Midterm verdict: How a blue wave washed away Trump’s electoral aura

At 39, Jon Ossoff is everything Donald Trump is not: young, buoyant and facing forward. On a night when Democrats swept the midterms, retaking both the House and the Senate, Ossoff secured re-election in Georgia, a state Trump carried in 2024, and emerged as one of the defining faces of the blue wave. The contrast was hard to miss. Ossoff addressed jubilant crowds with the ease of a man who had spent two years being written off. An 80-year-old president watched the returns from the White House East Room, confronted with a verdict on his presidency. The Georgia senator is already being discussed as presidential material, even as he insists he has “zero interest” in running.

If Ossoff supplied the message, Trump supplied the conditions. Exit polls put the president’s approval rating at 38 per cent, among the lowest recorded for a modern president at a midterm. Most voters believed his policies had hurt the economy. By attaching his authority to Republican candidates and their campaigns, Trump turned the election into a referendum on his presidency. His endorsement remained influential in Republican primaries but often became a liability in the general election.

Persistent inflation, household expenses and tariffs steadily eroded his standing. Trade tensions with partners and allies, including India, Canada and the European Union, put pressure on manufacturers and agricultural producers. Higher input costs and restricted export markets unsettled farming constituencies that had backed Trump in 2024. His July 2025 tax and spending package, which reduced health care subsidies and safety-net programmes, gave Democrats further ammunition. The war with Iran compounded the problem. Voters who had expected Trump to prioritise domestic concerns and avoid another expensive overseas conflict were confronted with an uncomfortable contradiction.

Trump’s candidate choices further exposed the limits of his influence. He backed Ken Paxton against incumbent Senator John Cornyn in Texas, supported Darline Graham in South Carolina and endorsed Mike Collins against Ossoff in Georgia. None delivered the victory he wanted.

The electoral geography made the scale of the reversal particularly striking. In Texas, James Talarico defeated Paxton, ending a Democratic Senate drought dating to 1988, while Gina Hinojosa unseated Governor Greg Abbott to become the state’s first Hispanic governor. In Kansas, Adam Hamilton, a pastor who had been a registered Republican until February, defeated Senator Roger Marshall, becoming the first Democrat to win a Senate seat there since 1932. Republicans also lost ground in Iowa, Ohio, North Carolina, South Carolina and Maine, states they had expected to hold.

The results also altered the face of American politics. Keisha Lance Bottoms became Georgia’s first Black governor and the first Black woman elected governor in the country. Abdul El-Sayed won Michigan’s open Senate seat, becoming the first Muslim in the chamber. Chris Pappas of New Hampshire will be the first openly gay senator, while paediatrician Annie Andrews became South Carolina’s first woman elected to the Senate in her own right. In the House, Hakeem Jeffries, the likely incoming Speaker, would become the first Black person to hold the post.

El-Sayed’s victory carries significance beyond representation. A Bernie Sanders-backed progressive, supported by democratic socialists, won a battleground state Trump carried in 2024, overcoming a bruising primary and a late endorsement of his Republican opponent by a Democratic rival. The left will see the result as vindication. At least five Democratic Socialists of America-aligned candidates also won House seats, strengthening a progressive bloc likely to press Jeffries on health care, corporate power and inequality.

El-Sayed campaigned on Medicare for All and curbing corporate influence. His victory will embolden those arguing that an assertive economic message can attract voters beyond traditional Democratic constituencies. Yet the party must balance this increasingly confident left with the moderates whose support helped deliver its congressional majorities.

The consequences in Washington will be substantial, even if the scope for legislation remains limited. Democratic control of the Senate gives the party authority over confirmations of federal judges, cabinet appointments and other presidential nominees. It also transfers committee leadership and investigative powers to a party eager to scrutinise the administration’s conduct, financial interests and handling of the Iran conflict. Control of the House gives Democrats command of the legislative agenda and the ability to initiate investigations. Hearings, subpoenas and questions over war funding could dominate the remainder of Trump’s term.

A legislative revival, however, is unlikely. Trump retains his veto, while the 60-vote threshold required for most Senate legislation remains a formidable obstacle. The immediate battle will therefore concern oversight and the limits of presidential power.

Perhaps the more consequential change will occur within the Republican Party. Trump cannot seek another term, and the midterms have made his lame-duck status harder to ignore. Republicans who once feared defying his endorsements now have reason to question their electoral value. Those positioning themselves for 2028 will seek distance from him without provoking an open break. His ability to punish dissent has weakened, although it has hardly disappeared.

Trump once claimed Republicans would have won in a landslide had he been on the ballot. The irony is that he made himself central to an election in which he was absent, tying his party’s fortunes to his own record. The midterms have weakened his authority and complicated the Republican succession. For Democrats, they have opened up new electoral possibilities, elevated a younger generation of leaders and offered a glimpse of a political future beyond Trump.