House takeover a challenge to Trump
Dems preparing to scrutinize policies, start investigations
WASHINGTON— Democrats seized control of the House while Republicans held the Senate on Tuesday in a national referendum on President Donald Trump that drew record numbers of voters to the polls and opened the door to tougher oversight of the White House over the next two years.
The dramatic conclusion of the most expensive and consequential midterms in modern times fell short of delivering the sweeping repudiation of Trump wished for by Democrats and the “resistance” movement.
But Democrats’ takeover in the House still portended serious changes in Washington, as the party prepared to block Trump’s agenda and investigate his personal finances and potential ties to Russia.
An immediate post-election change to Trump’s Cabinet came Wednesday when Attorney General Jeff Sessions resigned at the president’s request. Trump, who said to expect staff changes after the midterms, had repeatedly eviscerated Sessions’ performance.
Democrats have gained more than the 23 House seats needed to win a majority. But some other key races remained too close to call, including the Senate contests in Arizona and Florida and the gubernatorial matchup in Georgia. Republicans appeared to lead in all three Wednesday.
House Democrats are prepared to launch investigations of Trump and to closely scrutinize his policies on immigration, education and health care. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is considered to be the front-runner to retake the speaker’s gavel.
But they are wary of immediately pursuing impeachment, concerned that such a move would undermine lawmakers who represent districts that Trump won in 2016.
At her own news conference, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., credited the Democratic victory in the House to the party’s focus on health care issues. She said Democrats have a “responsibility for oversight” but said committees’ efforts would not be “scattershot.”
Jockeying for House leadership positions began in earnest Wednesday, though lawmakers are not due back in Washington until next week.
Pelosi is widely considered to be the front-runner to retake the speaker’s gavel, though dozens of Democratic candidates had called for new leadership during the campaign.
On the Republican side, House Freedom Caucus Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio said in an interview with Hill.TV that he would challenge Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California for the role of minority leader. The move, while expected, underscored conservatives’ desire to expand their power within the GOP conference after a bruising election.
House GOP leadership elections are scheduled for Nov. 14.
On Tuesday, Republicans won hotly contested Senate races in Indiana, Missouri, North Dakota, Tennessee and Texas, with Trump’s racially charged warnings about undocumented immigrants and demonization of Democrats appearing to help withstand the “blue wave” the GOP once feared.
But Democrats — propelled by a rejection of Trumpism in the nation’s suburbs and from women and minority voters especially — notched victories in areas that just two years ago helped send Trump to the White House.
Women played a pivotal role in Democratic victories.
The Democratic Party won their support by 19 points, the largest margin in the history of midterm exit polling, compared with their margin of four points in 2014, according to network exit surveys from CNN. Independent women voted for Democratic candidates by a 17-point margin after narrowly supporting Republicans in 2014. And white women, a reliable voting bloc for the GOP, split their votes evenly between the two parties this year, after favoring Republicans by 14 points in 2014 and by 19 points in 2010.
Voters under 30 also favored Democrats this year by a 35-point margin over Republicans, compared with an 11-point margin in 2014, the polls found.
The Democrats’ new House majority was also pro- pelled by a record number of female candidates.
Women hold 84 House seats, but that share is projected to expand to 100 or more when all results are tallied. Across the country, 277 women were on the ballot Tuesday for Congress and governorships, an unprecedented number that included 210 House candidates.
Overall, the party picked up at least seven governorships, performing well across much of the upper Midwest and even in Kansas, where Laura Kelly was elected governor over Trump’s handpicked candidate, Kris Kobach.
In Wisconsin, Democrat Tony Evers bested Gov. Scott Walker, once a Republican star who ran for president in 2016. Walker survived a hard-fought recall vote in 2012 and was re-elected in 2014, only to be denied a third term by the state schools superintendent.
But Democrats were disappointed elsewhere.
Sens. Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Claire McCaskill of Missouri were defeated, while Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., his re-election in doubt, said his race was proceeding to a recount.
Democrats kept two hotly contested Senate seats in West Virginia and Montana and picked up one in Nevada, where Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen prevailed over Republican Sen. Dean Heller.
Rosen, who by early Wednesday was the lone Democratic challenger to beat a Republican incumbent in the Senate, cast her victory as a counterpoint to the racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric that had marked the closing days of the midterm campaign.
Two of the liberal movement’s greatest hopes for this election cycle, Democrats Stacey Abrams and Andrew Gillum, struggled to overcome some of the most overt racial attacks since the civil rights era and make history as the first black governors in Georgia and Florida, respectively.
While Gillum conceded to Republican Ron DeSantis, a Trump ally, Abrams told supporters she would not concede to Republican Brian Kemp while the race was too close to call.
If each candidate earns less than 50 percent of the vote, they would go head-tohead in a December runoff election.
Former President Barack Obama congratulated Democrats for “electing record numbers of women and young veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, a surge of minority candidates and a host of outstanding young leaders.”
“The more Americans who vote, the more our elected leaders look like America,” Obama said in a statement Wednesday.