The REAL winners and losers of the midterms: Bitter humiliation for Trump with Hegseth in danger from bloodthirsty Democrats… who may have found their new leader

On the eve of the midterms, Donald Trump stood on stage and declared the scene before him ‘a very dirty, filthy, stagnant mess.’

He was talking about the Reflecting Pool in Washington DC – source of much debate and derision. But he could well have been looking glumly at the next two years, and describing the depressing future that lies before him.

The president’s party has lost control of the House and Senate, setting the scene for a slew of investigations, political battles and perhaps his own impeachment.

Many of his allies have lost their own election fights, and been forced from office: among them Texas Governor Greg Abbott; his much-admired friend from Ohio, Jon Husted; and his hand-picked candidate for South Carolina, Lindsey Graham‘s sister Darline.

It is a damning indictment of his two years in power, and portends trouble ahead.

Here is a look at some of the biggest winners and losers from Tuesday’s vote.

LOSERS:

DONALD TRUMP

Donald Trump, the oldest person ever inaugurated as president of the United States, is now facing a nightmare end to his two terms in office.

Tuesday’s vote saw the 80-year-old lose control of the House, a repeat of events in his first term, and Senate. It is a remarkable rebuttal of his rule.

Losing the House in 2018 did not go well for him, with Nancy Pelosi becoming Speaker of the House; gridlock in Congress; a flurry of investigations into his activities; the then-longest government shutdown in history, and his 2019 and 2021 impeachments – which were both ultimately blocked by the Senate. He holds the dubious distinction of being the only president to have been impeached twice.

That will all likely now begin again. And it will be worse because the Senate, unlike in his first term, will not be there to protect him.

Trump has spent the past several months warning that he will be imperiled if the Democrats retake Congress, repeatedly saying that they will likely impeach him.

On the eve of the vote, he told Sean Hannity during a Fox News interview that his legislative accomplishments could be ‘wiped out’ by the result.

And he is not the only one who will be worried.

The president’s family are likely to be investigated for corruption – among them his sons Don Jr and Eric, and son-in-law Jared Kushner. Democrats will want to know about family cryptocurrency ventures, the funding of projects including the White House ballroom, and Trump’s acceptance of a Qatari jet to use as Air Force One.

The president’s family doubled its net worth in the nine months following the 2024 election, according to a Forbes report of September 2025, with Eric’s net worth going from $40 to $750 million, and Don Jr’s fortune increasing ten-fold from $50 to $500 million.

There could even be attempts to call Barron and Melania as witnesses and Trump’s legal team is already prepping behind the scenes to stage a robust defense of his family.

Elon Musk could also be in the firing line as Democrats seek to investigate his businesses and his role in Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Trump has hit back, declaring he would issue preemptive pardons to ‘protect’ Musk and any of his own aides who might be targeted.

The little-known House Natural Resources Committee, which oversees federal land in Washington, is also likely to launch investigations into funding of the White House ballroom, Trump’s plan for a triumphal arch, and the project to repair the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Criminal prosecutions remain unlikely, as the Justice Department remains under the control of Trump’s obedient attorney general, Todd Blanche.

The next two years will likely see Trump at war with Congress, wielding his veto liberally.

Congress holds the ‘power of the purse’, the authority to approve federal spending, but Trump as president does not need their approval on issues such as tariffs, immigration and foreign policy.

On Iran, Democrats are already livid that Trump has steamrollered supposed limits on launching an attack.

They are trying to find ways of halting further action, and will find themselves stymied by Trump’s veto – but crucially, supported by the incoming Democrat-controlled Senate.

PETE HEGSETH 

Another person who should be concerned is Pete Hegseth, the controversial Secretary of War.

Representative Jason Crow of Colorado, who serves on the House Armed Services Committee, told CBS News’ Face the Nation on October 25 that pushing Hegseth out of the Pentagon was his ‘priority number one’ if Democrats retake the House, and at least three other Democrats have already filed articles seeking Hegseth’s impeachment.

A Democrat aide told CNN in the days before the vote that Hegseth was seen by the party as the ‘lowest hanging fruit, because of the animosity that seems to be both from Republican and Democratic senators and staff.’

However, no Cabinet member has ever been successfully forced from office by the House.

Both William Belknap, Ulysses Grant’s Secretary of War, and Alejandro Mayorkas, Joe Biden’s Homeland Security Secretary, were impeached by the House, but saved by the Senate.

Trump will also likely find himself thwarted by the Democrat-controlled Congress when it comes to Supreme Court appointments.

The two oldest justices, 78-year-old Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, 76, are both Republicans.

Neither have publicly expressed plans to retire, and sources close to both men told CBS News in April that they have no imminent thought of stepping down.

But Trump, who appointed three justices in his first term, said in April that he was ‘prepared’ to appoint more, if the time came.

‘In theory, it’s two – you just read the statistics – it could be two, could be three, could be one,’ he said. ‘I don’t know. I’m prepared to do it.’

Now he may be unable to.

ELON MUSK

Elon Musk, who abandoned Democrat-controlled California for Texas in 2021, relocating his businesses and home, is by far the midterms‘ biggest loser in financial terms.

The world’s richest man spent half a billion dollars, $446 million, according to a Washington Post analysis of FEC filings – to back conservative candidates.

Almost 40 percent of that, $168 million, was spent in failed efforts to prop up Republicans in his home state. Both Governor Greg Abbott and Senate-hopeful Ken Paxton were defeated.

Musk now finds himself living in a state governed by his political adversaries, who will be only too keen to investigate his business dealings and his work with DOGE.

Robert Garcia, who will become the chair of the House Oversight Committee, said they have ‘a lot of questions about Elon Musk’s role in DOGE’ that they ‘plan to investigate.’

In September, after the Government Accountability Office produced a damning report into DOGE’s work, the two ranking Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee branded the project an ‘utter fraud.’

‘Given Musk’s public admission that DOGE was unsuccessful, he and his DOGE cronies should be subject to a full accounting of the damage they caused,’ wrote James Walkinshaw and Bennie Thompson.

‘Congress must then enact permanent safeguards so no President can ever again give an unaccountable political operation free rein to devastate our federal government.’

Democrats have also said they want to investigate Musk’s obtaining of government contracts.

The Democracy Defenders Fund, a left-leaning think tank, reported on October 30 that in the year-and-a-half after leaving the administration, Musk had secured at least $10 billion in new government contracts and grants, ‘along with repeated regulatory relief from the Trump Administration.’

Democrats want to look into Musk’s agreements between the federal government and his companies, Starlink, SpaceX and Tesla.

Trump said he would protect his South African friend from Democrat threats, telling podcast host Miranda Devine on November 2: ‘It won’t happen. It’s talk. But if it is talk, we’ll have to protect them.’

Musk himself was well aware of his predicament.

He warned on October 30 that a Democrat victory would be ‘game over for America.’

DARLINE GRAHAM

One of the highest-profile losers in the midterms was Darline Graham, who failed to claim the Senate seat her brother Lindsey held for 23 years. 

Her loss means that South Carolina has a Democrat in the Senate for the first time in 21 years, since Ernest ‘Fritz’ Hollings retired in 2005.

It is a remarkable result in a state that Trump won by 17.9 points in 2024. And it is all the more astonishing given that Trump himself hand-picked Graham for the job, anointing her as the rightful heir to her brother’s seat.

As the polls closed, former governor Nikki Haley told NBC News Trump had made a mistake.

‘He chose the weaker candidate when South Carolinians knew there was a stronger candidate. And I think what you’re seeing is the response to that,’ she said.

On the campaign trail, Darline, who has spent her working life helping disabled people, most recently as the head of South Carolina’s Commission for the Blind, made several gaffes that illustrated her inexperience.

In August, asked during a primary debate about Taiwan, she replied: ‘I’m just going to be honest here. I’m not that informed on national security, so – but I do support the military.’

Her Democrat rival, Annie Andrews, seized on the remark and said it was equivalent to trusting a surgeon who admits that ‘appendectomies aren’t really his thing.’

And she repeatedly said that she does not want to be in the position in which she found herself.

Lindsey Graham, one of the best-known members of the Senate, died suddenly on July 11 at the age of 71.

Three days later his sister was sworn in, after being appointed to the seat by the governor, Henry McMaster.

The 62-year-old was raised by her brother – nine years her senior – from the age of 11, after both their parents died in quick succession.

Initially she was set to only see-out her brother’s term, but Trump encouraged her to run for a full, six-year term.

‘I hope Darline does this, in that there would be nobody better to honor the legacy of her beloved brother, Lindsey,’ he wrote on Truth Social.

‘Darline, who comes from an absolutely incredible family, has been a WINNER all of her life and, should she accept, has my Complete and Total Endorsement.’

She faced primary competition from two representatives – Russell Fry and Ralph Norman – and from a former governor of the state, Mark Sanford.

Sanford has been particularly vocal about the circumstances surrounding her candidacy, calling it ‘absurd,’ and pointing out that she was on the cusp of losing a solid Republican seat.

‘I think it’s crazy,’ he told CNN. ‘It should be an absolute shoe-in.’

He said voters ‘don’t like the idea of a puppet – somebody who, you know, will do as they’re told by the president just because he helped drag her across the finish line.’

Nancy Mace, the South Carolina representative who is leaving Congress in January, told MS Now the situation was ‘a f***ing train wreck.’ She added: ‘It’s a mess.’

JON HUSTED

Veteran Ohio politician Jon Husted, 59, lost his bid to hold on to the Ohio Senate seat to which he was appointed in January 2025, after JD Vance left to become vice president.

And he lost some of his dignity along the way, with Trump making his behind a focus of the campaign.

Husted rocketed to nationwide attention when, at a Youngstown rally on October 12, Trump spoke admiringly of his physique.

‘I don’t do this with men very often,’ Trump began. ‘I started examining his body because I didn’t know he was a great athlete. And I looked and I watched up and down and I looked at his ass.’

So in awe was Trump of Husted’s looks that he repeated the line in Kentucky and North Carolina.

In Greenville, North Carolina, the president said Husted’s rear was ‘like a pile of muscle,’ adding that tapping Husted’s shoulder hurt his hand because it felt like steel.

‘Then I looked at his legs and I said, ‘Man, his feet are big.”

Husted himself, a strong ally of the president, has laughed off the comments. He and his wife of 21 years, Tina, have three children and live in the Columbus area.

‘My wife and I have a good sense of humor, and we know he’s doing all he can to help us win,’ Husted told Axios. ‘We have made sure to hit the gym during the busy campaign to uphold the high standards the president has set for us.’

Husted studied education and communication at the University of Dayton, where he was part of the 1989 championship-winning college football team. He was offered a job coaching, but instead went into politics – working in business development for a county commission before successfully running for office in 2000.

Husted rose through the Republican ranks of Ohio’s Congress before being chosen by Governor Mike DeWine to replace Vance. 

VIVEK RAMASWAMY

Billionaire biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy lost $30 million of his own money in a failed bid for the White House, and can now add to that tally the $25 million he has just lost trying to be elected governor of Ohio.

Ramaswamy, 41, garnered nationwide attention with a campaign advert, aired in early October, attacking the credibility of his rival Amy Acton. Acton, a 60-year-old doctor and former head of the Ohio department of health, is running for her first elected position.

Ramaswamy recruited Acton’s estranged mother, who she has not seen in almost 50 years, to urge voters not to trust her.

Donna Acton was married to a man who was charged with raping a 12-year-old Amy and sexually abusing her brother.

He had already been accused of child sexual abuse when he married Acton’s mother.

Both Acton and her brother were removed from their mother’s care, but their mother stayed with her husband – fleeing the state together when he was charged. He has since died.

Acton’s campaign called the ad ‘despicable,’ and Acton herself said: ‘My mother is not well.’

Mike DeWine, the Republican governor, urged Ramaswamy to take the ad down, calling it ‘deeply disturbing.’

Yet JD Vance and Donald Trump defended it, with the president describing the video as ‘very powerful.’

Tuesday’s defeat is likely the final nail in the coffin for Ramaswamy’s political ambitions.

The son of Indian immigrants, he rocketed to nationwide attention when he announced his run for the White House in February 2023.

He spent over $30 million of his own money on the race, but it was short lived: he came fourth in the opening contest, the Iowa caucus, and ended his campaign. He then became an enthusiastic supporter of Donald Trump.

Trump, in the week after the November 2024 election, announced that Ramaswamy was joining forces with Elon Musk at the DOGE.

But mere hours after Trump was sworn in, Ramaswamy announced he was leaving DOGE and running for governor. Speculation was rife that Ramaswamy was at odds with Musk and many of the staff.

Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor and Republican presidential candidate, said on Tuesday Ramaswamy had done lasting damage to the party’s top officials.

‘You not only have to question the judgement of a man who would take a woman – an elderly woman, out of the car she was living in out of the parking lot in a church in Pennsylvania with her cats and put her in front of a video camera, and make that a TV add in the gubernatorial race,’ said Christie. 

‘We know what Vivek Ramaswamy is, and voters have judged him as such. But here is the real problem going forward. 

‘JD Vance stood 100 percent with Vivek Ramaswamy. Not only as a person and a candidate, but he stood behind that advertisement. 

‘And Vivek Ramaswamy will be forgotten. He is going to be sent to the dustbin of history. 

‘But JD Vance is going to be remembered, I think, for this campaign: he stood by that ad, a man who wrote a book on Catholicism, stood behind that ad. It’s a disgrace.’ 

ASHLEY HINSON

Ashley Hinson was hoping to be elected as a Republican Senator for Iowa – reliably red since President Barack Obama won the state during his 2012 reelection campaign.

But her campaign fell short – as did that of the Republican seeking the governor’s mansion. Rob Sand became the first Democrat elected as governor of Iowa in 20 years.

Hinson, a 43-year-old former news anchor for an Iowan TV station, won two local Emmy Awards for her work before entering politics.

In 2016 she won election to Iowa’s House, and in September 2025 said she would run for the US Senate, seeking election in the seat vacated by the retiring Joni Ernst.

But she faced a tough battle with her Democrat rival, Josh Turek, 47.

Turek, a four-time Paralympian, won gold at the Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 Olympics before being elected to Iowa’s House in 2022.

Hinson initially promised to be Donald Trump’s ‘top ally’ in the Senate, but as his approval ratings fell she switched her message, vowing instead to be ‘Iowa’s best bipartisan fighter.’

Iowans have been hard hit by Trump’s tariffs, and their farmers hammered by his diesel prices.

In the final months of the campaign, as the war in Iran dragged on and gas and diesel prices ballooned, Hinson moved to distance herself further from the president.

In September, Hinson said Iowans ‘shouldn’t have to foot the bill’ for the war.

And in October, she condemned his overtures to Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin – saying that lifting sanctions on Russia ‘makes me a little bit nervous’ and calling Putin ‘a murderer.’

BETO O’ROURKE 

O’Rourke was, for a while, the man who was going to turn Texas blue. After  failed attempts in 2018 and 2022, he was nowhere near the ballot as James Talarico and Gina Hinojosa stormed to victory. 

WINNERS:

JAMES TALARICO

James Talarico, a 37-year-old state representative and former middle school teacher, put his training as a Presbyterian minister on hold to run for the Senate. 

On Tuesday, he learned the decision had paid off: he has become the first Democrat elected by Texans to the Senate in 33 years. 

Talarico was helped by the fact that he was running against a deeply flawed rival.

Ken Paxton, the state attorney general, has for years been mired in corruption scandals, and dogged by lawsuits. He was impeached in the Texas House, only to be saved by the Senate. His wife of 38 years left him after a series of alleged affairs, and even Donald Trump declared: ‘I don’t really like the way he looks.’ 

Paxton did find plenty of ways to attack Talarico – repeatedly claiming that Talarico would usher in Sharia law, let ‘boys play in girls’ sports’ and outlaw oil and gas. He repeatedly referenced Talarico’s April 2021 comments in a House debate, when he said that there were six genders and argued that God was non-binary.

Most menacing of all, Paxton claimed – falsely – that Talarico was a vegan.

Voters were concerned, but they were outnumbered by those who disliked Paxton and Donald Trump.

Talarico on Tuesday night likened his campaign to David, taking on Goliath. Elon Musk, a Texas resident, spent $168 million to defeat him and his fellow Democrats, and warned that they would signal ‘game over for America.’

Talarico said: ‘My granddad was a Baptist preacher in South Texas, and when I was little he told us that God gave us two commandments: love God, and love thy neighbor. Because there is no love of God without the love of thy neighbor.

‘Not just my neighbor who looks like me, votes like me, prays like me. I am called to love all of my neighbors, because despite our differences we all want the same things.’ 

He added: ‘It is the oldest strategy in the world – divide and conquer. But tonight, we sent a crystal clear message to the people at the top: we will not be conquered.’

JON OSSOFF

Jon Ossoff cruised to victory in his Senate re-election race, holding on to the Georgia seat he first took in 2021.

The widely predicted win only adds to hype around a possible run for the White House in 2028 – although he has insisted he will serve a full six-year term. Skeptics have noted that Barack Obama, who campaigned with him in the Atlanta suburbs on October 28, said the same thing at this point in his career.

Ossoff, who turns 40 in February, whipped up the crowds across the state by denouncing what he called the corruption of the Trump administration, and vowing to investigate. He also highlighted the soaring cost of living, and promised to work to reduce prices.

Telegenic and savvy, he put his past as a documentary producer to good use, spinning slick social media videos and earning praise from the young in particular.

Ossoff gained hours of airtime by goading Donald Trump about his close aide Natalie Harp, perennially by his side.

Referencing the Qatari presidential plane debacle, Ossoff said in August that Trump would rather ‘build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace’ than do his job.

The zinger made the youthful senator almost a household name.

Ossoff made history as the first Jewish Senator from the deep south since 1878: in his first term he was one of only nine Jewish politicians to sit in the Senate.

His win is also a victory for critics of Benjamin Netanyahu. Ossoff has accused the Israeli leader of violating international law in Gaza – although he stopped short of calling the war a genocide.

ADAM HAMILTON

Adam Hamilton, a 62-year-old pastor and farmer, became on Tuesday the first Democrat elected to represent Kansas in the Senate in almost a century.

George McGill won re-election in 1932, but after he left Washington in 1939 Kansas has been determinedly red.

And when Hamilton launched his campaign, it was seen as a long shot: the last time it was even close was 1974, when Republican Bob Dole squeaked across the line.

But Hamilton, a strong candidate, ran a good race.

He is senior pastor of the largest United Methodist church in the US, and his church claims it is the largest church in Kansas City, with more than 24,000 active members. In his most recent weekly email to his followers, he makes no mention of his campaign – instead highlighting Bible study classes, food pantry work and coffee mornings.

‘I love this time of year, and seeing the glory of God in the changing of the seasons,’ he writes.

His rival, Roger Marshall, the 66-year-old incumbent, has frequently described Hamilton as being ‘too woke’ for Kansas, but Hamilton said what is important is his approach and policies.

‘I’m proud to be a Democrat, but what matters to me more than the letter behind your name is who you are, what you stand for, your character – and I think there’s a lot of people like that in our state,’ he said.

Hamilton, married to his high school sweetheart for almost 45 years, believes in two genders and does not support trans women in female sport – but he accepts that ‘people might identify in different ways.’

He told ABC News: ‘The president has taken a group of people that represent a very tiny minority of people who are bullied and picked on and harassed, and he’s tried to make them a campaign issue.

‘He’s trying to use them in order to somehow make the case that people should be afraid of trans people as well as Democrats, and I think that again is pathetic.’

He added, in that October 11 interview, that he hoped to send a signal of unity from his state.

‘I think Kansas has a chance to send a message to America to say, look, we got to come together, we got to work together,’ he said. ‘I’ll only get elected with Republicans voting for me.’

ABDUL EL-SYAED 

Abdul El-Sayed was one of the biggest victors of Tuesday’s vote, brushing aside the president’s labeling of him as a ‘jihadist’ to become the first Muslim elected to the US Senate.

Trump seized on El-Sayed’s faith, calling him a ‘Muslim Brotherhood member’; saying he was ‘on the side of the terrorists’; claiming that Christmas would be cancelled if he won, and falsely accused him of wanting to impose Sharia law in Michigan.

The 42-year-old El-Sayed, quick witted and confident, brushed aside such slander.

‘He just seems to have trouble pronouncing it when it’s my name,’ said El-Sayed on October 25.

‘But y’all, I don’t care how he pronounces my name. I don’t even care that he remembers my whole name. Because he can just go on and call me Senator after November.’

Born in a suburb of Detroit, the son of Egyptian immigrant parents, El-Sayed trained as an epidemiologist before working in public health.

By the age of 30 he was Detroit’s heath director – the youngest person to hold the position in any major US city at the time. He had also by that point met and married Dr Sarah Jukaku, a psychiatrist and physician, with whom he has two young daughters.

In 2018 he ran for governor of Michigan, endorsed by Bernie Sanders but losing in the primary to Gretchen Whitmer.

He announced in April 2025 that he would run for a seat vacated by the retiring Democrat Gary Peters.

His campaign has been dominated by references to his faith, and his views on Israel.

In February this year he appeared at a series of rallies with controversial Left-wing commentator Hasan Piker, who said in 2019 that ‘America deserved 9/11’ and downplayed the sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas on October 7. Piker also claimed in September that ‘pound for pound’ the US was worse than al-Qaeda, ‘as far as the number of deaths.’ Piker added, in the Axios interview: ‘We have caused tremendous terror all around the world.’

El-Sayed has defended appearing with Piker, saying: ‘Of course I oppose rape. Of course I don’t think 9/11 was justified. [Just] because you appear with somebody, doesn’t mean you agree with them on everything.’

El-Sayed said the government of Israel’s actions in Gaza amounted to a ‘genocide’, and has demanded that the US end military aid to Israel.

‘I don’t pay my taxes to buy another country a bomb or a tank,’ he said on 60 Minutes on November 1, adding that the same applied to Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

When asked by host Ross Douthat whether Israel had a right to exist, El-Sayed would not give a straight yes or no answer.

Instead he said: ‘If the Palestinian people decide and the Israeli people decide that they want two states for two people, and they decide that on equal terms, I’m for it. If they decide that they want one state shared in a different way, I’m for that.’

KEISHA LANCE BOTTOMS 

Keisha Lance Bottoms made history on Tuesday night by becoming America’s first black female governor, the first Democrat governor in Georgia for nearly 30 years, and the state’s first black governor. 

Lance Bottoms, 56, defeated billionaire Republican Rick Jackson in Georgia’s gubernatorial race as Democrats swept midterm races across the country.

Lance Bottoms’ frequent campaign partner, Senator Jon Ossoff, also swept his race on Tuesday night, after the pair enlisted former President Barack Obama on the campaign trail in their closing events.

THE POLLS AND PREDICTORS 

After failing to predict Trump’s 2024 election victory, pollsters faced a more skeptical public in the run-up to this year’s vote. 

But they overwhelmingly predicted Democrts victories in seven key states; Michigan, Texas, Maine, Ohio, Kansas, Alaska and Iowa. 

As of Wednesday morning, only Alaska remains uncalled.

Kalshi was quick to call races on election night, often ahead of major networks.