Donald Trump has responded to his party’s midterm drubbing with a promise of gridlock, threatening to veto legislation from the incoming Democratic-controlled Congress and brandishing a red baseball cap emblazoned with a single word: “VETO”.
The warning came after Democrats seized both the Senate and the House of Representatives, handing the opposition control of Congress for the first time since Republicans took both chambers.
In a social media post featuring the cap, the President made his intentions plain: Democrats could send him any number of bills, and he would return them stamped.
A Rare Note of Concession
For all the defiance, Trump did not pretend the result was anything other than a defeat.
He congratulated the Democrats and said he was ready to work with them where the two sides could find agreement. He also conceded that the war with Iran — and its effect on petrol prices — had hurt his party at the polls.
Speaking to Fox News, Trump said many Americans backed his position on Iran but were unwilling to absorb the financial cost of the conflict.
The war has disrupted the flow of crude oil and other commodities through the Strait of Hormuz after Iran restricted access to the strategic waterway, driving up global crude prices and squeezing American households at the pump.
The Map That Turned Blue
The scale of the Democratic victory extended well beyond Congress.
Kansas and Iowa delivered two more Republican-held Senate seats to the Democrats — the fifth and sixth to fall. In Kansas, Methodist minister Adam Hamilton defeated incumbent Roger Marshall to become the first Democrat elected to the US Senate from the state since 1932. Iowa elected a Democratic senator for the first time since 2008.
Those wins followed earlier Democratic breakthroughs in Texas, South Carolina, North Carolina and Ohio. In Texas, Democrat James Talarico defeated a Trump-backed Senate candidate, while Gina Hinojosa unseated Republican Governor Greg Abbott, ending decades of Republican control of the state’s top office.
Democrats also held key Senate seats, including Jon Ossoff’s in Georgia and an open seat in New Hampshire.
Before the election, Republicans controlled the Senate 53-47. The Democrats’ six-seat gain was enough for major networks to project that they had taken the chamber, though some races remained unresolved.
The House Falls Too
Democrats also won control of the House of Representatives, defeating Republicans in districts across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Kentucky, Arizona and North Carolina.
Several of those victories came in areas Trump won comfortably in 2024, despite Republican efforts to protect their seats through redrawn electoral boundaries.
One striking result came in Indiana, where Democrat J.D. Ford defeated Republican Congresswoman Victoria Spartz in a district Trump had carried by 17 percentage points.
In Georgia, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms made history as the first Black woman elected governor in the United States.
The Republican Bright Spots
Not everything went the Democrats’ way.
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In Florida, Trump-backed Byron Donalds won the governorship, becoming the state’s first Black governor, while Republican Ashley Moody held on to her Senate seat.
A Verdict on Trump
George Washington University professor Todd Belt described the Democratic performance as a sweeping rejection of the President and his policies, pointing to voter anger over the economy, corruption and the Iran conflict.
The result leaves Trump facing a Congress controlled by his opponents for the remainder of his term — a setup in which battles over legislation and government policy will define what remains of his presidency.