By Gram Slattery, David Morgan and Jason Lange
WASHINGTON, Nov 4 (Reuters) - Democrats vowed on Wednesday to use their resounding midterm victory to rein in President Donald Trump, setting up two years of possible deadlock in Washington, as Trump spent his first post-election appearance showing off his under-construction White House ballroom.
A wave of anger over Trump's policies, particularly the US-Iran war's role in pushing the cost of living higher, helped Democrats take the Senate, where they flipped seats in deeply Republican states for a majority of at least 54-44, and the House of Representatives, where they gained at least 28 seats.
It will be the first time that Trump, a Republican who also held the White House from 2017 to 2021, has had to contend with a Democratic-controlled Congress.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said the incoming majority will be focused on affordability and accountability.
"We don't work for Donald Trump," Jeffries, a New York lawmaker who is on track to become the first Black speaker of the House, told reporters on Wednesday. "We work for the American people. And the days of the House of Representatives functioning like a wholly owned subsidiary of the Trump administration are over."
'FOR ME, IT'S RELAXING'
Trump, who had devoted his last pre-election public appearance on Monday to talking about his renovations of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, called in reporters on the morning after his party's sweeping midterm defeat to show off the ballroom he is building at the White House.
"When I get criticized, like, 'Why are you working on the White House?' I'm doing it because the White House is the ultimate symbol of America, and it's got to be pristine, it's got to be perfect," Trump said. "For me it's relaxing."
He turned only briefly to the elections during his nearly hour-long appearance, telling reporters, "I'll get along probably with the Democrats, unless they want to be destructive, but I have the power of the veto."
Trump had cast the midterm elections as a referendum on the first half of his second four-year stint in the White House, repeatedly urging his Republican base to "pretend I'm on the ballot," a message that Democratic Party leaders were happy to amplify.
The result: voters in conservative strongholds who had propelled the president to his second term in office just two years ago swung dramatically toward Democrats, fueled by deep frustration over the unpopular war with Iran, anxiety over the high cost of living and anger at Trump's stewardship of the country.
In Texas, the biggest Republican-led state before Tuesday, Democrats ended a decades-long losing streak in seismic fashion, winning their first Senate seat there since 1988 and ousting three-term Governor Greg Abbott.
Kansas elected its first Democratic senator since the Great Depression nearly a century ago, and in South Carolina, a state that Trump carried by nearly 18 points in 2024, Democrats turned aside his hand-picked Senate candidate.
WAITING ON ALASKA, MISSISSIPPI
Senate races in Alaska and Mississippi remained uncalled as of Wednesday morning, leaving open the possibility that the Democrats' majority could grow by another two seats to 56-44.
Once seated in January, Democrats are expected to use their power to investigate Trump's administration, family and allies and demand concessions on major legislation. The Democratic Senate can block Trump's nominees, including any US Supreme Court justices should a vacancy arise.
However, until then, Republicans hold the reins and will have at least one must-pass piece of legislation ahead – a measure to fund the federal government past December – that they could use to enact conservative priorities during the so-called lame-duck period.
The loss also upended Republicans' House leadership, with House Speaker Mike Johnson saying he would not continue to lead his caucus next year.
Trump, who is barred by the US Constitution from seeking a third term, acknowledged the war with Iran had played a role in his party's losses but stood by his decision.
Vice President JD Vance, who may run as a Trump successor in the 2028 election, piled all the blame on his boss's decision to attack Iran in February.
"The reason we lost is the war," Vance wrote in a long social media post. "The president himself said so last night. If you'd like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay."
DEMOCRATIC WAVE
Democrats focused their campaign on corruption and affordability, blaming Trump's expensive tariffs on imports, some of which were ruled to be an illegal tax by the courts, and the war with Iran for driving up costs while highlighting the billions of dollars the Trump family has made since he returned to the White House.
Republicans, led by Trump, attacked Democrats for defending transgender people's rights and similar social issues, portraying them as radical and extreme. But voters made it clear they were far more concerned with pocketbook issues.
The Democratic wave flooded huge swaths of the country. Republicans lost ground in 99% of the approximately 2,100 counties where most votes had been counted as of Wednesday morning, according to tallies compiled by Reuters and USA Today.
Democrats made gains in the richest counties and the poorest; in counties where more people have college degrees and where fewer do. Democrats' advances were particularly sharp in heavily Latino counties, including the border counties of Texas that shifted toward Trump in 2024 and the agricultural towns of the Kansas prairie.
Democrats flipped more than two dozen House seats currently held by Republicans, locking in a majority. Democrats won all the closely contested House races that have been decided so far, and they won about a dozen races in districts that Trump won by double digits two years ago.
Abdul El-Sayed, a Democrat from the party's rising left wing, won Michigan's open Senate seat, becoming the first Muslim elected to the chamber and defeating Mike Rogers, a former congressman and FBI agent who entered the race with Trump's backing.
The night included several historic firsts for both parties, including the first Black woman elected governor in US history with Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms' win in Georgia and New Mexico's Deb Haaland becoming the country's first Native American woman to be elected governor.
(Reporting by Joseph Ax, Jason Lange and Brad Heath in Washington and Nathan Layne in Detroit; Additional reporting by Nolan D. McCaskill, Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff, Dan Catchpole, Richard Cowan, Daphne Psaledakis, Leah Douglas, Courtney Rozen, Susan Heavey and Jarrett Renshaw; Writing by Joseph Ax, Jonathan Allen and Brad Brooks; Editing by Scott Malone and Deepa Babington)
