From the Strait of Hormuz to the strait of midterm, Trump pays heavy price
By Azu Ishiekwene
Those who voted for President Donald Trump and handed the Republicans a majority in the US Congress two years ago cannot claim it was a mistake. Twenty-two years ago, Dick Stoken wrote in The Great Game of Politics that there’s a psychology that explains why we elect whom we elect.
The midterm results just re-echoed Stoken’s point that the pendulum of US politics swings toward the middle all the time, not despite the voters, but because of them.
One Trump term (2017-2021) was enough. But because the Democratic Party had lost its way by creating a nanny state, compounding red tape, and deifying wokeism, Trump’s idiosyncrasies looked like middle ground. He was voted in again in 2024, despite his hubris.
Tick says the clock…
Two years later, the pendulum is swinging left again. It’s funny that a president who dragged the US into a needless Middle East war with serious economic consequences for the world, sparked global tariff wars, criminalised migration, and bullied neighbours and allies alike is unable to save his party from electoral ruin.
Voters have just reminded him that all 45 presidents who have occupied the White House since 1776 are tenants, not owner-occupiers.
If it were up to him, Trump would have stuffed the ballots, created a crisis, or manufactured any subterfuge to change the results. But despite his disdain for process, his vindictive narrow-mindedness and desperation for vengeance, he could not. Despairing voters tamed him on November 3.
Americans, or at least a significant number of them, have delivered the first nationwide verdict on Trump’s second term. Midterms are not a presidential election, but this one almost assumed the character of one – with President Barack Obama and Trump himself hitting the road and mounting the soapbox.
A verdict foretold
The outcome is a Democratic breakthrough that feels like a landslide. All 435 seats in the House of Representatives were on the ballot, along with 35 of the 100 Senate seats and 36 governorships. The stakes were straightforward: Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress. Following the polls, Democrats flipped the hitherto red Congress to blue.
The contest itself was not merely between two parties. It was between two versions of America – one energised by Trump’s MAGA delusions; the other alarmed by the cost of living, Trump’s misuse and abuse of power, and the slow unravelling of the American dream.
As an unwritten rule, midterm elections often punish the president’s party. Voters, having handed a president the keys to the White House, return two years later to endorse or denounce the state of affairs. And since Trump-2 happened, the state of affairs has been not just perilous but life-threatening.
With Americans being shot on the streets by ICE agents in what is clearly state-sanctioned murder, and vindictive attacks on critics like Ilhan Omar, the election assumed unusual urgency. Trump himself led the Republican campaigns, asking voters to assume he was on the ballot. That was a clear indication that, despite his incorrigibility, he was troubled by a likely unfavourable verdict – which is what he got.
Bribe offer didn’t quite work
He told Americans to pretend he was on the ballot (he recanted after the devastating defeat), and offered a generous $5,000 bribe for every vote if Republicans won. His oligarch, Elon Musk, reportedly spent $474 million. Yet, Trump was punished, and Republicans lost.
His approval rating has been near record lows, with public dissatisfaction focused on the economy and a foolish war in Iran, which a Republican Congress never felt any urgency about but felt helpless to stop.
The election results are proof that Trump has been a liability and a political misadventure at the White House, as Republican candidates struggled to distance themselves from a president who demands loyalty and rarely admits error. They were still Trump enablers, and their loss should not be mourned.
A new lease of life
For Democrats, the election has been a breath of fresh air, and an opportunity to rebuild and regain institutional leverage. Theirs is broader than opposition to Trump. They campaigned on affordability – housing, prices, healthcare, and energy – while presenting themselves as the party prepared to check executive excesses. Their challenge was to turn anger into a governing argument, not merely a protest vote.
The parties were not evenly matched in mood. Polling and early voting data indicated strong Democratic enthusiasm. Compared with Republicans, Democrats seemed far more motivated to vote, a sign that opposition to Trump brought infrequent voters to the polls – something party leaders had not succeeded at.
Moreover, Trump’s claims on the economy, as with every other claim, became contested territory. Bloomberg reported that his handling of the economy, alongside the war in Iran, contributed to his very low approval ratings.
Immigration was another defining issue. For Trump’s base, border enforcement is a promise kept. For Democrats and many independents, the obvious fact is that enforcement has become murderous, indiscriminate, divisive and damaging to America’s image. For young, minority and urban voters, immigration is a moral and civil-rights question.
Foreign policy was another layer. The war in Iran has turned national security from a Republican talking point into a subject of scrutiny. Voters may support a strong military, but they also ask what a war would cost, who would fight it, and whether it would make everyday life safer.
Voter revenge
Americans showed up even with protest votes. Early voting data showed that roughly 54 million Americans had already cast ballots before election day. Of those, about 43 per cent were Democrats, 32 per cent were Republicans, and 25 per cent were independents or unaffiliated voters.
More striking is the reported increase in turnout among voters of colour in the states that release race and ethnicity data. That matters because Democrats made gains among young, non-white and previously disengaged voters – groups that traditionally turn out at lower rates in midterms.
The election was not decided in California or New York, where outcomes are largely predictable. It was decided in a handful of competitive states and districts: North Carolina, Georgia, Maine, Michigan, Texas, Ohio and Alaska were among the key battlegrounds.
Now with Democrats in control of Congress, Trump’s final two years could change. For example, the Democratic Congress can investigate administration decisions, subpoena officials, scrutinise spending, examine the conduct of the war in Iran, and challenge policies on immigration, healthcare and the economy. The days of a rubber-stamp Congress may be well and truly over, and tougher scrutiny may be expected.
Some things never change…
Yet, while winning Congress gives Democrats substantial power to investigate, block new legislation and bargain over funding, it does not necessarily give them the votes to dismantle Trump’s existing legislative programmes while he remains president.
Controversial Trump-signed laws, such as the tax-and-spending law in 2025 (the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill), the mandatory immigration detention for certain non-citizens charged with specified offences (the Laken Riley Act 2025), and federal judicial appointments, will be harder to reverse than imagined.
Underestimate a demagogue at your peril. Trump may well rule America for the rest of his term by veto and Executive Orders, without Congress. It remains to be seen if, finally, the midterm has taught the Trump White House the lesson that it failed to learn from turning the world on its head.
The pendulum is swinging back to the middle, but it’s still early days to be excited.
- Ishiekwene is the Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP and author of the book Writing for Media and Monetising It.
