US President Trump admitted that the war against Iran was one of the reasons for the Republican Party's defeat in the midterm elections. "I think part of the reason is Iran," Trump said in an interview with Fox News on Wednesday. He also reiterated in an interview with the Wall Street Journal: "Iran is one of the reasons." Although Trump promised not to start a new war during the campaign, he still defended his actions to launch military strikes against Iran.
"I did the right thing," he told the Wall Street Journal. "If I had it to do over again, I would do it again." In this election, Democrats won control of the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Tehran expressed satisfaction with the US election results. Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said on the social platform X on Wednesday: "The Americans said 'no, no war' and we support this position."
During the campaign, Democratic candidates across the country blamed rising prices for gasoline and other goods on the conflict. Trump has mentioned that the goals and timeline of this war are constantly changing. He threatened to expand the scope of US military strikes, but also claimed that he could end the conflict at any time.
Metin Hakverdi, who serves as Germany's coordinator for transatlantic cooperation, said he expected the results of the U.S. midterm elections to have a significant impact on the political situation between Berlin and Washington.
"The United States has chosen change," he said in an interview with the German Press Agency. At the same time, he emphasized that Trump still controls foreign policy to a large extent and that Germany will continue to maintain contact with the two parties in the United States.
“We especially cannot limit our engagement to specific political camps,” he added, noting the historic significance of two women being elected governors: the first Native woman governor of New Mexico and the first black woman governor of Georgia.
Hackweldi himself is a member of the German Social Democratic Party. He has relatives in the United States and also attended high school in the United States.
German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius congratulated the Democratic Party, calling it a "historic victory." He also emphasized that the White House remains unchanged and Berlin will continue to cooperate with it.
According to the Associated Press, Democrats won control of the Senate and House of Representatives in the midterm elections.
Before the vote, Republicans held 218 seats in the House of Representatives and Democrats held 214. Although the seat statistics are still being finalized, the Associated Press has announced that the Democratic Party won 223 seats in the House of Representatives election, exceeding the majority threshold; in the Senate election, the Democratic Party also won 53 seats, exceeding the majority threshold.
U.S. President Trump admitted his election defeat and blamed Iran.
"I think part of it is the Iran issue, but at the same time, people understand the importance of what I'm doing for Iran." Trump suggested to Fox News that voters were unwilling to accept a short-term increase in gasoline prices.
He said he could work with Democrats on several issues, including immigration.
According to the Associated Press, Democratic candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms won the Georgia gubernatorial election, setting a record and becoming the first African-American female governor in the United States.
Bottoms, the former mayor of Atlanta, defeated Republican billionaire Rick Jackson, who works in the health care industry, in this midterm election. On the eve of voting day, Bottoms said: "What we do now will echo throughout history."
Bottoms' victory is of great significance to the Democratic Party. Previously, well-known Democratic voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams tried twice to challenge Republican Governor Brian Kemp, both of which failed. This time, Kemp's term expired and he did not run for governor.
Bottoms is a descendant of slaves in Georgia, but during the campaign she did not deliberately emphasize the historical significance of her candidacy, instead talking about it in terms of family history.
"I'm at least a fifth-generation Georgian... I say 'at least' because our family can only go back five generations at most, to a plantation in Crawfordville." Bottoms said that her grandfather moved from rural Georgia to the big city of Atlanta. At that time, "you could only go through the back door" to get to the buildings in the city; later, when she was elected mayor, she walked directly into these government buildings from the front entrance.
During this campaign, Bottoms proposed policies that included expanding Medicaid benefits for low-income groups, reducing household expenses, and protecting voting rights.
For more than 20 years, the governorship of Georgia has been held by Republicans. The election is a major setback for Trump, who had previously campaigned for Jackson.
In this year's midterm elections, the Texas Senate race has attracted high attention: the Democratic Party fielded James Talarico, and the Republican Party fielded Ken Paxton. Texas has not elected a Democratic senator since 1988, but this time the election is close. Some polls show Talarico is slightly ahead, but the outcome is still difficult to predict.
Talarico, who has a theological background, is a member of the Texas House of Representatives; Paxton is the Texas Attorney General and a close ally of Trump.
About 7.7 million voters in Texas voted early this time, accounting for more than 40% of all registered voters, setting a record for the state's midterm elections. The number of early voters in 15 counties was even higher than the total number of votes cast in the 2022 midterm elections. In addition, the number of Latino voters has surged, and this group is very important in Texas.
DW interviewed dozens of local residents in Austin, El Paso, Texas, and other places. Many people expressed concerns about the U.S. economy, political corruption, serious political confrontation and other issues.
"I'm heartbroken. It hurts to be an American and have a hard time," one Texan said.
Wilson Ihonvbere, a 67-year-old Trump supporter, said: "The economy is a big problem. Things are very expensive now, which is different from what they promised us."
Another citizen, Steve Schaffer, revealed that he did not intend to vote for Talarico or Paxton; he also criticized billionaire Elon Musk's funding of the Republican Party, especially the Texas election campaign: "Economic power will be transformed into political power, but now that economic power has been blatantly distorted and abused, it is really difficult to continue to maintain the normal operation of democracy."
According to the New York Times, Musk spent approximately $168 million to support various Republican candidates for the Senate; however, despite investing such a huge amount of money, the Texas election was still very close.
The results of several state senatorial votes are coming out one after another. According to the Associated Press vote count, Georgia's Democratic Senator Jon Ossof, 39, won re-election, defeating Republican candidate Mike Collins, who once served as a member of the House of Representatives. Ossef is a rising political star of the Democratic Party and is regarded as one of the potential candidates for the 2028 US presidential election.
Georgia has traditionally been a Republican-leaning state, and the victory of young rising star Ossef has become a hot topic. However, election results elsewhere on the East Coast were as expected.
In the northeastern state of Delaware, the hometown of former U.S. President Joe Biden, Democratic Senator Chris Coons was successfully re-elected; no Republican has won a Senate election in this state since 1994. Massachusetts was also re-elected by Democratic Senator Ed Markey; New Hampshire's original Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen retired and was replaced by Chris Pappas of the same party in this election.
It is worth noting that in the southern state of North Carolina, former Governor Roy Cooper won the Senate election, defeating Republican Michael Whatley, successfully flipping the state's previously Republican seats. The state's original senator, Thom Tillis, did not seek re-election this time due to conflicts with Trump on the bill last year.
For the Democratic Party, Cooper's victory is a big boost. In the past three presidential elections, North Carolina voters chose Trump.
According to the Associated Press and other media, on the eve of the mid-term elections, the United States attacked Iran in the Strait of Hormuz, targeting "surface-to-air missiles used by Iran to attack U.S. assets." Iranian state-run television reported that an explosion was heard from Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz.
U.S. President Trump confirmed the matter in an interview with Fox News, saying that the United States bombed an Iranian air defense facility on a "small scale": "It was just built there, and we carried out a very precise strike last night."
Trump seeks to retain the Republican majority in Congress in the midterm elections. However, affected by factors such as the Iran war and rising U.S. oil prices, Trump's approval rating had fallen sharply before the election. He has previously stated that the United States will not launch new strikes against Iran before the mid-term elections.
On Monday (November 2), the Iranian government stated that if the United States meets Iran’s demands for lifting the blockade of Iranian ports, Iran is willing to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within two days and resume nuclear arms negotiations with the United States. Trump posted on the social platform that it was "possible" to reach an agreement with Iran; US Vice President Vance also told the media that he and Trump had discussed this: "The president and I are quite optimistic about the prospects of negotiating a solution."
