In a lovely change from the 2016 election, the United States midterms went basically just how they were predicted: The Democrats are currently on a strong path to take back the House of Representatives, while the Senate remains in Republican hands with a potentially increased majority.
Despite the fact a Democratic House is set to make Trump’s life far more difficult, he was happy to bang out a tweet more or less declaring it as a victory.
Tremendous success tonight. Thank you to all!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2018
(Yes, I’m well aware that he almost certainly didn’t tweet that. In fact, I bet they had five husky dudes holding the president down while a staffer tweeted that.)
Though multiple networks have now declared that the Democrats will take the house, it isn’t all sunshine for them. The hugely publicised battle for the Texas Senate seat was ultimately won by incumbent Ted Cruz, despite hopes he would be unseated. Florida gubernatorial hopeful Andrew Gillum also lost narrowly.
As it stands at the time of publishing, the Dems have taken a net total of 23 seats, for a an overall total of 175. That puts the Republicans at 168 – and they may lose more yet.
So what does this means in practical terms? Basically, Trump and his party aregoing to have a tougher time enacting his agenda, now that the House of Representatives is likely to be hostile to his legislative efforts. Additionally, the Dems have access to some of the investigative capabilities of the House, which they are almost certainly going to deploy against Trump.
It’s worth remembering that it’s very, very normal for the party of the incumbent president to suffer losses in the midterms – so you can’t entirely base this on the population turning on Trump. But the numbers are clear: the Democrats have carved a path through suburbs which usually go Republican, probably from rich conservative types who find him quite rude.
The lessons of the midterms will come through over the coming weeks, but you can rest assured of one thing: despite what Trump may be tweeting, he is very red and mad and possibly nude right now.
