By Sarah Binder
For the first time since 2010, Democrats will lead the House of Representatives when the 116th Congress convenes early next year — while Senate Republicans will have padded their 51-seat majority by a few more, leaving them far below a filibuster-proof margin of 60 votes.
What does it all mean? Here are four takeaways from Tuesday night’s results.
1. It’s not always the economy, stupid
Midterm elections offer voters a chance to hold the president’s party accountable — typically for the state of the economy under the president’s watch. But with a strong economy and unemployment at its lowest in nearly a half-century, these elections were a referendum on Trump’s presidency. The results display a deeply divided electorate. City and suburban dwellers rejected the president’s inflammatory behavior and xenophobic policies; rural voters embraced him.
The result is a split-screen Congress. Democrats registered their opposition with record turnout in blue and purple districts, electing a record number of women, including several women of color, to take control away from Republicans for the first time in eight years. Across the Hill, Trump notched a major win by expanding his majority in the Senate by at least a couple of seats.
2. Democrats will investigate more than legislate
Voters have handed Democrats significant power to investigate any alleged wrongdoing by Trump and his administration. Democrats can thank Republicans for changing House rules in 2015; now most committee chairs can unilaterally issue subpoenas without consulting the minority party.
Democrats will surely use this unfettered authority to investigate Trump’s family businesses, ethics charges against several of his Cabinet members, and Trump policies such as the Muslim travel ban and separating migrant families at the border. Depending on the course of the Mueller investigation, the House Intelligence Committee is likely to toughen its oversight of the Trump campaign’s conduct in the 2016 elections.
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