan makes him the first Muslim senator, Juliana Stratton’s victory in Illinois means three Black women will serve in the Senate at the same time, and former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms became the first Black woman elected governor in the US, in Georgia.
Trump acknowledged the war with Iran had weighed on his party. “I think a part of it was Iran,” he told Fox News, adding that voters “really probably weren’t willing to do the short term consequences of paying more for gasoline.”
Sources: Associated Press, Al Jazeera, NPR
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