Congress

Capitol agenda: GOP suffers historic rebuke

Published

49 minutes ago

November 4, 2026

A new age of Democratic power is coming to Washington.

The party Tuesday swept both chambers of Congress as Republicans faced generational-level losses across the country. As of publication time, Democrats have won at least 54 Senate seats and have flipped about 20 House seats, with many competitive races still uncalled. Voters pummeled the GOP out of power and effectively cemented President Donald Trump’s lame-duck era.

Ahead of the election, most senior House Democrats dared not imagine more than a 10-seat majority. Now it’s looking like 250 seats or more are not out of the question — all but assuring Hakeem Jeffries will cruise to the speakership.

In the Senate, Democrats won Kansas for the first time in nearly a century, sent a Texan to the chamber after a more than 30-year absence, broke a nearly 30-year losing streak in South Carolina and elected the first Iowan in more than a decade.

They could even be on the cusp of a Mississippi Senate seat for the first time in roughly four decades. Scott Colom has a less than 50 vote lead on Cindy Hyde-Smith as we write. The Alaska race between incumbent Dan Sullivan and Mary Peltola also remains in tossup territory.

Longtime GOP incumbents like Maine Sen. Susan Collins and Missouri Rep. Ann Wagner are out of jobs. NRCC Chair Richard Hudson is hanging by a thread, as is House Rules Chair Rep. Virginia Foxx — both caught in a ticketwide GOP collapse in North Carolina.

Also decimated: the corps of Republican moderates on Capitol Hill, including Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick and Jen Kiggans.

The massive gains in both chambers, unthinkable even a few months ago, will have an instant impact. Republicans’ hopes to check off a list of priority legislation in the lame-duck session are in jeopardy, and they will quickly have to confront questions about their leadership.

Trump’s once ironclad grip over Washington is also in question, as he can no longer flex his influence over a Republican-led Congress willing to bend to his whims and waive away allegations of his administration’s corruption. Some in his party are also beginning to contemplate their future after he leaves the White House.

“Voters all across America have spoken, and this is a wake-up call for all conservatives,” said Rep. Ralph Norman, arguing the GOP needed to “start governing on the core principles they campaigned on.”

What else we’re watching:

— GOP LEADERSHIP HAZY: Speaker Mike Johnson’s political future is now up in the air with the House majority lost under his watch. Several Republicans prior to the election doubted he would jump into the race to become minority leader. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan could jump into the running to become the top House Republican as soon as Wednesday, ahead of a Friday deadline to announce their candidacy. The GOP conference will vote next week. Trump, pressed on whether he backs Johnson to return as minority leader, did not answer directly. “I think he’s done a very good job,” Trump told Blue Light News Tuesday night. “I mean, they’re going to have to make that decision. He’s going to have to make that decision. But he’s a good person and a good man.” Many House Republicans were already speculating early this morning if the entire leadership team could get swept up in the GOP loss.

— ‘LAWYER UP’: DEMS READY PROBES — Democrats’ sweep of Congress sets the stage for an unrelenting oversight platform next year. Democrats plan to use their new subpoena power and agenda-setting authority to target possible corruption among members of Trump’s family, Elon Musk’s leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency and the Department of Homeland Security’s aggressive immigration enforcement tactics, according to interviews with more than a dozen lawmakers, aides and attorneys. “LAWYER UP,” Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on House Oversight, posted on social media Tuesday as the party’s House majority was coming into focus.

Dasha Burns, Mia McCarthy and Chris Marquette contributed to this report.

Congress

Trump’s two new tormenters: Courts and Congress

Published

9 minutes ago

November 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Donald Trump awakens Wednesday boxed in. Already in the pincer grip of federal courts that have slowed his agenda, he now faces a historically powerful incoming Democratic majority in Congress, eager to turn their gavels and subpoena power on their longtime tormentor.

And he’ll face them down while a new crop of Republicans seeks to eclipse him as the leader of their party.

This is how the last chapter of the Trump era in Washington begins.

For Trump, it’s an unfamiliar position. He has spent a decade seeking to project invincibility and has spent the first two years of his second term asserting unprecedented executive power with little pushback from a Republican-controlled Congress. He sought to salvage that reputation with a social media post as Republican losses piled up.

“I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!” he wrote Tuesday night.

Not exactly a salve for a party in crisis.

Democrats also face a choice: how much of their investigative muscle and political capital are they willing to spend investigating a weakened Trump. The party continues to see Trump as a useful, unifying foil. Some of their incoming members have flirted with seeking to impeach him a third time, though Democratic leaders have not committed to that course.

If there was any doubt about the House’s intent, however, Rep. Robert Garcia — expected to lead the House Oversight Committee — erased it quickly.

“LAWYER UP,” Garcia posted on X Tuesday night, just as news outlets began calling the House for Democrats. Garcia and other House allies have projected a muscular investigative agenda aimed at what they have described as Trump’s corruption and alleged self-enrichment, his abuses of executive power, his misuse of pardons for the politically and financially connected and his decision to empower ICE to lead a mass deportation campaign.

Trump has never willingly ceded the spotlight — and has never needed to. Before Tuesday, he was at his weakest point in 2021, shortly after a mob of his supporters attacked the Capitol and Republican leaders seemed poised to abandon him. But because he remained politically viable, those leaders quickly returned to the fold, helping engineer his return to power and beat back impeachment and a fusillade of criminal charges.

Now, though, there is no political future for Trump, who is in his final two years of elected office. And it was in that context that he signaled a rare conciliatory approach Tuesday.

“We’re going to work with the Democrats to make sure things go well for our country,” he said in an interview with Blue Light News’s Dasha Burns on Blue Light News Elections Live. “I don’t want to sit here for two years just vetoing everything.”

Congress

The races we’re still waiting on…

Published

1 hour ago

November 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Democrats’ massive blue wave could get even bigger, as a handful of key races remain uncalled.

Senate

Alaska: Votes in the battleground Senate race between GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan and Democrat Mary Peltola are still being counted.

Mississippi: Just 43 votes separate Mississippi Democrat Scott Colom and GOP Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith. The state does not allow recounts, even by request of either candidate, so the final tally will be determinative in that state.

HouseAnd a handful of House Republicans are awaiting calls in their races, including the following notable names:

Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), the person responsible for getting House Republicans elected. The NRCC chair is locked in a tight battle for against Democrat Richard Ojeda.
Colorado GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert, who’s trying to fend off Democrat Eileen Laubacher.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), who’s neck and neck with Democrat Leela Gray.

Congress

Democrats are on track to control Congress. What will they do with their power?

Published

5 hours ago

November 4, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Democrats are poised to control Congress next year. And once they’re done celebrating their sweeping midterm victory, they’ll have to confront their next challenge: leveraging their power to legislate with President Donald Trump still in the White House the next two years.

While much of Democrats’ time will be spent wielding their new subpoena power to haul in Trump’s top officials and allies, they have no shortage of ideas for policies they also want to pursue — on everything from technology and artificial intelligence to health care and taxes.

Many of the proposals Democrats put forward will inevitably be messaging bills that try to shape public opinion ahead of the presidential contest in 2028 — and lay the groundwork for a legislative agenda they can jump on if they win a governing trifecta that year.

“We’ll aggressively prepare to get off to a fast start on January 3rd in the new Congress,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, on track to become speaker, said in an October press call.

The party will honor its commitments, he continued, to “relentlessly focus on the affordability crisis” and “drive down the high cost of living, because life is way too expensive in the United States of America.”

Democrats will ultimately be under enormous pressure to show they can actually get things done, including within their own caucus, where progressive members will be fighting for influence against moderates. Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer — set to be the Senate majority leader in the new Congress — will have to carefully navigate those divisions to secure unity, even on party-line bills.

Progressives are going to push to advance policies like a wealth tax, “Medicare for All” and strict regulation of AI that could involve a ban on developing “superintelligence.”

“Next year, Democrats must pass bills powerful enough to actually tackle the cost of living crisis and root out rampant corruption. We cannot be the party of nervous lawyers who just tinker around the edges,” Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar of Texas said in a statement in the days leading up to the midterms.

Casar was responding directly to the likely incoming No. 2 Senate Democrat, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, who suggested on BLN that Democrats should wait until 2028 to “make more bold policy changes.”

Moderates may be looking to rework bipartisan bills that have languished during the Republican governing trifecta while pushing back against proposals they view as too extreme.

The debate over regulating AI will be one where warring Democratic factions could come to blows over how to rein in a potentially dangerous technology without stifling innovation and ceding ground to China. Progressives, led by Casar and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, are pushing to pause advanced AI development and ban superintelligence, which more centrist lawmakers say is untenable.

“The [AI] discussion so far is … pretty populist, pretty devoid of fact, and I think we have to be more realistic about it,” Rep. Scott Peters of California, a moderate Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a recent interview.

The easiest way for Democrats to achieve legislative victories will be by jamming Republicans on must-pass bills, such as for government funding, a debt ceiling increase and the annual defense policy measure. Otherwise, Democrats could find bipartisan potential around issues like cryptocurrency if lawmakers are unable to finalize an industry overhaul during the post-midterm “lame-duck” session. The same goes for passing a farm bill and legislation to reauthorize surface transportation programs.

Democrats could also try to entice GOP privacy hawks, like Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, with legislation to rein in the proliferation of Flock cameras, which automatically capture moving vehicles and can share the data with law enforcement.

Some Democrats will also push to restore some clean energy subsidies after Republicans slashed several renewable tax credit programs as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025. Both Jeffries and Schumer have said they would introduce legislation to restore the phased-out wind and solar credits, but they could run into opposition from some industry players who want to disprove arguments from Republicans that renewables can’t compete without help.

Health care is another area where Democrats could find themselves divided. The party will need to decide whether to preserve the 2010 Affordable Care Act’s formula of expanding the health insurance safety net bit by bit — or propose blowing up the system through “Medicare For All.”

Progressive Reps. Debbie Dingell of Michigan and Linda Sánchez of California — senior members of Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means, respectively — are expected to be among those pushing the latter option following an election cycle centered on Americans struggling to pay bills. If successful, the effort would plant a flag going into 2028 and signal that Democrats no longer fear backlash from voters who prefer their private plans.

Democrats could come together in seeking to undo the $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid that Republicans enacted in last year’s megalaw, restore the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that Republicans allowed to expire at the end of 2025 and expand the Medicare drug price negotiation program they created during their last governing trifecta in in the 2022.

“We can have reasonable prices for these drugs, and guess what? These pharmaceutical companies, they’ll be just fine,” Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), who was influential during the drug price negotiations at that time, said in an interview in September.

In any event, Democrats will need to move quickly to implement an affordability agenda in line with their campaign promises to lower the cost of living. Proposals include legislation to prohibit grocery store price gouging, expand the child tax credit and reverse Republican cuts to federal nutrition programs.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who is expected to become the chair of the Senate Banking Committee, has also consistently pushed follow-up legislation to the bipartisan housing package that became law in July. She could team up on that effort with Rep. Maxine Waters of California — though her House Financial Services gavel is up in the air as the 88-year-old fends off possible challenges from Illinois Democratic Reps. Sean Casten, 54, and Bill Foster, 71.

More broadly, though, some Democrats have been eager to downplay divisions in their party.

“At the end of the day, the things we don’t agree with, we’ll figure out,” said one House Democratic aide granted anonymity to speak candidly. “I don’t think folks will want to come out of the gate with a circular firing squad.”

Simon J. Levien, Katherine Hapgood, Brian Faler, Gabby Miller, Owen Dahlkamp, Jasper Goodman, Ari Hawkins, Nico Portuondo, Connor O’Brien, Mackenzie Wilkes, Robert King, Alice Miranda Ollstein, and Riley Rogerson contributed to this report.