The Democratic Party won total control of Congress in the midterm elections, part of a seismic, nationwide rebuke of Donald Trump and the Republican Party.
The party was widely expected to win back control of the House of Representatives, but less certain
was the balance of the Senate. Democrats won them both, though, as part of a hugely successful night capping off one of the most chaotic, contested, and bitter midterm elections in recent history.
Riding a wave of voter turnout amid an economic crisis started by Republican President Donald Trump, Democratic Senate candidates won big in the battleground states including Texas, Georgia, and South Carolina.
With a majority in the Senate and House, Democrats are now free to pursue an ambitious legislative agenda during Trump’s last two years in office. Trump is entering his lame duck period as a deeply unpopular president beset by scandal and crises of his own making. While he will likely use his presidential veto to keep many of a Democratic Congress’ bills from passing, control over both Houses will give the Democrats a powerful platform to both investigate Trump’s actions in the first half of his second term and set the tone for their agenda going into the next open presidential election in 2028.
The Republicans are well aware of this.
“They will turn every committee of Congress into an investigative body, and they’ll go after the president’s family, the Cabinet, his donors and friends,” Speaker of the House Mike Johnson told a room of Christian conservatives earlier this year. “Half of you in this room will be targeted. I run the protection program. I’ll take care of you,” he added.
In the House, the powerful House Oversight Committee is ready to go to work. Their primary target may be Donald Trump’s family businesses, which have dramatically increased in value since the beginning of his second term.
“Every day, Trump gives Congress something new to investigate,” Democratic Rep. Greg Caesar told Rolling Stone last month. “Democrats need to be ready to dig into any and all of it on day one.”
With the Senate under their control, the House’s investigative power gets more support in the upper house of Congress. While Democrats will likely still be far short of the two-thirds supermajority needed to convict Trump in any future impeachment trial, they’ll have enough sway to make sure that any charges the House brings won’t be laughed off by a sycophantic GOP.
The balance of the Supreme Court, too, could change as a result of the blue wave. Justice Samuel Alito is nearing retirement, and had the Republicans retained control of the Senate, it was possible Alito would have let Trump fill his fourth vacancy on the court before leaving office in 2029.
All of these battles, however, are still to come. But for tonight, the Democrats must feel as though they’re a little bit closer to winning American politics’ endless war.
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