Democrats failed to create a “blue wave” Tuesday to take decisive control of Congress but the currents of American politics appeared to shift enough from 2016 to give them control of the U.S. House for the first time in eight years, serving as a brake on President Trump, the GOP-controlled Senate and their two-year drive to undo many of the policies enacted during the eight years of Barack Obama’s presidency.
Working to slow the Republicans won’t be the only function of the House. By taking control of the chamber, Democrats will hold all its committee chairmanships and the subpoena power that comes with them.
CNN, CBS, Politico, and other outlets predicted just after 11 p.m. ET, that the Democrats successfully recaptured the House.
“Aren’t we all proud,” Rep. Nancy Pelosi told an audience around 11:30 p.m. Pelosi, who will likely retain her role of Speaker of the House, was joined on stage in Washington, D.C., by several other Democratic representatives and promised to restore the House’s “check and balances” role.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said that Trump called Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the senate majority leader, as well as several others. The president plans a news conference at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday to discuss the results, which he called on Twitter a “success” for his party.
Meanwhile, it wasn’t all good news for the Democrats. Not only did they not take the Senate, they lost ground there as incumbents Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, and Claire McCaskill of Missouri were defeated. Battleground races in Montana, where incumbent Sen. Jon Tester is paying the price for his defiance of Trump, and in Arizona, where two congresswomen were battling to become the state’s first female senator, still hadn’t been called Wednesday morning.
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Exit polling showed more than 40 percent of voters named Trump and concerns about health care as their biggest issues, which indicated a good night for the Democrats. Polls have shown Democrats are more trusted on health care issues than Republicans, and the president’s approval ratings continued to barely reach the dismal mark, lingering in the mid 40s.
Democrats needed a net gain of 23 seats to take control of the U.S. House and two seats to take the Senate.
In northern Virginia’s competitive 10th district race between Republican incumbent Barbara Comstock and her Democratic challenger, state Sen. Jennifer Wexton, there was an upset for the first flipped seat of the night. Wexton ousted the GOP Congresswoman, who had only served two terms.
Democrat Donna Shalala defeated Republican Maria Elvira Salazar in Florida’s 27th, flipping a second Republican seat.
A slew of races in districts won by Hillary Clinton in 2016 went for Democrats in 2018, which appeared to pave their way to victory.
There were also many notable firsts to be found in the election results around the country. Voters sent a clear signal they want more women in government, and there will be a record number of women in Congress when it starts business in January. At least 98 women were elected to the House of Representatives — 84 Democrats and 14 Republicans. In the Senate, 10 Democratic and two Republican women were elected, according to the latest projections. That’s a record number
Two Muslim women were elected and two Native American women were elected to the House. Massachusetts elected its first black woman to represent the state in the House, Arizona and Tennessee both elected their first women to represent their states in Congress, Jared Polis in Colorado became the nation’s first gay man to be elected governor, and, in New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez became the youngest woman elected to the House of Representatives.
Problems at the polls: In Detroit, voters at a precinct on the city’s east side were turned away from the polls because voting machines hadn’t been delivered. Voters in one precinct in Arizona found locked doors after the building’s landlord was foreclosed upon the night before the election. The voting machines were locked inside.
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In Georgia, where the governor’s race was one of the most closely watched in the nation, voters also complained there were no voting machines at some precincts. In Gwinett County, Georgia, voters reported to ProPublica, which is monitoring problems at the polls, that voting machines weren’t working and voters could only vote by paper or provisional ballots.
In New York City, lines reportedly stretched around buildings and there were multiple reports from voters about problems with ballot-scanning machines. Voters who spoke to Patch described New York precincts with ballots spilling out of a voting machine and a lack of information generally There are also several reports of long lines and malfunctioning voting equipment in the St. Louis area.
Some problems were out of the control of poll workers. In North Carolina, humidity was causing some ballot tabulation issues, the state’s Board of Elections reported, but said all ballots will be counted.
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Trump stayed out of the public eye on Election Day, but as the GOP’s chief messenger, warned that significant Democratic victories would trigger devastating consequences.
“If the radical Democrats take power they will take a wrecking ball to our economy and our future,” Trump declared Monday in Cleveland, using the heated rhetoric that has defined much of his presidency. He added: “The Democrat agenda is a socialist nightmare.”
On the ballot were all 435 members of the House of Representatives, 35 seats in the 100-member Senate, and 36 of 50 state governors.
Both Democrats and Republicans ramped up their get-out-the-vote efforts after tepid voter participation in the 2014 midterm elections, where turnout was the lowest level in more than a half century. By Monday, more than 30 million Americans had voted early in the midterm election, and 28 states have already surpassed their 2014 early vote total; states reported early voting is approaching turnout in the 2016 presidential election.
“I don’t think there’s a Democrat in this country that doesn’t have a little angst left over from 2016 deep down,” Stephanie Schriock, president of EMILY’s List, told The Associated Press before the election. The organization spent more than ever before — nearly $60 million in all — to support Democratic women this campaign season.
“Everything matters and everything’s at stake,” Schriock said.
“What it means to be a Republican is being rewritten as we speak,” Ari Fleischer, one of the authors of the report, told The AP. “Donald Trump has the pen, and his handwriting isn’t very good.”
A new nationwide poll released Sunday by NBC News and The Wall Street Journal showed the demographic shifts occurring across the country.
Democrats led with likely African-American voters (84 percent to 8 percent), Latinos (57 percent to 29 percent), voters between the ages of 18-34 (57 percent to 34 percent), women (55 percent to 37 percent) and independents (35 percent to 23 percent).
Among white college-educated women, Democrats enjoy a 28-point advantage: 61 percent to 33 percent.
On the other side, Republicans led with voters between the ages of 50 and 64 (52 percent to 43 percent), men (50 percent to 43 percent) and whites (50 percent to 44 percent). And among white men without college degrees, Republicans led 65 percent to 30 percent.
Identity Politics At Play
Identity politics drove voters to the polls on both sides. Both parties say the recent confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh energized their voters.
“While we don’t yet know how it might affect election results, anger certainly permeated both sides of this partisan fight,” Jeremy Gelman and Steven Wilson, both assistant professors of political science at the University of Nevada at Reno wrote for The Washington Post Monday.
But even before the divisive Kavanaugh hearings, brewing tensions sent female candidates on a quest for federal office in record numbers.
“I’ve seen women wake up like I’ve never seen them before,” Patti Russo, the executive director of the bipartisan Women’s Campaign School at Yale, told Forbes.
Closing Arguments On Both Sides
Democrats brought in high-profile surrogates to help deliver their closing arguments, including former President Obama, who said in Florida that “one election won’t eliminate racism, sexism or homophobia.”
“It’s not going to happen in one election,” Obama said. “But it’ll be a start.”
In Montana, where incumbent Democrat Sen. Jon Tester is in a statistical tie with Republican challenger Matt Rosendale, Trump railed against a walking caravan of Latin American immigrants seeking asylum at the U.S. border.
“Barbed wire used properly can be a beautiful sight,” said Trump, who backed away from an earlier statement that the soldiers would use lethal force against migrants who throw rocks at them. Instead, the soldiers are at the border are shoring up fencing and other infrastructure.
Trump continued the blitz with Election Day-eve stops in battleground states Ohio, Indiana and Missouri, where incumbent Democratic senators are in tight races. Obama campaigned in Georgia, Indiana and Illinois over the weekend, and was in Virginia Monday.
In some respects, the midterm election was also a referendum on Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act, which provided health insurance for millions of Americans, many with pre-existing conditions. Republicans failed in an attempt to repeal Obamacare, but are dismantling it piece by piece.
In Indiana and Illinois, Obama lambasted Republicans for “blatantly, repeatedly, badly, shamelessly lying” about their plan to protect those with pre-existing conditions, and accused the president of fear-mongering over the migrant caravan headed toward the U.S. border.
“America is at a crossroads,” he said in Indiana. “The character of our country is on the ballot.”
The Associated Press contributed reporting.
Photo: Kareem Primo, 25, back left jumps in the air as JoAnn Loulan, 70, of Portola Valley, California, celebrates in the foreground during a Democratic party election night event at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, on Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018, in Washington.