The 2026 midterm elections have clearly been history for President Donald Trump, but not in a good way. Latest trends show Democrats are inching toward their largest House majority since 2008, when they won 257 seats. So far, all districts that Trump won in 2024 when he took back the presidency have moved toward Democrats.
The incumbent president’s party often loses seats in a midterm election, but this would be the largest victory by either party in half a century, signalling a tail end of decades of Democratic domination of the House.
The incumbent president’s party often loses seats in a midterm election, but this would be the largest victory by either party in half a century, signalling a tail end of decades of Democratic domination of the House. The blue wave has taken over 52 of the 234 districts that Trump won in 2024, according to a New York Times report. Data show that all districts that Democrats have unseated at least 40 incumbents so far, including seats in states like Iowa and Missouri, that Trump won by double digits in 2024. If this happens, it would give Democrats around an 85-seat majority in the House — a whopping 60 per cent of the available House seats — the biggest for the party since the early 1990s when they had 267. The party had 258 seats in the following Congress and 257 after former President Barack Obama’s big win in 2008 swept Democrats into power. It will also be the first time that Trump, a Republican who also held the White House from 2017 to 2021, has had to contend with Democrats controlling both chambers of Congress.
The midterm results are seen as a major blow to Trump, who had rallies nearly every day last month to energise his supporters but was still unable to stop a wipeout as most voters appear to blame his administration for high costs and want Congress to impose more checks on him. Democrats have signalled they’ll use their foothold in Congress to ensure that in the two years in office, Team Trump’s top members face investigations, with a deeper scrutiny of how the President enriched his family. Trump’s and his cabinet officials’ impeachment is also not off the table.
