Dems to take House; GOP retains Senate
WASHINGTON — Democrats were poised to seize the House majority from President Donald Trump's Republican Party on Tuesday in a suburban revolt that threatened what's left of the president's governing agenda. But the GOP gained ground in the Senate and preserved key governorships, beating back a "blue wave" that never fully materialized.
The mixed verdict in the first nationwide election of Trump's young presidency underscored the limits of his hardline immigration rhetoric in America's evolving political landscape, where college-educated voters in the nation's suburbs rejected his warnings of a migrant "invasion" while blue-collar voters and rural America embraced them.
Still, a new Democratic House majority would end the Republican Party's dominance in Washington for the final two years of Trump's first term with major questions looming about health care, immigration and government spending. The president's party will maintain control of the executive and judicial branches of U.S. government, in addition to the Senate, but Democrats suddenly have a foothold that gives them subpoena power to probe deep into Trump's personal and professional missteps — and his long-withheld tax returns.
"Tomorrow will be a new day in America," declared House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who would be in line to become the next House speaker.
There were signs of extraordinary turnout in several states, including Georgia, where voters waited hours in the rain to vote in some cases, and in Nevada, where the last voters cast their ballots nearly three hours after polls were scheduled to close.
The Democrats picked up the 23 seats they had to wrest from the GOP, but were still short of the 218 total for a House majority, with more races to be decided.