WASHINGTON - Democrats retook control of both chambers of Congress in Tuesday's midterm elections, according to projections by major U.S. media outlets, in a sharp voter rebuke of President Donald Trump and his Republican Party over their performance during his second term.
The Republican rout came amid voter discontent over inflation, gas prices and the cost of living, with the U.S.-Iran war, launched by Trump in February, remaining in a stalemate.
Democrats cruised to a landslide victory in the House of Representatives and overcame a 53-47 Senate deficit by flipping seven Republican-held seats, the projections showed -- an outcome once considered unthinkable. They needed a net gain of four Senate seats to take control.
Trump expressed readiness to accept the outcome of the Democratic blowout Tuesday night, telling The New York Times in a phone interview, "We'll, you know, look forward to working with them." He added, "We'll probably work something out."
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, poised to become the next speaker of the House when newly elected members take office in January, declared victory, saying, "The American people have spoken all across the land."
All 435 House seats and 35 of the Senate's 100 seats were contested. As of early Wednesday, Democrats had secured 224 House seats to Republicans' 134, according to the projections.
Midterm elections, which are held roughly two years into a president's four-year term, are widely seen as a referendum on the leader. Traditionally, the party in control of the executive branch tends to lose ground in the midterms.
Trump's approval ratings had fallen to record or near-record lows in the weeks leading up to the elections, with public opinion surveys indicating that the economy and the cost of living remained the top concerns for voters.
The Republican defeat, which heralds a return to divided government with Democrats in control of Congress for the first time in four years, bodes ill for Trump and his administration.
The Democratic takeover of the House would make it more difficult for Trump's party to enact legislation and could open the door to aggressive congressional oversight of administration policies and officials.
Democratic control of the Senate would also make it harder for the administration to secure confirmation of judicial and executive-branch nominees.
Democrats may also launch impeachment proceedings against Trump, who was twice impeached in his first term, which ran from 2017 to 2021, after the party regained the House following the 2018 midterms. The Senate, breaking largely along party lines, voted to acquit him in both cases.
Some observers say a Republican wipeout may lead Trump, who is constitutionally barred from serving another term, to focus more on foreign policy, an area where presidents wield significant influence and discretion.
Democrats scored an upset victory in South Carolina, capturing a Republican-held Senate seat where it was seen as leaning Republican prior to Election Day, according to the projections.
Democrats also flipped Senate seats in Iowa, Kansas, Maine, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report had rated all but North Carolina as "toss-ups" before the election, meaning either party could win. Democrats could pick up more seats as counting continues.
Trump, 80, barnstormed across the country ahead of the midterms, including in reliably Republican states such as Kansas, Mississippi and South Carolina, urging his supporters to turn out for the party's candidates.
His intense campaigning came amid signs of growing discontent within key parts of his electoral base. Many farmers in the Midwest have grown frustrated by rising fuel prices during the harvest season. Hispanic voters, who helped propel Trump back to power in the 2024 presidential election, have criticized the administration's immigration enforcement tactics, viewed as brutal and sometimes indiscriminate.
In a sign of high voter turnout this election cycle, the University of Florida's Election Lab reported that more than 60 million people nationwide had voted by mail or in person ahead of Election Day, far surpassing the nearly 46 million early votes cast in the 2022 midterm elections.
Registered Democrats accounted for more than 40 percent of early voters in the 27 states that provide party registration data, over 10 percentage points higher than the share of registered Republicans, the group said.
At a polling station in Bethesda, Maryland, Douglass Lewis, 92, said he hoped Democrats would retake control of both chambers of Congress. "I'm not in favor of our president at all, and I hope that Congress has the direction that could balance that out," he said.
