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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
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Michael Cohen

Democrats’ triumph may be miraculous but US is still split down the middle

Donald Trump
While Donald Trump is arguably the biggest loser of the 2022 campaign, his stranglehold over the Republican party is not ending any time soon. Photograph: Eva Marie Uzcategui/AFP/Getty

Midterm elections in the United States are where the hopes and dreams of governing parties go to die. Since 1932, the party in power has lost on average 28 seats in the House of Representatives and four seats in the Senate. In 2018, two years after taking the White House and both Houses of Congress, Republicans lost 40 House seats and control of the chamber. In 2010, Democrats lost 63 seats. In 1994, it was 54 and eight Senate seats. Every two years, after electing a new president, voters, generally speaking, go to the polls with buyer’s remorse.

But not this year. In a truly stunning outcome, Democrats reversed the historical trend lines and, at least for the time being, protected American democracy from the worst excesses of the Donald Trump-led Republican party.

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