After the Wave: Trump and Vance Split Over the War That Cost Them Congress

A day after Democrats swept both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections, the scale of the Republican defeat was still coming into focus — and the blame game inside the party had already begun. By Wednesday morning, network tallies put Democrats near 54 seats in the Senate and past the 218-seat line in the House, after flipping at least 27 House seats while Republicans flipped none, according to The Washington Post, with more than 60 House races still uncalled. The Associated Press put Democrats at 228 House seats won, with leads in another 34. The results end two years of unified Republican control of Washington and hand Democrats the subpoena power, committee chairs and confirmation leverage that will shape the final two years of President Donald Trump's second term.

The sharpest split opened between Mr Trump and his own vice-president. JD Vance wrote on social media that the war with Iran was the reason for the defeat. "The reason we lost is the war," he posted. "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. Agree or disagree, that's at least honest. But everyone knows why we lost." Mr Trump, in interviews after the vote, said Mr Vance's assessment was "largely true" — but insisted that, given the choice, he would order the war again, arguing that stopping an Iranian nuclear weapon remained the only long-term solution. He admitted the conflict had pushed petrol prices higher and said that price shock, more than the war itself, probably cost Republicans their majorities.

Mr Trump himself struck a mixed tone. He told Fox News that the Democrats "did a good job" and said he would accept the results, a notable line after weeks of warnings about noncitizen voting. At the same time he posted that he had not been on the ballot — "I wasn't on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!" — and vowed to veto Democratic legislation, telling Fox News: "After a couple of months of vetoes, they'll call and they'll say, 'how do we get this stuff done?'. And we'll work together. I have the power to veto." The acceptance matters after the fears, voiced by Democrats before the vote, that Mr Trump might challenge the results, as he did in 2020. It does not settle the politics.

The defeat also scrambled the Republican leadership. House Speaker Mike Johnson informed aides that he would not seek to lead the party's conference in the minority, and Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio indicated he would seek the position, arguing the party must adopt a more aggressive approach in opposition. In Alaska, the one loose end, the Trump administration has filed a lawsuit aimed at blocking certification if Republican Senator Dan Sullivan loses, pointing to a second candidate with the same name on the ballot. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Republicans would work with the president to block what he called Democratic extremism.

Democrats, for their part, have moved quickly to set out what they will do with power. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called the results a "generational remake of the Senate map", while House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, in line to become the first Black Speaker, described the outcome as an "American tsunami" and laid out a 100-day agenda built around lowering costs and tougher oversight. Party leaders have signalled investigations into senior administration officials and into how the president's family has profited from office, and impeachment of Mr Trump and his officials has not been ruled out. The exit polls explain the urgency: the AP Voter Poll found about six in ten voters said the Iran war was wrong, while roughly half named living costs or government corruption as crucial to their vote; preliminary ABC News polling put government corruption first, at 55 per cent, ahead of the cost of living at 49 per cent and the war at 34 per cent.

What happens next will be decided first by counting and certification, and then by confrontation. Several races remained uncalled on Wednesday, and the tallies reported so far are not certified final results. The new Congress is sworn in on 3 January 2027, and a Democratic House could launch investigations into the administration's ethics, its handling of immigration enforcement and the Iran war, while a Democratic Senate could block Mr Trump's appointments. Online, the scale of the result was still the story: a thread in r/politics arguing that Democrats had now won enough state-level seats nationwide to end the Electoral College drew nearly 38,000 upvotes: https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1xnyz4f/democrats_win_enough_seats_nationwide_to_end/ For now, the party that began the night needing a net gain of four Senate seats and three House seats has taken both chambers — and the argument over why it happened is already dividing the losers.

Read the original story on The Curtain: https://thecurtain.online/story/trump-vance-split-iran-war-midterm-defeat/