The midterm elections for the House and Senate happened on November 6th and there were plenty of headlines. The midterm elections resulted in the Democrats winning control of the House of Representatives. The Democrats now have 228 seats in the House of Representatives. The Republicans now have 199 seats in the House of Representatives.

What does this mean for the Trump presidency going forward? There are pros and cons from the elections for Democrats and Republicans. A positive aspect for the Republicans is that they still have control of the Senate. This allows Trump to confirm more conservative federal judges to courts. The downside for the Republicans is that they lost the House. This will make it difficult for Republicans to pass any major pro-Trump legislation.

On the other hand, Democrats were expected to win a lot more seats because of how unpopular Trump is. In 2010, President Obama lost 63 seats in the House of Representatives and six seats in the Senate. Also, in 2006, George W. Bush lost 30 seats in the House of Representatives and six seats in the Senate. So, compared to how previous presidents have done in their midterms, President Trump’s losses were not as bad.

One would hope that both parties are able to see through their differences. It would be great if Republicans and Democrats were able to get bipartisan legislation on a winning issue that transcends party lines, like healthcare. According to a Pew Research Center poll, over 70 percent of voters believe that healthcare is the most important issue to them.

Unfortunately, I’m a naturally pessimistic person, and I doubt that something as insane as a compromise across party lines will happen. Most likely, the next two years will be full of Democrat representatives giving speeches in congressional halls about typos in tweets by President Trump, as well as not passing any legislation and taking vacations every month or so.  

One question that is on a lot of people’s minds is who the favorite for the Democrats in 2020 is. Many people believe that Andrew Gillum, Florida’s Democratic governor nominee, and Beto O’Rourke, Texas’ Democratic senator nominee, were favorites to defeat President Trump. However, since they both lost their states, many Democratic strategists may be cautious to have them as the Presidential nominees.

Nevertheless, O’Rourke and Gillum seem to be the front-runners for the Democratic nominees— mostly because they are popular with a lot of voters. Democrats should learn from 2016 that having a presidential candidate as unpopular as Hillary Clinton may result in an embarrassing loss.

In addition, if Gillum or O’Rourke are the presidential nominees, the Democrats would have to adopt a more progressive agenda in 2020. For example policies like a higher minimum wage, universal health care, prison reform, and immigration reform. This would be in stark contrast to the neoliberal agenda that Hillary Clinton ran on.

These next two years will tell us a lot about the state of our country. Hopefully, our country will be one where we will be able to improve the lives of the people in it.