The Democratic ‘blue wave’ just reset American power

Even before election night had ended Tuesday, a new political reality was settling in across America. The 2026 midterm elections had become a referendum on U.S. President Donald Trump and his Republican Party. Trump had asked voters to go to the polls as if he were on the ballot.

And they did.

The scale of the Democrats’ victory was extraordinary. In the Senate, they flipped at least seven Republican-held seats, taking control of the chamber. In the House, they flipped more than two dozen Republican-held districts, reclaiming the majority. Democrats also gained four governorships, winning in Iowa, Georgia, Ohio and Texas, and secured a majority of governorships nationwide for the first time since 2010.

The victories extended well beyond Washington. Democrats won statewide races in Texas, and voters in Georgia elected Keisha Lance Bottoms as its first Black woman governor — a historic milestone only a handful of generations removed from her ancestors being enslaved on a Georgia plantation.

Republicans, meanwhile, failed to flip a single seat previously held by Democrats in the Senate.

Despite widespread fears that Trump would contest the results, further accelerating America’s democratic decline, he accepted the outcome and said he would work with Democrats during the remaining two years of his presidency, blaming the loss on higher gas prices due to his “necessary” war on Iran.

The political tidal wave that has swept the United States will change the formal balance of power on Capitol Hill. It also changes the nature of the power Trump has exercised for the past decade.

That could have profound consequences for American foreign policy over the next two years.

Countries have been willing to bend to Trump’s will on the assumption that he carried the support of a majority of the American people, or at least commanded the country’s political machinery. His ironclad control of Washington over the past two years left allies with few avenues for resistance.

Now, as foreign leaders take calls from Trump, they know he no longer commands the political support he once claimed. His ambassadors speak for an administration that voters have roundly rebuked in a referendum on his leadership.

When the president or his emissaries demand loyalty, foreign governments have new options.

When Trump cut off support for Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had few opportunities to appeal to lawmakers who might find the courage to challenge the president. Many countries had little choice but to accept Trump’s tariffs as immovable because no other political levers were available, and none seemed likely to emerge in the foreseeable future.

The American system is built on checks and balances. A Democratic Congress will now have substantial power over the federal budget, giving lawmakers leverage to extract concessions from Trump. The party’s expanded majorities also mean that one or two defections will no longer necessarily derail its agenda.

Congressional committees will regain investigative authority, including the power to compel testimony and demand documents. Democrats are preparing to investigate the financial interests that have become entangled with the administration.

Major U.S. corporations that spent years sacrificing their public reputations to curry favor with Trump are already preparing for questions from Democratic members of Congress. Witnesses who testify under oath face the possibility of perjury charges. It’s one thing to issue a misleading press statement aimed at pleasing one man; it’s quite another to lie to Congress.

Silicon Valley has spent the past two years tying its reputation to the administration, betting that such a relationship would shield it from scrutiny and regulation. In the eyes of many around the world, some of these companies have become extensions of the Trump administration’s foreign policy apparatus.

The election gives those companies and institutions powerful reasons to distance themselves from an administration that voters have rejected and that will now face meaningful congressional scrutiny.

That changes the nature of American power abroad.

As Japan and other countries around the Pacific look toward a new chapter in their relationships with the United States, they will have to balance the interests of an executive branch facing mounting political questions against those of a Democratic Congress that lacks direct control over foreign policy but can exercise considerable influence over it.

Top companies will no longer enjoy the same unchecked leverage. Their relationships with the White House are now politically fraught and subject to public scrutiny. That will change what they can demand from other governments.

Foreign governments, too, have new leverage in their dealings with Trump. The president will be looking for partners who can deliver agreements and announcements that might help restore his approval ratings.

A more stable relationship between the United States and Japan could emerge if Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government can offer Trump a political win without triggering congressional scrutiny. But Japanese leaders will also have to navigate the domestic optics of partnering with an increasingly unpopular U.S. administration — a relationship that could carry a political cost in their own elections.

What matters most is maintaining the U.S.-Japan security alliance over the next two years and strengthening it once Trump leaves office. As in Europe, the Trump administration has called into question America’s alliances with longtime partners in the Indo-Pacific through its erratic trade pressures and threats to military security. Trump’s status as a lame-duck president and the diminished power of his party in Congress will demand especially delicate diplomacy over the next two years.

Trump, meanwhile, may become even more unpredictable. The 80-year-old president is newly unconstrained, having no future election to worry about. His threats to pursue a third term, once a source of anxiety, now look increasingly implausible, particularly as Democratic governors take control of many states whose cooperation he would need to get his name on the ballot.

Without those constraints, or the need to preserve his popularity, the next two years could be the most dangerous of Trump’s presidency. He is surrounded by sycophants and will face constant political opposition. The mercurial president could launch another military strike or start another trade war, calculating that voters will blame the consequences on the Democratic majorities in Congress.

For now, those concerns remain theoretical. But the midterms have checked Trump’s power by exposing the shallowness of his support among the American people.

That will change the power he can project around the world — and the influence of the people and companies that have operated with his blessing over the past two years.

Cory Alpert is a journalist, a democracy researcher at the University of Melbourne and a former staffer in the White House under the U.S. Executive Office of the President from 2021 to 2023.