In a stinging rebuke to President Donald Trump, Democrats have trounced Republicans in the United States (US) midterm elections, seizing control of the Senate and making substantial gains that have put them on course to take the House of Representatives.

The rebuke was best symbolised in Texas, where Democrat James Talarico defeated Trump-backed Republican Ken Paxton in a closely watched Senate race, becoming the first Democrat to win a Senate seat in the state since 1988. Trump had controversially personally interfered in that race to install Paxton in the face of warnings that this would cost the Republican’s control of the Senate by triggering a snowball effect across America. In a related remarkable victory, Democrat Gina Hinojosa defeated incumbent Republican governor Greg Abbott, ending 36 years of Republican control of the governorship.

The Democratic victories extended deep into traditionally Republican territory. In Kansas, Adam Hamilton defeated incumbent Republican senator Roger Marshall, becoming the first Democrat elected to the Senate from the state in nearly a century. In South Carolina, Darline Graham, who had received strong backing from Trump, lost her Senate seat to Democrat Annie Andrews.

In Ohio, Democrat Amy Acton defeated Trump-backed Vivek Ramaswamy to become the state's first Democratic governor in two decades. In Georgia, Keisha Lance Bottoms made history by becoming the first black woman elected governor of a US state.

What will particularly concern Republican strategists is the defeat in Maine of Susan Collins, one of the Republican Party's most centrist and moderate voices, who lost to Democrat Troy Jackson after holding her Senate seat since 1997. Her defeat suggests that even Republicans who have sought to distance themselves from Trump were not spared the electoral backlash against his administration.

Trump reacted angrily to the results, distancing himself from the Republican defeats and insisting that his personal presence on the ballot would have produced a different outcome. Writing on his Truth Social platform, he declared, “I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!”

The defeats mark a significant rejection of Trump's Make America Great Again (MAGA) political programme, amid widespread public frustration over high living costs, rising fuel prices, and the war with Iran. The latter is particularly damaging politically, given Trump's repeated assurances that he would keep America out of the sort of costly Middle Eastern wars that had characterised previous administrations.

America now faces the prospect of a fractious final two years of Trump's presidency. Democratic control of the Senate will complicate presidential appointments and constrain the administration's legislative ambitions. Should Democrats also capture the House, which is the strong likelihood, they will be positioned to launch extensive investigations into Trump and his administration, with renewed impeachment efforts also a possibility.

Trump, meanwhile, may increasingly turn to executive action to advance his political programme in the face of congressional resistance. The result could be two years of severe confrontation between the White House and Congress, as the president seeks to preserve his agenda ahead of the 2028 presidential election.

Last week, The Common Sense ran a Special Report on the midterms, and the results as they come in are in line with the third of three scenarios sketched for the election.

“The third outcome is that Democrats take control of both chambers. This would place considerably greater constraints on the administration’s legislative programme. Democrats would control the leadership and committees of both the House and Senate, while Senate control would also give them substantial influence over presidential appointments and judicial confirmations. Trump would retain the presidency, his constitutional executive powers, and the authority to veto legislation passed by Congress. He would also retain significant powers in foreign affairs and areas where existing legislation delegates authority to the executive. However, his ability to secure new legislation reflecting his administration’s priorities would become much more limited”.

For South Africa, the result will embolden the government to resist American demands that it make concessions to US investors on black economic empowerment (BEE), property rights, and foreign policy. Pretoria has long hoped for precisely such an outcome, calculating that a Democratic Congress would be more sympathetic to its position and could be played off against the Trump White House. The election result will reinforce that strategy, making a negotiated settlement of the disputes between Washington and Pretoria considerably more difficult.