November 4, 2026
WASHINGTON, Nov 3 (Reuters Breakingviews) – A paean to vanity construction projects was an apt closing message for President Donald Trump ahead of midterm elections. In 2024, he swept back into power by promising lower prices and no new wars. Two years later, his Republican Party has lost unified control of Congress as inflation reaccelerates and imperious foreign policy runs aground in Iran. There was little left to tout beyond the White House’s new helipad. Still, the commander-in-chief’s apparent lack of concern makes some sense. Despite Tuesday’s legislative rebuke, he still overwhelmingly controls the trade and military decisions that caused such brutal blowback.
Losing both chambers of Congress, as early returns pointed to on Tuesday night, should end the most chaotic portion of Trump’s second term. Once seated, Democrats with investigatory powers should rein in the president’s worst excesses. Particularly rich seams likely include questionable government contracting, opens new tab, Trump family self-dealing in various cryptocurrency ventures, and influence-peddling, opens new tab abroad.
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They may be emboldened by a race that seemed to be shaped directly by White House policy. For instance, polls showed voters swinging hard for Democrats in the closing months of the race, as gasoline prices surged by 40% and diesel prices nearly doubled following Trump’s decision to attack Iran.
Republican candidates in states on the border with Canada lost, despite attempts to distance themselves from Trump’s onerous tariffs. Republican incumbent Susan Collins of Maine even won a largely symbolic rollback of some levies in late October, but it was too little and too late. Her opponent, Troy Jackson, mocked her during debates for getting duties on road salt removed: “we can’t eat road salt.”
Agricultural and manufacturing states, burned by the loss of key export markets in China for beef and soybeans, delivered particularly brutal verdicts. Kansas, South Carolina, and Texas elected Democratic senators for the first time in decades. Besides reorienting the battlegrounds of American politics, their six-year terms will provide a lasting advantage in future election cycles, making ambitious legislation more plausible if the opposition party retakes the White House in 2028.
And then there’s the embrace of artificial intelligence by the President and his party. In Texas, arguably the epicenter of the boom in chatbot-powering data centers, Democrats won the governor’s race for the first time in decades. Elon Musk’s nearly $500 million in election spending for Republicans in Texas was not just wasted, but repudiated.
Ultimately, though, Trump has promised to become “Mr. Veto” against a Democratic Congress, thwarting efforts by lawmakers to address these points. Even attempts to remove members of the administration, like Defense Secretary and Iran war architect Pete Hegseth, require overwhelming votes that might still be out of reach. There will be fights over the budget, and plenty of brinksmanship. For now, the rebuke is stinging, but incomplete.
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Context News
- On November 3, the United States held elections for the House of Representatives and 35 seats in the 100-member senate.
Editing by Jonathan Guilford; Production by Aditya Srivastav
Tags: donald-trump, History, news, politics, trump
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