On November 3, 2026, American voters handed the Democratic Party control of both houses of Congress. Major news organizations, including CBS News and NBC News, projected that Democrats will hold majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. As of November 4 some races were still being counted, but the result is clear: for his last two years in office, President Trump will face a Congress controlled by the opposing party.
Democrats picked up Senate seats in states that few expected, including Texas, Ohio, Iowa, North Carolina, Kansas, South Carolina and Maine. Early exit polls put the President’s approval at about 38 percent. Gasoline averaged $4.15 a gallon on Election Day, the highest of any Election Day on record, according to AAA. The President himself admitted to Fox News that the war with Iran and the rise in energy prices likely hurt his party, saying, “that gave us an evening that was not that pleasant.”
A “Communist Takeover”?
Some have called the election a communist takeover of Washington. That goes too far as a description of the whole Democratic Party, whose leaders reject the label. But there is truth in it to a degree. A growing and vocal wing of the party openly calls itself “democratic socialist,” and many of the policies it promotes move the nation in that direction: more government control of health care, housing and energy, ever-higher taxes on those who work and save, the redistribution of wealth, and a government that grows larger every year. Communism and socialism promise equality but deliver the rule of the state over the family, the church and the individual. Wherever they have been tried, they have opposed the free preaching of the Gospel.
It should be said honestly, however, that most voters did not go to the polls asking for socialism. The surveys show that the cost of living, gas prices, government corruption and the war with Iran weighed most heavily on their minds. Many who voted for Democrats were voting against high prices and an unpopular war rather than for a socialist program. That is worth remembering, because the new majority will be tempted to treat a protest vote as a mandate.
What It Means for President Trump’s Last Two Years
With both chambers in Democratic hands, the President’s legislative agenda is largely finished. Democrats have said that in their first week they plan to push to repeal his tariffs, restore expired health insurance subsidies and reverse cuts to Medicaid. Such bills would face his veto, but the President will no longer be able to pass his own priorities either. The Senate will also be able to block his new Cabinet nominees and federal judges, which may be the most lasting change of all.
Expect a flood of investigations. Democratic leaders are already preparing inquiries into the President’s cryptocurrency dealings, the airplane donated by Qatar, tariff exemptions granted to donors, and the business affairs of his family. With control of the committees comes the power to issue subpoenas and compel testimony from administration officials.
Will They Impeach Him a Third Time?
President Trump has already been impeached twice by the House: in 2019, over a telephone call with the president of Ukraine, and in 2021, after the events of January 6. Both times the Senate acquitted him. Before that came more than two years of the Russia investigation, which ended in 2019 without charging anyone in his campaign with conspiring with Russia. Many Americans remember that period as one of endless accusations, hearings and court battles.
Some Democrats, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are eager to impeach him again, and Representative Steve Cohen has already filed 26 articles of impeachment. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries says he has not ruled anything out. Others in the party, including Kamala Harris, have called a third impeachment “not a good idea,” and some Democrats are reportedly considering impeaching Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth instead.
Could they remove him from office?
Very unlikely. A simple majority in the House is enough to impeach — that is, to bring charges. But removing a President from office requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate: 67 of the 100 senators. Even with their new majority, Democrats will be well short of that number and would need more than a dozen Republican senators to join them. In 2021, after January 6, only seven Republican senators voted to convict. A majority in the Senate is not enough to remove a President, so impeachment could embarrass him but almost certainly could not remove him.
For that reason, the more likely future is the one many feared: two years of investigations, subpoenas, hearings and court fights, much like his first term. Whether that serves the country, or simply sets the stage for the 2028 election, remains to be seen.
The Iran War: From Nuclear Threat to Leadership Change
In June 2025 the United States bombed Iran’s underground nuclear sites, and the administration declared the program “obliterated.” The administration later acknowledged that enriched uranium remained in Iran. Then, early in 2026, Americans were told that Iran was only weeks away from a bomb. On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched strikes that killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of the country’s leadership. The President predicted the war would last four to five weeks.
Many Americans have asked the obvious question: if the nuclear program was obliterated in 2025, how was Iran suddenly weeks from a bomb in 2026? Roughly 440 kilograms of enriched uranium is believed to remain buried at the sites bombed in 2025, but the shifting claims have left many unconvinced.
The goals of the war have shifted as well. What began as a war to stop a nuclear weapon became, in practice, a war to change Iran’s leadership — something Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long favored. In February the President called regime change “the best thing that could happen” and urged Iranians to “take over your government”; by June he said he “never cared about regime change.” Today, the main concerns are reopening the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has largely kept closed, and the enriched uranium still believed to be in Iran. A June agreement meant to end the fighting collapsed within weeks.
The cost has been heavy. By the end of August, 18 American service members had died and more than 750 had been wounded. The Defense Secretary put the war’s cost at more than $37.5 billion, and the Pentagon requested $67.1 billion more. Oil prices have risen about 25 percent. In an Associated Press survey of voters, about 60 percent said the decision to use military force against Iran was wrong. A Reuters/Ipsos poll in August found only 31 percent of Americans approved of the strikes, making this one of the least popular American wars in a century.
Christians hold different views about the modern state of Israel and what America owes it. Whatever one’s view, a nation should be honest with its people about why it sends their sons and daughters to war, and it should not be drawn into a war of regime change on shifting reasons. For more on this subject, see ‘Christian’ Zionism: A Doctrine With a Traceable Origin and our earlier report, Israel, Nuclear Threats, and the Politics of Fear.
How Should Christians Respond?
Elections matter, but our hope was never in Washington. Whichever party rules, the Lord reigns, and the hearts of kings are in His hand. Christians are commanded to pray for those in authority, of either party, that we may lead quiet and peaceable lives and that the Gospel may go forth freely. We should oppose policies that expand the power of the state over the family and the church, speak the truth plainly, and not be troubled by the rage of the nations.
Sources: CBS News and NBC News election coverage, November 3–4, 2026; AP VoteCast and CBS News exit polls; AAA; Forbes and TIME, November 4, 2026; ABC News, August 28, 2026; PBS NewsHour; Reuters/Ipsos. Written by the Webmaster, November 4, 2026.