Democrats Win Congress and the Subpoenas That Come With It
by: Marcus Webb

Democrats Win Congress and the Subpoenas That Come With It

The Associated Press called the House for Democrats early Wednesday, hours after calling the Senate. From January, Democrats will hold both chambers of Congress, and the gavels, subpoenas and war powers votes that come with them. By midday Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance had named a cause. “The reason we lost is the war,” he wrote in a long post on X, according to NBC News and Fox News.

Vance said a pollster he didn’t name had found four issues behind the defeat: ending the war on Iran, the cost of living and inflation, putting America first, and the U.S. relationship with Israel. He also dared colleagues to argue that losing the Senate “for the next 6 years” had been worth it. President Trump told The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday that “Iran was a piece of it” and that he would have launched the war again, NBC News and CNBC reported. On Wednesday he called Vance’s post “largely true,” Fox News reported.

Seven Senate flips, no Republican pickups

Democrats needed a net gain of four Senate seats. As of early Wednesday afternoon they had flipped seven Republican-held seats, AP race calls show: Iowa, Kansas, Texas, South Carolina, Ohio, North Carolina and Maine. Republicans had not taken a single Democratic seat in either chamber, according to the AP.

Several of the flips came in states Trump carried easily in 2024. In Kansas, Adam Hamilton beat Sen. Roger Marshall to become the state’s first Democratic senator since 1932, the AP reported. James Talarico defeated Ken Paxton in Texas, Annie Andrews beat Sen. Darline Graham in South Carolina, and Troy Jackson unseated Sen. Susan Collins in Maine. Sherrod Brown returns to the Senate after beating Sen. Jon Husted in Ohio. In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed held a Democratic seat and will be the first Muslim U.S. senator, according to the AP.

Two Republican-held races were still uncalled Wednesday morning, Alaska and Mississippi. In Alaska, the administration has filed a lawsuit to block certification if Sen. Dan Sullivan loses, citing a second candidate named Dan Sullivan on the ballot, the AP reported.

In the House, Democrats reached 218 confirmed seats overnight, NBC News reported, and an NBC analysis estimates they will finish with at least 258. Hakeem Jeffries is expected to become speaker when the new Congress convenes, which would make him the first Black speaker of the House. Below the federal level, Gina Hinojosa defeated Gov. Greg Abbott in Texas, who was seeking a fourth term.

What voters told the AP

Vance’s account and the AP’s voter survey don’t line up exactly. In The AP Voter Poll, about half of voters called government corruption and the cost of living “crucial” to their vote for Congress, a larger share than named immigration enforcement, the war in Iran or AI data centers. About three in four said they felt angry or dissatisfied with the country’s direction, and about six in 10 said Trump puts his own interests ahead of the country’s.

The war and prices aren’t separate questions for many voters, though. Al-Monitor and NBC News both tied the war to the fuel prices and inflation that drove the cost-of-living vote. Trump spent the campaign’s last weeks promising a deal with Tehran and cheaper gas. On Monday he told Fox News the conflict was “a very soft war.”

“LAWYER UP”: the records Democrats want

The fastest change will be oversight. A majority brings the power to subpoena records and compel testimony, and Democrats spent Tuesday night announcing they intend to use it. Rep. Robert Garcia of California, expected to chair the House Oversight Committee, posted two words on X: “LAWYER UP.” Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon posted one, “Subpoenas,” Fox News reported. Garcia told Punchbowl News before the election that his staff had been preparing investigations for months and was “not starting from scratch.”

House rules let a committee delegate subpoena authority to its chair, so incoming chairs could demand documents or testimony without Republican votes, Fox News noted. Committee staffers told NPR that the Epstein records sit near the top of the list. Democrats say many of the documents the administration released were improperly redacted or withheld.

The Iran war is another. No authorization for the use of force has been sought for it, and Democrats plan to question Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other Pentagon officials on its cost, NPR reported. The list also covers the Trump family’s business interests, from crypto projects to overseas deals, and federal contracts with Elon Musk’s companies after Starlink interruptions hampered Ukraine’s military.

Hegseth may not have to wait until January. Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican, has said he will force a vote on his own impeachment resolution against Hegseth in the lame-duck session, accusing him of violating the War Powers Resolution, Fox News reported. Jeffries said last month that one of the first things a Democratic majority would do is “run Pete Hegseth out of town.”

Where a subpoena stops

A subpoena doesn’t guarantee the documents arrive. An official who refuses can be held in contempt, but a criminal contempt referral goes to the Justice Department, which decides whether to prosecute, and fights over executive privilege can turn into lengthy court battles. Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro, both former Trump advisers, were convicted of contempt and sentenced to four months each for defying the House Jan. 6 committee.

On the war itself, the votes Democrats can now win are mostly symbolic. In June, both Republican-controlled chambers passed a concurrent resolution to end the conflict, which has no force of law, CNBC reported. A binding war powers resolution failed in the Senate in September, 49 to 50, according to Al-Monitor, and is likely to pass the new Senate. Trump can veto it, and overriding him takes two-thirds of both chambers. Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said last week that Democrats would have a “mandate” to use the spending power instead, attaching conditions to Pentagon funding, Al-Monitor reported.

Tehran read the result its own way. Iran’s parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, posted on X that Americans had said “NO TO WAR,” CNBC reported. Two days earlier, U.S. jets had struck Iran’s Qeshm Island in one of a series of strikes the administration did not announce, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The new Congress convenes in January.

In Opinion, Jordan Kessler argues the subpoena threats promise more than Congress can enforce: Democrats Said ‘Lawyer Up.’ The Lawyer Who Decides Is Todd Blanche.

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