The results of the Nov 3 election will decide who controls Congress in the last two years of Trump’s Presidency
On Nov. 3, Americans will fill all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate, and will choose which party writes the laws, passes the budget, and runs the investigations for the last two years of Donald Trump’s second term. Midterm elections, held halfway through a president’s four-year term, are the vote for Congress when the president is not on the ballot.
NBC News says midterms are almost always a referendum on the president and his party. As of Oct. 23, NBC’s polling average, which combines national polls, put Trump’s approval rating at 38 per cent, with 61 per cent disapproving, and showed voters preferring a Democratic-controlled Congress 52 per cent to 43 per cent. However, polls capture sentiment; only votes decide the outcome.
In the United States, the president and Congress are elected separately, so one party can hold the White House while the other controls part of Congress. Gabriel Paxton, a part-time lecturer at Mt.A with a PhD in religion from Boston University, researches Christian nationalism and populist politics in American history. In an email to The Argosy, Paxton said the two issues at the top of the ballot are “affordability and the presidency.” The president is not officially on the ballot, he said, but “President Trump looms large over every race from North Carolina to Alaska.” Affordability, he said, will likely be “the difference maker on the margins,” and he is watching states like Michigan and Ohio.
In the Senate, NBC says Democrats must flip four Republican-held seats while holding their own, and win several states Trump carried in 2024, some by double digits. It rates five races as toss-ups: Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, and Texas. In Texas, Democratic hopes improved after Attorney General Ken Paxton defeated incumbent Republican Senator (Sen.) John Cornyn in the primary. He now faces state Representative (Rep.) James Talarico. In Ohio, Republican Sen. Jon Husted faces a comeback bid from former Sen. Sherrod Brown. In North Carolina, former Democratic Governor Roy Cooper and former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Whatley are competing for a seat Thom Tillis is leaving, and Michigan has an open seat after Sen. Gary Peters decided to retire.
Currently, forecasters give Democrats the edge in the House. NBC’s Decision Desk rates 225 seats as at least leaning Democratic, 199 at least leaning Republican and 11 as toss-ups. Republican redistricting has complicated the Democrats’ path, NBC notes, and CBS News says the Iran war and the cost of living are weighing on Republicans.
Congress has two chambers. The House has 435 members, each representing a district of roughly equal population, and they serve two-year terms. The Senate has 100 members, two from each state, who serve staggered six-year terms, so only a portion are elected each cycle. Unlike in Canada, where senators are appointed, American senators are elected.
Republicans currently hold both chambers. According to CBS News, they lead the Senate 53 to 47. In the House, 218 seats are needed for a majority, and as of Oct. 6 the chamber was divided between 218 Republicans, plus an independent who caucuses with them, and 214 Democrats, with two seats vacant. A vacant seat has no representative, usually because the member resigned or passed away. It counts towards neither party and stays empty until a special election is held or the term ends.
The results matter in Canada. In August, the Trump administration began enforcing 50 per cent tariffs on many Canadian goods, and Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada would retaliate. Carleton University’s Meredith Lilly wrote in 2025 that a full Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement renegotiation would need Congress to grant the president Trade Promotion Authority. Paxton said it’s “hard to predict” what a shift in power would mean, since the presidency “has grown more powerful in relation to Congress.” What he can picture is a Democratic Congress that “informally mends relations with Canada by putting a system of checks on the President’s attacks.”
For students and faculty who want to follow the results in real time, the POLS/IR Society is hosting an election watch event on Nov. 3 from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. in Crabtree M14.