No Winner, No Loser

The U.S. midterm elections brought about a slim majority, not a big victory for any party

TThe author is an op-ed contributor to Beijing Review and a researcher at the Pangoal Institution he U.S. midterm elections marked two years since Donald Trump’s presidential victory. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives were up for grabs during the elections, and 35 seats in the 100-member Senate. The results were as expected: Democrats gained a majority in the House of Representatives with 219 seats, but Republicans maintained, and even expanded, their majority in the Senate.

A divided Congress

Both parties achieved full mobilization for the turnout—estimated at 45-50 percent—among their supporters. It may have been the highest turnout since the 1960s, indicating strong sentiments on both sides. The results signaled a split in U.S. politics and society. At the same time, the tradition of power checks and balances as a fundamental guarantee of democratic politics continued to act effectively, and the U.S. public is still reluctant to approve one-party dominance in Washington.

While indicating the re-emergence of a divided Congress, there is also good news for the Democratic Party. The new House is not only constituted of more diverse ethnic groups, but also has a big increase in the number of women. Democratic activist Alexandria Ocasio-cortez, at the age of 29, became the youngest woman elected to Congress, Sharice Davids from Kansas was one of the first of two native American women elected, while Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib from Michigan became the first two Muslim women to win an election to Congress.

This is conducive to the Democratic Party, as groundbreaking campaigns have broken barriers and changed the face of Congress and state legislatures across the United States, creating favorable conditions for regaining the right to set the political agenda lost in the 2016 presidential elections. In the gubernatorial races, Democrats gained control of seven statehouses and broke Republican

People vote during the U.S. midterm elections at a polling station in Bethesda, Maryland, on November 6