WASHINGTON (AP) — Voters in deep-red South Carolina delivered an embarrassing loss to President Donald Trump on Tuesday when they rejected Republican Darline Graham, who the president had urged to run and twice campaigned with in the final weeks of the midterm campaign.
Annie Andrews’ win over Graham, the sister of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham — a close ally of Trump — gives Democrats a Senate seat in the southern state for the first time in more than
two decades.
It was among a series of warning signs for Republicans Tuesday night. Democrats also flipped a Senate seat in North Carolina and retained a key Senate seat in Georgia. Both were states that Trump won in 2024.
If his party loses control of Congress in the midterm elections, the rest of Trump's time in office is likely to be consumed by Democratic-led investigations into his administration and his business dealings, and could possibly lead to another impeachment. The political spotlight will also begin its shift to Republicans and Democrats vying to replace him during the 2028 presidential campaign.
A rebuke to Republicans will leave Trump — who watched returns at the White House with his advisers and members of his Cabinet — with dramatically diminished political capital at home and abroad, as he has all but guaranteed the results will be seen as a referendum on himself by repeatedly urging voters to “pretend I’m on the ballot.”
But about 24 hours after Trump had uttered that, the president on Tuesday night began pointing the blame elsewhere as results came in, posting on social media: “I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!”
Placing himself front and center on voters’ minds was a major gamble by the president and his political team, who believed it would drive “Make America Great Again” supporters to the polls. Democrats were eager to watch the unpopular president insert himself so fully in the campaign, believing it served as an effective reminder of who should be blamed for the state of the economy.
“Trump’s desire to have everyone think that he’s on the ballot? Like, it’s happening,” said Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., who has campaigned in key battlegrounds this fall, including Iowa, Georgia and Texas. “Everyone is thinking about him and the harm that he has done to them directly.”
In Georgia’s Senate race, Democrat Jon Ossoff defeated Republican Mike Collins, a Trump acolyte who faced scrutiny over his ties to a white nationalist and an unresolved House ethics investigation. In North Carolina’s race, Democrat Roy Cooper defeated Republican Michael Whatley, a close Trump ally. The Senate seat was vacant after incumbent Republican Thom Tillis opted to retire after clashing with Trump.
The AP Voter Poll, an expansive survey of the midterm electorate, showed relatively few voters have positive things to say about Trump’s performance on the economy. About two-thirds of voters nationally say Trump’s policies have worsened economic conditions in the U.S., while only about 3 in 10 said they’ve improved economic conditions. Similarly, about two-thirds of voters say Trump’s tariff policies have “hurt” the national economy, or the economy in their local area.
Views of Trump’s priorities more broadly — and his capabilities as a leader — were also mostly negative. More than half of voters say Trump is not a strong leader, does not fight for people like them, does not have the right priorities and does not have the mental capability to serve effectively as president. About 6 in 10 voters say Trump places a higher priority on his own personal interests than he does the country’s interests, while about 4 in 10 said he puts more weight on the country’s interests.
The president — who faced a Democratic-led House for the latter half of his first term — campaigned aggressively in the final weeks to keep the Republican majorities on Capitol Hill because he knows what the consequences would be if Democrats seize power.
But the president at times shrugged off the prospect of a Republican loss of power in Congress. The president is also keenly aware of the political power he draws from having a foil, leveraging opposition to consolidate support in his party and boost fundraising.
Senior Democrats, as they anticipate a majority in at least one chamber of Congress, have been telegraphing what their top investigative targets would be: the Trump administration’s policies, the conduct of its personnel, and interactions between government officials and private corporations who’ve tried to wield influence with the White House.
Among their priorities are the Trump family’s business dealings, the administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation and broader allegations of corporate corruption.
A Democratic majority would be armed with control of committees, bigger budgets and staff, and subpoena powers that could compel the administration to be responsive to Congress. In response, the White House could reprise its strategy from the first Trump administration, when it slow-walked congressional requests for documents and testimony and asserted executive privilege over certain information.
The president is also bracing for major legislative fights, saying he has a “strong veto."
A potential House speaker, Hakeem Jeffries, would also be confronted with whether to pursue an unprecedented third impeachment against Trump, who was impeached twice in his first term in office but acquitted by the Senate both times. Democratic lawmakers have signaled that, instead, they may go after top Cabinet members, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
“I'm here to say, one of the first things we’re going to do in the majority, we’re going to run Pete Hegseth out of town,” Jeffries said at an October rally.
Trump’s personal pitch involved a flurry of campaign rallies across the U.S. in the final weeks, increasingly in deeply Republican areas where the apparent need to shore up his party’s candidates was seen as a warning sign.
In an attempt to buck historical trends that have seen the president's party typically lose seats in midterm elections, Trump also tried some novel tactics. He staged a two-day Trump-focused Republican convention in Dallas, and issued a dubious promise that he'd send $5,000 to every adult if his party wins in November.
But his closing message was disjointed.
On the campaign trail, his lengthy winding remarks typically included some promotion of the local Republican nominees, but plenty of free association that drifted away from the issues voters care about. He's been fixated on the muscular builds of some Republican candidates, regaling crowds in North Carolina, Michigan and Kentucky with descriptions of the impressive backside of Ohio Sen. Jon Husted.
He's also embraced positions at odds with a broad swath of voter concerns, claiming communities that reject data centers will end up “backwards and poor” and claiming affordability is a “hoax” and a word “made up by the Democrats.”
Befitting his unusual strategy, Trump set his closing argument ahead of Tuesday at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and spent much of his hourlong speech bragging about his beautification of Washington, D.C.
