The most important developments at a glance:
The key decisions have been made: the Senate and House of Representatives will go to the Democrats, and for the first time in years most of the governors will come from them. Nevertheless, there are still many open races: the decisions for two Senate seats, 68 seats in the House of Representatives and two governorships are open. The overview:
Rachel Thousandfreund from the German Society for Foreign Policy sees the Democrats now in a strong position against Trump. Even if he can sometimes rule with decrees bypassing Congress, they still have sovereignty over the budget, for example, she emphasized in an interview with tagesschau24. In addition, Trump's power over his own party will weaken because of his clear defeat.
ARD correspondent Tina Hassel reports from Brussels on the first congratulations from European Parliament members to the Democrats. "But there is no one here who says: Everything will be better now. What they are saying here is that we should have no illusions about what this election result would mean for the next two years." The tenor in Brussels is that Trump has already bypassed Congress in the past - that could now get much worse.
As far as customs policy is concerned, she referred to Bernd Lange, chairman of the EU Trade Committee, who fears it will become more stringent. The SPD politician had stated that there was a risk that a politically weakened President Trump would act even more erratically in trade and customs policy.
Various German economists have reacted to the election results in the USA - and, among other things, dampened expectations of major changes. The tenor is that Trump can continue to govern a lot with decrees, especially in foreign and trade policy. Nevertheless, the Democrats' success is good news, said Marcel Fratzscher, head of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW).
"The Democrats' victory in the US midterms is a positive message for the global economy, even if it could slow down the US economy in the short term. The most important positive message is that the separation of powers in the US is working better again," said Fratzscher.
For example, Congress could use its budget authority to place greater limits on Trump's war with Iran. This could reduce energy prices, from which Europe could also benefit. The aggressive behavior of US tech companies could also be curbed to some extent, as the Democrats are committed to regulating AI and are likely to be much more critical of the massive boom in the construction of data centers, said Fratzscher.
Andreas Bley, chief economist at the Association of German Volksbanks and Raiffeisenbanks, said that the expected change in majority in both chambers of the US Congress raises the hope that American trade policy will in the future rely more heavily on dialogue and international cooperation. “However, expectations should remain realistic,” said Bley. There are also pronounced protectionist tendencies within the Democratic Party. Clemens Fuest, President of the ifo Institute for Economic Research, made similar statements.
CDU foreign policy expert Norbert Röttgen sees an opportunity for more openness from President Trump. “Something has really started to slip, which in my opinion he cannot and will not completely ignore,” said the CDU parliamentary group vice-president in the Bundestag on Deutschlandfunk about the results of the midterm elections.
The coalition that brought him into office lost Trump - not only with Hispanics and black voters, but above all with white voters without academic degrees, said Röttgen. This group of voters has migrated to the Democrats. That's why "a little more openness than possibility" has come into the system.
But according to Röttgen, this is not the end of Trumpism. It continues to be strongly represented as a mood and attitude and has “deep roots” in US society.
According to projections, for the first time in around 15 years, Democrats will again have the majority of governors in the USA. At least 28 of the country's 50 governorships will be held by Democrats and at least 20 by Republicans. The remaining races have not yet been decided. Before the midterms, 26 states had a Republican governor and 24 states had Democrats.
In 36 of the 50 states, the governorship was on the ballot in the general election. Six Democratic and eight Republican governors were not up for election this time.
The Democrats won at least four governorships - with Keisha Lance Bottoms in Georgia, Rob Sand in Iowa, Gina Hinojosa in Texas and Amy Acton in Ohio.
For the first time in US history, at least four black governors were elected at the same time: In Maryland, Democrat Wes Moore was re-elected, in Wisconsin, Democrat David Crowley was elected to succeed his Democratic colleague Tony Evers, and in Florida, Republican Byron Donalds was elected to succeed his colleague Ron DeSantis.
In Georgia, Bottoms was able to win the governorship for the Democrats. She is the first black female governor in US history. Previously, only three black governors had been elected in the country's history, in different elections, one of which was Moore.
In New Mexico, Democrat Deb Haaland became the first indigenous woman in US history to be elected governor. Governors are the heads of government of the US states and are roughly comparable to the prime ministers of the federal states.
Federal Defense Minister Boris Pistorius congratulated the US Democrats on a “historic victory” in Congress. But the US government will remain the same and Germany will continue to work with it in a spirit of trust, said the SPD politician at the Berlin Security Conference. Pistorius added that he did not know what Trump's plans would be for the near future. However, the German government will seek contact with Democrats and Republicans alike.
The AfD foreign politician Markus Frohnmaier viewed the defeat of the US Republicans in the congressional elections as a setback. “We share major ideological overlaps and objectives with the Republicans,” said the foreign policy spokesman for the AfD parliamentary group in the AFP news agency.
This is particularly true “in the area of defending our cultural and national identities, preventing migration and fighting left-wing ideologies.” The change of power in Congress does not change the fact that Trump and his administration continue to form the government, Frohnmaier continued. Trump has recently repeatedly expressed his sympathy for the AfD, most recently for example after the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt.
The victory of the Democrats is more than clear. They are gaining especially among young voters, blacks and Latinos. Some results are downright humiliating for Republicans. This has a lot to do with President Trump. An analysis by Jörg Schönenborn.
“On paper, the Democrats can now make life very difficult for the president,” says ARD correspondent Torben Börgers on tagesschau24. The majority in the House of Representatives would give them the opportunity to introduce their own laws or block Trump's legislative proposals. And they could initiate investigations, for example into the business conduct of Trump and his family or the actions of the immigration agency ICE.
The majority in the Senate also gives the Democrats the opportunity to block the appointment of judges or cabinet members, explains Börgers.
The question is whether Trump will try to govern with presidential decrees, as he often does at the moment. In the first interviews after the defeat, however, Trump also signaled a willingness to compromise when it came to working with the Democrats. “We will have to wait and see how seriously this willingness to compromise that he is now showing should be taken,” adds Börgers.
The Hamburg SPD member of the Bundestag Metin Hakverdi, the federal government's coordinator for transatlantic cooperation, spoke in an interview with NDR Info about the significance of the election results for the relationship with Germany and the EU.
Due to the president's strong position in the American electoral system, not everything in foreign and trade policy will change completely overnight, despite the Democrats' electoral success in both chambers of Congress, said Hakverdi.
Nevertheless, the mood will be different. "I believe that there are different variants of how the USA can develop. But no matter which direction it goes, our German and European alternative courses of action actually remain the same. We have to invest in our own security."
The foreign policy spokesman for the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, Jürgen Hardt, also blames the US President's foreign policy for the Republicans' electoral defeat. In the ARD morning magazine he mentioned the Iran war, the Gaza policy and Trump's "relative support for Putin through the decision to ease the sanctions."
All of this would have contributed to this election result, "and that's why I'm counting on the US President to exercise more common sense in these foreign policy issues," added Hardt.
His advice to the Republicans is: "Look at the result and see that it is also a verdict on the wrong foreign policy of the US President."
German politicians have commented on the midterm elections in the USA. Federal Education Minister Karin Prien viewed the outcome as evidence of the power of democracy. "A morning of confidence. The story of liberal democracy is far from being told," wrote the deputy CDU federal chairwoman on Platform X. Prien called the election result a "powerful vote."
The federal chairwoman of the Green Party, Franziska Brantner, sees the results of the US congressional elections as a “stop sign against Trump and his billionaires”. On the RBB station, Brantner spoke of a fantastic victory for the US Democrats. It has become clear that there is "an alternative to Trump and his policies that have harmed citizens not only in the USA but around the world."
SPD foreign policy expert Adis Ahmetovic, however, fears that Trump's foreign policy will be even more aggressive after the Republicans' defeat. For example, a new major attack on Iran is possible, Ahmetovic warned on the RTL and ntv channels. "With Netanyahu and Trump as shot as they both are now, the likelihood is very high that we may experience something in the next few days and weeks that doesn't help us," he said.
The SPD foreign and security politician Siemtje Möller said in the ARD morning magazine that she hoped that Trump would not become an "angry duck" so that we would also have to suffer the consequences in Europe.
After the clear Republican defeat in the midterms, President Trump congratulated the Democrats on their victory. However, he did not see the defeat as a personal defeat.
Former US President Barack Obama viewed the Democrats' clear victory in the general election as a "clear message" from the American people. "They want policies that bring people together rather than drive them apart, and leaders who offer concrete solutions to their problems," Obama wrote on the online platform X.
Democrat Abdul El-Sayed has won the race for the Michigan Senate seat. This is the result of calculations by the AP news agency. El-Sayed becomes the first Muslim senator of the United States.
"Politically, it is clear that the majority is there - but there can still be days of counting because individual seats remain open, but that is no longer important in terms of the majority," says ARD election expert Jörg Schönenborn. The gap between the Democrats and the Republicans in the House of Representatives is growing from hour to hour.
Using Texas as an example, he explains why the Republicans suffered such heavy losses. In the state that has been sending Republican senators to Washington for years, Democrat James Talarico prevailed.
Poll numbers showed that Hispanics, the state's largest group, voted overwhelmingly for Democrats, Schönenborn said. Trump was very successful with this group in the presidential election two years ago. 66 percent of Hispanics now voted for Talarico.
Among 18 to 29 year olds - also Trump supporters in 2024 - 79 percent voted for the Democratic candidate this time.
In addition to Minnesota, Tennessee also elected a female governor for the first time. Republican U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn defeated Democrat Jerri Green. Blackburn has represented the state in Congress for decades. She is considered a staunch Trump supporter.
The Democrats have won the majority in the House of Representatives. In addition to the majority of seats in the Senate, they also won the majority in the larger chamber of Congress, data from the AP news agency shows. This makes governing more difficult for President Trump. In the future, the Republican will have to work with a Congress in which the opposition has the majority.
Democrat Troy Jackson, who entered the election campaign late, has secured the seat for the US Senate in the state of Maine. Jackson defeated longtime Republican Senator Susan Collins, AP data shows. Collins admitted defeat. She was elected to the US Senate in 1996 and was one of the most influential members of the Republican Party.
How did the US vote? A summary from Washington correspondent Katharina Fuß:
It is a sensation, even if many surveys supported it. The Democrats managed to win over some of the states in the Senate race that are actually considered deep red, i.e. Republican. Among other things, the Democratic candidates were ahead in Kansas and Texas. Kansas hasn't had a Democrat in the Senate in 94 years. No Democrat has won in Texas in more than 30 years.
Particularly bitter for the US President: Many of the Republicans who lost in the Senate race were his personal preferred candidates. Donald Trump expressed different opinions about the results. He told the New York Times he would be the result
