The US Midterm Elections: A Blue Tsunami or a Red Undertow?

Breakfast with Bwana

By Anil Madan

The long-anticipated mid-term elections in the US came to culmination, save a few races where final vote totals are still being tabulated.

The Democrats won in a rout, so much so that many people hoping for a Blue Wave, have proclaimed that we instead saw a Blue Tsunami. But was this election a vindication of some well-articulated Democratic agenda? Or was it something else? From my vantage, there is a cautionary tale here — the election results reflect more a red undertow holding Republicans back, than a Blue Wave surging the Democrats. For my readers overseas, the Democratic party is associated graphically with blue and the Republican party with red.

The polls certainly forecast a blue wave coming. However, in past elections, polls tended to undercount Republican support, which was primarily a function of a sampling problem: many Republican voters refused to participate in polls. Additionally, some analysts suggested that voters were too embarrassed to admit they planned to vote for Trump, further exacerbating the undercount. Pollsters claimed they had adjusted their methodologies to get a more accurate reflection of the electorate. Be that as it may, the polls still undercounted — only in the other direction this time: they underestimated the extent of the Republican rout to come.

At stake here was control of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The party winning a majority of seats in each chamber gets to appoint the Speaker in the case of the House and the Majority Leader in the case of the Senate. Each of these leaders effectively controls the legislative agenda of that chamber and thus wields enormous power. If the president’s party controls both chambers of Congress, they have smooth sailing in trying to enact their agenda, subject to certain legislative quirks in the US system, such as the filibuster in the Senate.

Now for some numbers: The Republicans hold a 218–214 majority in the House from the 2024 election, with one seat held by an Independent and two vacancies. In the Senate, Republicans hold 53 seats, while Democrats hold 47 (including two independents who caucus with them). In the new session starting in January 2027, NBC News projects that Democrats will lead with 259 seats to 176 for the Republicans. In the Senate, Democrats have won at least 54 seats to 44 for the Republicans, with two races still in flux. Consequently, the Democrats will control both chambers starting in January 2027. Crucially, however, the president has the power to veto any legislation, and overriding a veto requires a two-thirds majority in both chambers. President Trump will thus effectively have the power to kill any legislation the Democrats pass, if Republicans are not on board to overcome a veto.

What caused this tectonic shift in American politics? How did a President who won in a virtual landslide in 2024, suffer an ignominious defeat?

Trump started by blaming Fox News, saying in a post on his social media platform, that the network “bears responsibility for these losses by constantly and consistently putting on the Democrat opposition, and worse.” He went on to claim that had he been on the ballot, “we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!”

Nor did he take responsibility: “But I don’t view it as a hit on me. I think we’ve had the greatest two years in the history of the president in terms of the economy, in terms of all the things that we’ve done.”

Trump went on to blame the Republican candidates, saying that he although he didn’t get along with many of the candidates, he went along with endorsing them “for the purposes of the party.”

Eventually, he made a grudging admission that his war with Iran was a causal factor, saying voters “probably don’t agree with the short-term consequences” such as higher gas prices.

“It’s a short-term problem but for long term-gain,” he said, and then argued that history would judge his actions in the Middle East as “much more important than this evening.”

Vice President J.D. Vance, in an apparent break with Trump, posted that Republicans lost the election because of the war in Iran: “If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that’s at least honest. But everyone knows why we lost,” Vance wrote. “And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.”

The Wall Street Journal, often one of Trump’s biggest cheerleaders wrote in an editorial: “True to form, President Trump is already blaming everyone else, but he is the main architect of this rout. The President’s erratic and self-indulgent second-term governance has alienated much of the coalition he assembled in 2024.”

The truth is that the Iran war is only one of many reasons for voter disaffection with Trump and the Republicans.

Although Americans in general want the border policed and illegal immigration stopped, they have recoiled at the often harsh and brutal enforcement by ICE and the mass deportations. It has not helped the Trump administration that people have been killed by ICE officers. Americans are decent people and recoil at abuse. The brutality of immigration enforcement is viewed by most Americans with horror.

The knock-on effects of immigration enforcement are causing real hardship for Americans in the farming, construction, healthcare, and other sectors. The VisaVerge website reported that the farming sector is facing severe labor shortages due to immigration enforcement. It was estimated in May of this year that domestic production could drop 15% to 20% by mid-2026, potentially increasing grocery prices by up to 15%.

The Brookings Institution reported that the immigration enforcement surge cost an estimated 668,000 jobs. Across the cities with the sharpest rises in ICE arrests, employment fell 0.73% below expected baseline levels, a gap that widened to 1.48% in the 51 cities tracked over at least six months.

In the wake of supply chain disruptions wrought by the Covid pandemic, the US, like every other country, was experiencing soaring inflation. President Trump’s tariffs and the war against Iran have exacerbated the pain that Americans were already feeling. First, the tariffs sent prices rocketing and immigration raids sent food prices soaring. The Iran war produced another shock as oil prices jumped and filling up an automobile tank with gas was a major drain. The price of diesel shot up too and that has caused prices across the board to rise.

It has not helped that American sentiment is turning away from Israel. It has not helped that the President is seen as cozying up to Putin and blaming Zelensky for high diesel prices. It has not helped that the President is seen to be close to high tech billionaires and in favour of Data Centers and AI, the latter seen as a threat to jobs.

Americans have made it clear that they do not want endless wars. They do not perceive the threat of a nuclear Iran as a real threat for the US. If it is, the notion has not been sold to the American public.

Americans see the soaring national debt, now north of $40 trillion. It has not escaped Americans that $40 trillion spent at home would have produced world-class infrastructure, and opened the way for investments in housing, clean energy, clean water, and measures to mitigate the effects of adverse weather events, wildfires, and earthquakes.

All that said, this is no time for the Democrats to be complacent. President Trump sold Americans — at least those who were listening to him — the prospect of a soaring economy with prosperity for all. That did not pan out. The voters turned.

The Democrats promise affordability and fairness. These are big promises. These promises cannot be met on a socialist agenda, no matter how well meaning.

It has seemed as if America went through a series of battles in a second civil war ever since Trump came on the scene as a presidential candidate. The country is deeply split. These mid-term elections have not healed the great divide. Perhaps the divide is too deep and cannot be healed. But the Democrats must try to bridge the gap. Else, the pendulum will swing the other way. Again.

Cheerz…
Bwana

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 6 November 2026