WASHINGTON:

President Donald Trump was left to grapple on Thursday with the stinging rebuke from voters after a midterm election rout, while triumphant Democrats vowed to lower prices and combat the “cartel” within the White House in the new Congress.

Trump faces a radically transformed and hostile political landscape after Democrats seized both the House of Representatives and the Senate in Tuesday’s midterms.

The result was a personal humiliation for the 80-year-old Trump, leaving him as a lame duck president for the remaining two years of his term and signaling an end to his stranglehold on the Republican Party.

Vice-president JD Vance publicly split with Trump over the Iran war a day after the vote, saying the conflict was the “reason we lost” as he distanced himself from the unpopular war ahead of a possible 2028 White House run.

Democrats by early Thursday morning had control of 54 Senate seats and a strong majority in the House.

Two Senate races – in heavily Republican Mississippi and Alaska – remained too close to call.

Democrats have vowed investigations into Trump and his administration and said the incoming majority would be focused on accountability and affordability.

“The massive corruption the country has experienced from the Trump Cartel explains why very little is getting done to help everyday Americans,” House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said Wednesday in a letter announcing his candidacy for speaker of the House.

“That changes immediately,” he said, adding Democrats are “going to hold the crooks accountable,” Jeffries said.

Trump had no public events scheduled for Thursday, according to a White House press schedule.

First Lady Melania Trump was set to host officials from Moscow and Kyiv at the White House ahead of talks in Abu Dhabi aimed at ending the Ukraine war.

‘Worst-case scenario’

Trump has attempted to brush off the election results.

He spent the beginning of his first public appearance on Wednesday talking to reporters about the marble and Corinthian columns of his new US$400 million ballroom.

However, he conceded that what Vance had said about the Iran war was “largely true because it drove the gasoline up” – a key issue for voters angered by the rising cost of living.

“But at the same time, if I had it to do again, I’d have to do it again. Because long term, it’s the only answer. You can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon,” he said.

Trump added that he would “get along” with Democrats, repeating the conciliatory tone he took as the results emerged on Tuesday night, but repeated his threat to veto legislation that he didn’t like.

He warned that if his foes tried to impeach him for a third time it would “destroy” the Democratic Party.

Still, he remains the head of a party now wrestling with a resounding defeat that could spark Republican infighting.

“This is close to an extinction-level event for Republicans in many parts of the country as we have seen probably in the last 100 years,” Florida Republican governor Ron DeSantis said in public remarks on the results.

DeSantis, who ran for president against Trump in 2024, noted Florida, where Trump-backed Byron Donalds became the state’s first Black governor and Ashley Moody retained a Senate seat, was the only bright spot for Republicans this week.

“This is going to last far beyond just two years,” he said of Republicans’ election defeat.

“We just have to be very clear-eyed. This is probably the political worst-case scenario for a midterm election,” he added.