Democrats Win Midterm Control, Face Trump Veto Threat and Senate Rules

Democrats captured both chambers of Congress in the recent midterm elections. The blue wave was real. Voters handed them the keys to the House and the Senate. Now the hard part begins.

The party campaigned on a specific platform. They promised to slash the cost of living. They vowed to end the war in Iran. They pledged to hold President Donald Trump accountable for his immigration crackdown. It sounds simple on a campaign trail. It is anything but simple in Washington.

There is a major catch. Democrats do not officially take control until January. And even then, their power is constrained.

The Senate rules are brutal. Most legislation requires 60 votes to clear the filibuster. That is a high bar. Trump has already signaled his response. On a podcast this past Monday, he was blunt. "I’ll veto everything," he said.

But the Democrats are not powerless. They hold new tools. They control committee investigations. They have leverage over Senate confirmations. These are levers they can pull, even if they cannot pass sweeping bills.

So what can they actually achieve? Let’s look at the numbers and the obstacles.

Affordability drove voters to the polls. It was the top issue. Democrats promised relief for energy, housing, healthcare, and groceries. Dean Baker, an economist and cofounder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, sees a direct link between foreign policy and consumer prices.

He argues that ending the war in Iran is the most effective move available to them. The conflict has spiked energy costs since February. Why? Iran has restricted commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. That waterway is critical for global oil and gas trade.

Baker suggests Democrats use congressional oversight to pressure the administration. Investigations can force action. This is an area where bipartisan support might exist. Some Republicans may align with Democrats on this point.

Healthcare is another pocketbook issue. The enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies expired in 2025. Millions of Americans now face higher premiums. Medicaid, the program for low-income residents, faces cuts.

Democrats can push to restore those subsidies. They can reverse the Medicaid reductions. How? By embedding these measures in government spending bills. Congress must pass those bills to keep the lights on. This makes it harder for Trump to reject the package.

Baker believes the political calculus works in their favor. "Republicans living in a post-Trump world, I don’t think they want to be on the side of preventing people from getting healthcare or basically paying more for healthcare," he said. He added that they can shape the politics so Trump does not want to veto it.

Tariffs present a tougher challenge. Trump’s tariff campaign is driving up consumer costs. Reversing them requires substantial Republican support. They would need to override a presidential veto. That is a steep climb.

Even if they succeed, relief will not be instant. Prices do not drop overnight. Baker uses a vivid comparison. "Prices are like rockets and feathers," he noted.

They shoot up like rockets; they come down like feathers," Alex Jacquez told Al Jazeera. As chief of policy and advocacy at Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive economic think tank, he sees a clear path forward. It does not require Donald Trump’s signature. With majorities in both chambers, Democrats can turn the gavel toward corporate accountability. They can investigate the entities driving up costs for groceries and electricity.

Jacquez emphasized the power of the subpoena. "There’s a lot of precedent for getting some real material outcomes just through having the gavels and being able to subpoena CEOs and haul people in front of Congress," he noted. These hearings might not crush prices overnight. Yet, the public scrutiny forces companies to justify their pricing models or adjust their strategies.

Laura Blessing, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Government Affairs Institute, predicts this will be the primary arena for Democratic action. "In terms of time spent and newspaper ink spilled, this is where you’re going to see the most action from Dems, by a mile," she wrote in an email to Al Jazeera. These investigations bypass the White House entirely. They scrutinize actions inside and outside the government.

The Trump family’s wealth has become a focal point. Financial disclosure forms released earlier this year show a surge of approximately $2.2 billion since the start of his term. The family business empire has expanded aggressively. It now touches cryptocurrency, drones, artificial intelligence, and prediction markets. These are sectors his administration favors in its policy decisions.

Democratic senators are already laying traps. They have sent letters to companies and government departments demanding record preservation. Potential targets include whether donors to the White House ballroom received favorable government treatment. Another line of inquiry asks if the Justice Department targeted political opponents.

Cooperation is not guaranteed. Trump administration officials could challenge subpoenas in court, dragging out the process. Blessing does not expect "Trump’s nuclear family to show up to a subpoena." However, Democrats can still question government employees and others in Trump’s inner circle. Even if wrongdoing surfaces, legal consequences are uncertain. Trump’s own Justice Department must decide whether to prosecute.

Impeachment remains on the table. Lawmakers introduced articles against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Allegations include waging war against Iran without congressional approval. Republican Representative Thomas Massie plans to force a House vote when the outgoing Congress returns next week.

Trump, impeached twice during his first term, dismissed the threat of a third attempt. He told reporters on Wednesday that he was "not even a little bit" worried. "I think it would destroy the Democratic Party if they did that, because it would be impeachment for no reason," he stated. He defended Hegseth, calling his performance "a very good job."

A House vote is only the first step. The Senate must hold a trial. Removing an elected official requires a two-thirds majority. That means many Republicans must join the effort to oust figures like Trump or Hegseth. The math is steep.

No president in American history has ever lost their seat through an impeachment proceeding. That fact looms large as the 120th Congress prepares for its swearing-in ceremony, less than two months away. In these final weeks, experts expect President Trump to leverage his outgoing Republican majorities to hammer out any remaining legislative goals. It is also a dangerous window for escalation in Iran. Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, sees a clear pattern.

“He has shown a pattern in which, in the face of humiliation and defeat, he becomes more reckless,” Parsi told Al Jazeera.

Democrats hold a constitutional card. The US Constitution assigns Congress the sole authority to declare war. Laws like the War Powers Act of 1973 offer a path to end unauthorized conflicts after the 60-day mark expires. A binding resolution could wind down the conflict. But Trump could veto such measures, so there is no guarantee those efforts would stick.

There is another lever, though. One of the most powerful tools in the Democratic arsenal will be control over government spending. The administration can burn through money already allocated for military operations. Democrats, however, could try to block additional funding.

“It creates a limitation for how long he can pursue the war,” Parsi said. “If he needs more funding for it, we’re not talking about small sums that he can just reallocate from other places easily.”

With control of congressional committees, Democrats could also dig into the administration’s conduct. They might investigate whether military operations actually complied with US law. David Janovsky, a policy analyst at the Project on Government Oversight, sees the value in that scrutiny.

“Rigorous oversight would not restrict military operations by itself but could raise the political costs of the war beyond what the president or other key officials are willing to endure,” Janovsky said.

How much political will Democrats possess to end the conflict remains an open question. Blessing, a government affairs fellow, notes that the party has historically been reluctant to withhold military funding. Fear of being accused of undermining US troops usually wins out.

But Parsi warns that inaction is politically unsustainable. Failing to act could be seen by the party’s base as a tacit endorsement of US military involvement in the Middle East.

“It will no longer be just Trump’s war,” Parsi said. “They will also co-own it, because they will be complicit, because they have the ability to stop it.”

Another target for the incoming Democrat-led Congress is likely to be Trump’s hardline immigration crackdown. His pledge to oversee the largest mass deportation in US history has sparked widespread public backlash.

65 percent of Americans think Immigration and Customs Enforcement has crossed the line. That is what a public opinion poll determined earlier this year. Now that Democrats hold both chambers of Congress, they have a clear path to investigate ICE and other agencies driving the current crackdown. Heidi Altman, vice president of policy at the National Immigration Law Center, sees these probes as a way to pry open the black box. Investigators could demand details on conditions inside detention centers, verify allegations of abuse, and trace exactly how taxpayer dollars are flowing into immigration enforcement.

The money is staggering. Roughly $240 billion has already been handed to the Trump administration for immigration enforcement over the past two years. Altman argues that Congress should claw it back. She explains that this windfall has let ICE operate with almost no constraints. The agency does not have to prioritize which communities to enter or decide who to detain. It just moves.

“The only way to force a slowdown and actual sort of decision-making and prioritisation and enforcement is to dramatically curtail their budget by taking back the funding from the last session,” Altman said.

Passing such legislation will be a fight. Trump could veto it. But Altman insists Democrats should push forward regardless. She warns against paralysis.

“The worst possible thing we could do is throw up our hands and say we have limited power,” she said.

Her advice is blunt. Pass the bills. See what happens. Put them on the president’s desk. Dare him to look at the American people and say he’s not signing something that they overwhelmingly demanded.