‘Blue Tsunami’ Hits U.S.; Democrats Seize Senate Too [U.S. Midterm Elections]

[Financial News] The Democratic Party took control of both chambers of Congress, winning the Senate after the House in the midterm elections held on the 3rd (local time).
With executive and legislative power divided halfway through President Donald Trump’s second term, U.S. politics will enter a period of fierce confrontation between the Trump administration and a Democratic-led Congress when the 120th Congress convenes in early January next year.
The Democrats had vowed to block and thwart the Trump administration’s unilateral pursuit of its agenda if they regained control of Congress, while President Trump had warned that he would counter them with his constitutional power to veto legislation.

Moreover, with a little over two years left in his term, President Trump is likely to quickly become a lame duck as Republican budgetary and legislative support dries up.
In particular, he is expected to face the worst second half of his term amid sweeping congressional investigations, checks and scrutiny of him, his family and his close associates, and amid the unilateral domestic and foreign policies he has pursued to date.
Major broadcasters including NBC, ABC, CBS and CNN reported projections that the Democrats would win a majority in the House shortly after 10 p.m. U.S. Eastern Time that day, as votes in the midterms were being counted.
Then, at around 11:30 p.m., projections began to come in that the Democrats would also take control of the Senate.
The broadcasters’ projections combine vote-counting results from districts nationwide with their own forecasting systems and are, in effect, in line with the election results.
In the end, the midterms once again proved the adage in U.S. electoral history that they are ‘the governing party’s graveyard.’ It has been 20 years since the opposition last retook both the House and Senate at once, in 2006.

In particular, forecasts from various polls conducted before the election were largely borne out.
However, the outcome went beyond a ‘Blue Wave,’ in which the Democrats win by a narrow margin, to a ‘Blue Tsunami,’ with the party securing a landslide victory.
In the House, a party needs 218 of the 435 seats being contested to win a majority. NBC projected that the Democrats would far exceed that threshold, securing at least 244 seats.
The election forecasting organization Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ) projected that the Democrats would win 254 seats.
Unlike in the House, there were as many as seven Senate battleground states where the two parties were locked in close races. But the Democrats performed unexpectedly well as votes were counted and secured victory early.
A major factor was the upset in South Carolina, which was not a battleground state but was classified as Republican-leaning: Democratic candidate Annie Andrews defeated Republican candidate Dallin Graham.
Projections of victories for Democratic candidates in battleground states were then announced one after another: James Talarico in Texas, Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Adam Hamilton in Kansas, Josh Turek in Iowa and Troy Jackson in Maine.

Regardless of the results in remaining battleground states such as Michigan and Alaska, where the outcome was still pending, the Democrats were set to win at least 53 seats—more than the 51 needed for a Senate majority.
President Trump promptly conceded the election results, in which the Republican Party suffered a crushing defeat.
In an interview with The New York Times (NYT), he said, “I’m willing to accept the results fully. We will work with the Democrats, and we look forward to cooperating. We will probably reach some kind of agreement,” the NYT reported.
However, he did not accept responsibility for his handling of the government as a cause of the defeat. He wrote on Truth Social, “I wasn’t on the ballot. If I had been, we would have won in a landslide.”
[email protected] Lee Seok-woo, International Affairs Specialist Reporter