Trump, GOP prepare for incoming Democratic Congress: Live updates
Republicans are gearing up to fight an incoming Democratic-led Congress next year following the GOP's stunning defeat at the polls this week.
President Donald Trump on Thursday designated the Oval Office a national monument to preserve design changes he made to the historic space at the White House. Pentagon chiefPete Hegseth appeared defiant in the face of the investigations he can now expect to face next year. And at the Justice Department, a senior official tied to the DOJ’s move to prosecute Trump's anti-woke agenda abruptly resigned.
Meanwhile, Democrats have discussed who they want to lead them in the Senate as they aim to deliver on their promises to voters, including reining in corruption and undoing cuts the Trump administration made in healthcare for millions of Americans.
"The issue is focusing on the American people and what they want," current Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat whose position is at stake, told reporters Thursday. "We are going to work hard to drive costs down with the president or without him. Period."
Democrats won around the country by surprising margins, taking control of both the House and the Senate. The party flipped 39 House seats, while Republicans flipped two. Democrats also flipped seven Senate seats.
As of Friday morning, votes were still being counted in the Alaska and Mississippi Senate races, as well as dozens of House races. Election officials have said counting the remaining ballots could take days or weeks.
These teens won their midterm election races
Melina Khan
Two 19-year-olds made history by winning their respective midterm elections on Nov. 3 for seats at the local level.
Daniel Darris-O'Connor, 19, of Billerica, Massachusetts, was elected state representative for the 22nd Middlesex district, unseating a longtime Republican incumbent.
In Arizona, 19-year-old Sebastian Matta won his race for Maricopa County Clerk of the Superior Court.
"I'm a full-time college student who just, you know, happens to be doing a side gig running for office," Matta said in a Nov. 5 interviewon "Jimmy Kimmel Live."
After midterm disaster, Republican 2028 hopefuls play blame game
Joey Garrison
Vice President JD Vance blamed the midterm shellacking on the war in Iran. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said an "economic disconnect" also led to sweeping Republican losses. And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis boasted that his state was the only GOP stronghold to survive the blue tsunami.
After Democrats' midterm rout, the race for 2028 on the Republican side is on.
Top contenders eyeing the 2028 Republican primary to replace Donald Trump worked to unpack what went wrong for their party after a decisive repudiation of Trump in the Nov. 3 midterms. And in their respective critiques, Vance, Cruz and DeSantis started to look beyond the term-limited ‒ and now lame-duck ‒ president who has dominated their party for a decade.
"Let's be clear about what happened last night: This is as close to an extinction-level event for Republicans in many parts of the country as we have seen probably in the last 100 years," DeSantis said the day after the midterms.
Vance, in a Nov. 4 postmortem analysis on X, said MAGA voters turned out to the polls in solid numbers, but he observed that "many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026." Above all, Vance blamed the war on Iran, which the president defended throughout the campaign, even as gas prices spiked as a result of the conflict.
"The reason we lost is the war," Vance said. "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."
Elect presidents by popular vote instead of Electoral College? More states join debate
Bart Jansen
Could presidents start being elected by popular vote? It’s not clear, but Democratic victories in the midterm rekindled attention to the possibility.
Presidents are chosen by the Electoral College, a group of delegates based on the number of seats in Congress who are supposed to cast votes mirroring each state’s results. But that method has been criticized for giving smaller-population states outsized influence in presidential elections based on their representation in the Senate.
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is a long-discussed agreement between states that would shift presidential elections away from the Electoral College. The compact calls for states to pledge their electoral votes to whoever wins the popular vote, not just who wins their state.
Five states with Democrats newly in control of the governorships and legislatures – Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – could potentially push support for the compact past the 270 electoral-vote threshold needed to adopt the compact. But it’s not clear they will.
"It's now a very real possibility. And these state legislatures will meet soon and start their sessions, and I imagine this is going to be at the forefront of some pretty aggressive lobbying efforts," said Derek Muller, an election law professor at the University of Notre Dame.
Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth not being considered as senator from Tennessee
Bart Jansen and Joey Garrison
Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, who faces a likely impeachment vote when the House returns from the midterms next week, is not a candidate to be appointed to the Senate from Tennessee, according to a source close to the state’s new governor.
Hegseth, who has a home outside Nashville, has been the subject of speculation about the opening. GOP Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who won the governor’s race Nov. 3, will name her own successor.
But the source told USA TODAY that Blackburn isn’t considering him. Other options are GOP Rep. Tim Burchett or Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs, who was on stage with Blackburn during her victory speech.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders says Trump not to blame for GOP midterm losses
Bart Jansen
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump’s former press secretary in his first term, doesn’t think the Democratic rout in the midterm elections was the president’s fault.
"I think each race has to be looked at independently, and the president, while he still remains the most influential voice in all of Republican politics − frankly, in all of politics − his name wasn't on the ballot," Sanders, who won her own reelection campaign, said in an exclusive interview with USA TODAY about her new book, "Unapologetic," published Nov. 10 by St. Martin's Press. "And so I don't think that this can be a line drawn against him."
Pollsters found opposition to the war against Iran – and rising fuel prices that resulted – a major reason voters turned against Republicans. But Trump has argued he had to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
"I'm thankful that we have a president who is willing to stand up and do sometimes what is not easy, what is not always politically convenient, but what is certainly in the interest of the American people," Sanders said.
Trump to visit technology conference at NASA
Bart Jansen
Trump has focused more onconstruction of the White House ballroom and preserving the Oval Officethan politics since Democrats swept back into control of Congress in the midterms, and is expected to visit a technology conference at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Nov. 6.
The UP.Summit is a gathering of hundreds of investors, officials with cutting-edge transportation companies and government officials from around the world.
Visitors get to see a SpaceX Falcon 9 first-stage booster rocket and the upper stage of a Blue Origin New Glenn rocket.