Democrats Flip 7 Seats and Take the Senate. Trump’s Answer: A Red Hat That Says ‘VETO’

Late Tuesday night, the Associated Press called Iowa’s open Senate seat for Democrat Josh Turek over Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson. Eighty-three seconds later, the AP called the whole chamber: “Democrats have won the U.S. Senate.”

Thirty-two seconds after that, the White House’s Rapid Response account posted President Trump’s reply. No statement. No caption. Just a screenshot of his own post: a red ball cap with one word stitched across the front in white. VETO.

That’s the story of the next two years in one picture. Democrats can now pass bills through the Senate, bury nominees and run investigations. Trump still holds the pen.

How the map fell

Democrats flipped seven Republican-held seats Tuesday night, and Trump carried six of those states in 2024. The AP called North Carolina for former Gov. Roy Cooper over Michael Whatley first. Then came pediatrician Annie Andrews over Darline Graham in South Carolina, state Rep. James Talarico over Attorney General Ken Paxton in Texas, and former Sen. Sherrod Brown over Sen. Jon Husted in Ohio.

Iowa put them over the top. After the majority was already gone, the AP called Kansas for pastor Adam Hamilton over Sen. Roger Marshall, the first Democrat to win a Senate race there in nearly a century. Sen. Susan Collins called Troy Jackson to concede in Maine after midnight there, and NBC News projected Jackson the winner, ending her 30 years in the Senate.

Republicans did hold their ground across the South and the Mountain West. The National Republican Senatorial Committee celebrated wins for Tom Cotton in Arkansas, Bill Hagerty in Tennessee and Mike Rounds in South Dakota, plus new Republican senators from Alabama, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Wyoming. Democrats also kept Georgia, where Sen. Jon Ossoff beat Rep. Mike Collins.

What Trump said

Trump called into Fox as the returns came in, and he didn’t sulk. “I think the Democrats did a good job. I really do. I think they did a good job. They fought hard,” he said, according to AFP.

He was blunt about why. “People agree with what I’m doing on Iran, but they really probably weren’t willing to do the short-term consequence of paying more for gasoline,” he said. “I understand that. I don’t agree with it.”

Then he laid out the plan for a Democratic Senate. Presidents have lived with divided government before, he said, and they have a tool for it.

“It’s the power of veto. It’s one of the stronger powers that a President has,” Trump said. “They’ll send over things that are insane and I’ll veto them.”

Earlier in the night he’d already posted his own scorecard, quoted by the AP: “I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!” He also had no apology for skipping John Cornyn in Texas. “I found him to be a disloyal guy,” he said. “When it wasn’t fashionable to be with Trump, he wasn’t there. When it was fashionable, he kissed my a**.”

Why the veto matters

The math here is simple. Under Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution, a vetoed bill dies unless two-thirds of the House and two-thirds of the Senate vote to override. That’s 67 senators. Democrats won a majority Tuesday, not a supermajority, so any override needs a large bloc of Republicans to cross over.

Trump knows how that goes. In his first term he vetoed 10 bills, and Congress overrode him only once, on the 2021 defense bill, according to the Senate’s own veto record. Think of the veto as a goalie who has to be beaten by two-thirds of the field, not just a team that scores more.

What a Democratic Senate can do is play defense of its own. It confirms or blocks Cabinet picks and lifetime judges, it runs every committee, and it holds subpoena power. The AP reported Democrats are already lining up investigations into the Trump family’s business dealings and the administration’s handling of the Epstein files.

Senate Democrats posted their own promise Tuesday night: “Against all odds, Democrats have won back the Senate. We have five words for the American people: Relief is on the way.” Majority Leader John Thune answered for Republicans that the outgoing majority had “put up a strong record of accomplishment that’s created safer streets, more money in Americans’ pockets, and new opportunities for families and businesses to get ahead.”

The 60 days that matter now

Here’s the part most of tonight’s coverage skips. Democrats won the Senate. They don’t run it yet. Under the 20th Amendment, the new Congress takes over at noon on Jan. 3, 2027. Until then Thune’s Republican majority still controls the floor, and that’s 60 days to confirm judges and nominees the next Senate could block.

The House is still being counted. Whatever happens there, the next two years start the same way they ended Tuesday night: Democrats with a gavel, and Trump with a hat that says VETO.