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Earlier on this story23 Oct: Nov. 3 Midterm Elections Could Shift Congress Control From Donald Trump1 more

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9 outlets compared

Trump Gambles In U.S. Midterms As Democrats Seek To Take Back The House

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This article is an automated aggregation of coverage from news outlets. Our editorials offer in-depth analysis curated by the NewsCord team.

Democrats favored to win the House; elections crucial for the remainder of Trump's term. Polls suggest Trump could lose control of the House and possibly the Senate.

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9 outlets told this the same way.

Midterms loom for Trump

Donald Trump is taking a big gamble on Tuesday, November 3, 2026, as the United States midterm elections could cost Republicans their majority and reduce his political leverage on the legislative front. Nearly 250 million voters are called to choose representatives in midterm elections where all 435 House seats and 35 of the 100 Senate seats are up for grabs, along with 36 gubernatorial posts. The first polling stations open at 6:00 a.m. local time in many East Coast states, and nearly 58 million voters have already voted early, a record for midterms.

Republicans hold only a slim majority of 219 seats to 214 for the Democrats in the House, while Siena College polls for the New York Times are cited as favoring Democratic candidates to flip the Senate. Hakeem Jeffries told CNN, “We are about to take back the House,” as Democrats seek to regain the levers of power in Washington for the remainder of Trump’s term.

Close head-and-shoulders portrait of a man in a suit and tie, flag
Close head-and-shoulders portrait of a man in a suit and tie, flag2 June 2025 · Archive photoPhoto: Daniel Torok / US federal government, Public domain
Reporting for this sectionBFMOuest-France

Polls, pressure, and acceptance

France 24 framed a Democratic majority as a way to curb Donald Trump’s policies, describing the House as the “engine of budget initiative and the main investigative body” and saying Democrats could issue subpoenas and draft and vote articles of impeachment. France 24 also said a Democratic Senate could block, delay, or reject Donald Trump’s nominations to the presidential cabinet, the leadership of federal agencies, and Supreme Court justices. RFI staged a debate over whether Trump could sabotage the midterm elections, and it put Ludivine Gilli, director of the North America Observatory at the Jean Jaurès Foundation, and Bernard Harcourt, professor at Columbia University, on the panel.

Daniel Fried, former ambassador to Poland and a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, said, “If Trump is repudiated, the Republicans could begin to show less receptiveness to his pressures and to think about what comes next.” Reed Brody, the American lawyer specializing in human rights defense, said, “We are dealing with a head of state who has already refused to accept his defeat in 2020.”

Reporting for this sectionFrance 24Sud Ouest

What could be at stake

Le HuffPost described the House as a place where midterms have “almost always been losses for the president’s side,” and it said Trump’s House majority hangs by a thread because he holds 218 representatives, the exact number needed to be in the majority. Trump currently holds 53 of 100 Senate seats and only 35 are up for election, while Trump must lose at most 3 seats for the Senate not to tilt to the Democrats. Folha de S.Paulo said the Reuters/Ipsos national poll released on Monday showed voters preferred the Democrats to the Republicans, 46% to 38% on the generic party preference question, and it added that the final projection from Decision Desk HQ showed 241 seats in the House for the Democrats and 194 for the Republicans.

Trump pledged to send a $5,000 (R$ 27,000) check to every American adult if the Republicans win the elections, and Trump said, “I veto everything,” if he loses control of Congress. France 24 concluded that a Democratic Congress could force Trump to govern mainly by executive orders, while it described the last legislative power remaining to the billionaire as the presidential veto power to block laws emanating from Congress.

Close smiling headshot of a man in suit, US flag in background
Close smiling headshot of a man in suit, US flag in background6 October 2017 · Archive photoPhoto: Shealah Craighead / White House, Public domain
Reporting for this sectionLe HuffPostFolha de S.Paulo