Nov. 11 (UPI) — The 2026 midterm election results have been called a blue wave, even a blue tsunami, but however significant the changing of the guard on Capitol Hill, experts agree Democrats and Republicans alike have lessons to learn.
When the midterm elections go against the party of the president, there is a reset in the balance of power between the executive and legislative branches of government. The 2026 midterms ushered in one of the more dramatic resets by the numbers, but questions loom about how both parties will read and react to those results.
Elaine Karmarck, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Jim Townsend, director of the Carl Levin Center for Oversight and Democracy at Wayne State University, shared their analysis of the midterm election results and how they will impact the next two years of President Donald Trump’s term with UPI.
With some races still being counted Wednesday, majority control in the U.S. House will undergo a shift in January, from a slim Republican majority to a double-digit majority for Democrats. In the Senate Democrats will have at least an eight-seat majority, together making it the largest two-chamber majority for the party since the Obama administration.
Karmarck said that a successful midterm by the Democratic Party is no clear sign of what will happen in the 2028 presidential election.
“There’s a variety of reasons for that. One, most presidents make adjustments to a bad midterm. Bill Clinton did it in 1994,” said Karmarck, who led the Clinton administration’s Reinventing Government Initiative. “There were all sorts of adjustments, right from the cabinet to White House staff to where he went, to what he focused on.”
“That defeat was really good for us because all of the sudden he focused on things like cutting waste from the government,” she continued. “That’s one of the reasons why the midterms are not a leading indicator of the next presidential election.”
Majorities the size of what the Democrats have achieved make it easier for one party to advance bills without needing to make concessions with the minority. Passing them into law still will require cooperation from the minority or the president.
Even with Republicans’ slim majorities the past two years, they were able to advance much of the agenda the president pursued through lawmaking; the caveat being that Trump was willing to sign off on those bills.
Democrats have a much larger majority but they still do not hold the White House, a key hurdle in bringing legislation into law. The options they have to pass laws are working with Trump and the Republican Party to pass bills, or to draw enough support from Republicans in both chambers to veto-proof bills.
A two-thirds majority can override a president’s veto, 290 votes in the House and 67 in the Senate. As of Wednesday, Democrats are confirmed to hold at least 54 Senate seats and 254 House seats.
Majorities in the Senate and House have swung back and forth like a pendulum since the 1990s. Before that, Democrats held a House majority for 40 years, spanning from 1955 to 1995. It has not held a majority for more than four years since.
Townsend said that with Trump as an outgoing president, there is an opportunity for more bipartisanship on Capitol Hill.
“The voters are saying ‘We’re dissatisfied, certainly with MAGA and with President Trump,'” Townsend said. “Two years ago they were dissatisfied with the Democrats and Joe Biden and obviously Kamala Harris. It would be a mistake for Democrats and Republicans to think that this is a mandate for some sort of go-it-alone strategy where you just run through your agenda without any regard for what the other side has any interest in. That’s been the pattern.”
Among the takeaways Townsend and Karmarck agree on is the headline priority for Congress immediately: addressing affordability.
“They’re going to have to get some money back for the American people,” said Karmarck. “The fastest way to do that is to reverse the president’s decisions: Medicaid cuts and his cuts to Obamacare. Those were almost $1 trillion; Enormous cuts. People are going to start feeling them in December.”
Along with healthcare costs, aggravated by the cuts to Medicaid in the 2025 legislative agenda bill Trump dubbed the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” the costs of living have been greatly impacted by the U.S. war with Iran.
Since the United States began strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, the price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States is up more than 40%. Its effects go beyond the price at the pump. Rising energy costs trickle into nearly every aspect of the economy, from the costs of goods to creating uncertainty in global markets.
Townsend said Democratic lawmakers are likely keen to end the war with Iran quickly. However, ending a war does not happen as quickly as starting one.
Since the war started, Democrats have introduced resolutions to limit the president’s authority to go to war more than a dozen times in the Senate alone. They have also introduced bills in the House to block funding for the war effort in Iran. None of these efforts were successful under the current makeup of Congress.
Before Democrats have taken control in the House, a Republican lawmaker has brought forth articles of impeachment for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has overseen the war effort. Outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., introduced articles of impeachment on Hegseth in September, and reintroduced them on Monday.
Massie said Hegseth has broken the law by remaining engaged in fighting with Iran without congressional authorization.
On Tuesday, the House voted 211 to 204 to take Massie’s resolution to impeach Hegseth out of floor consideration. Massie was the only Republican who voted for impeachment. The vote did not kill the resolution though. It will move into committee for further consideration.
The United States has maintained in its negotiations to end the war that Iran cannot possess a nuclear weapon or the capabilities to develop nuclear weapons.
The third prong to addressing affordability, Karmarck said, is taking congressional action to reverse at least some of Trump’s broad tariffs.
“People are confused why on Earth we’re making life miserable for Canada of all places,” she said.
With the power of the gavel, Democrats also gain the power to investigate the Trump administration and hold government officials to account when needed. Majorities of the opposing party to the president are more likely to carry out investigations into the executive branch, and consider removing officials, such as Hegseth in this case.
When the Democratic Party gained majorities during Trump’s first term in 2019, they led investigations into the president and impeached him, twice.
Townsend and Karmarck said impeaching the president may not be the track Democrats take this time around after failing to remove Trump from office before.
“They did not have a lot to show for those investigations, for a variety of reasons,” Townsend said.
Lawmakers may not pursue impeachment in the same way they did in 2019, but Townsend and Karmarck expect Democrats to lead some investigations into potential corruption by the Trump administration.
Trump made $2.2 billion in personal revenue in 2025, a financial disclosure reported in July showed. His close ties to other billionaires around the world, wealthy corporations, and the biggest single political donor of the midterm cycle Elon Musk, have drawn allegations of quid pro quo deals involving his administration.
“That’s a staggering amount of money to make in one year,” Karmarck said. “I think that alerted people to the fact that, ‘Wait a minute, something funny is going on.’ We’ve had other rich men be president. If the stock market was doing well, they earned money in the stock market, but it was in a blind trust. It was all far away from them.”
The war in Iran and affordability were key issues for voters in the midterms. Karmarck said corruption became another key issue after Trump’s 2025 financial disclosure.
“The intensity of remaking Washington and throwing gold on everything when people are having trouble filling up their gas tanks, it was just too much for the public,” she said.
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