US Democrats won a landslide victory in both the House of Representatives and the Senate on Tuesday in a midterm election that was broadly seen as a referendum on President Donald Trump’s second term of office.
While many Europeans might be viewing this as a sign that things will go back to the way they were before Trump, they should be cautioned against reading too much into the midterm results, according to Javier Carbonell, a policy analyst at the European Policy Centre, a major EU think tank in Brussels.
"We have learned that we cannot trust the US," Carbonell told the Brussels Times. "European policy cannot depend on what happens in Michigan or Wisconsin every two years."
While this is a positive step to normalising the relationship between the US and the EU, he fears that the damage may already be done.
Midterm takeaways
According to Carbonell, the Democratic landslide in the midterms was broadly a loss for Trump, more-so than a victory for any particular Democratic policy.
“There's no single narrative of what made Democrats win in terms of electoral strategy,” he said, noting that there were electoral seats won by Democrats who were progressive, moderate, and even formerly Republican. “It's much more about the dissatisfaction with Trump.”
"Trump is a very good anti-establishment candidate, and he wins massively when he does that," Carbonell said. However, now that he has had control of both the bodies of Congress and has been in office for a second term, "there's no way around the fact that he is establishment."
For Carbonell, the significance of this election is that it shows the unpopularity of right-wing anti-establishment candidates when they are in power. "When the far-right wins completely and can implement their policies, people don't like it," he said.
These election results also discredit the narrative that young men are being permanently radicalised to the right by the "manosphere" and social media, as according to polling data, 65% of young men voted for Democratic candidates in the midterm, he said.
"Young men were just as dissatisfied as anyone else, and they found in the far-right a good anti-establishment party," he said, "but if they find another anti-establishment party, they would go for that. So it's not that they are intrinsically more conservative or more sexist."
European impact
There's little expectation that these results will have a big impact on Europe directly. Trump is still the president directing US foreign policy, and this loss also isn't expected to weaken the far-right globally.
While in the past, Trump’s electoral success has often increased the global popularity of the right, notably in Canada and the EU, in the so-called "Trump effect," his loss in the midterms seems to have had no impact on their popularity.
However, where Carbonell does expect the impact of the midterm elections in Europe to lie is in terms of political narratives and economic messaging.
"Where I think it is going to have a massive impact is in the electoral campaigns," Carbonell said, noting the tendency of European politicians to imitate electoral trends from the US, particularly after the success of the New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's affordability-focused campaign.
"The next years are really, really going to be about material things," he said, particularly focusing on healthcare, education, affordability, and housing. "The welfare state is crumbling everywhere."
This is a point particularly relevant in Belgium, as Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever (N-VA) has been attempting to enact a cut of €10 billion to the federal budget.
"The left in Belgium have an amazing opportunity to really focus their message on economics, and I think win much more votes if they are able to counteract these austerity measures."
EU-US Relations
While some people may be celebrating these results, it does still remain a question if the EU will choose to pursue further strategic autonomy from the United States, or simply hope that in two years a Democrat is elected president and everything will return to normal.
Following the midterm results, The Brussels Times reached out to the American ambassador to Belgium Bill White for a statement. "The results of the midterm elections come as no great surprise to many of us," he said, "and it is good to see that the American voting system is working well."
"I hope President Trump and the Democrats will work more closely together on issues where they can find common ground, because that cooperation would be better for the United States and for our relations with Europe, NATO, and the rest of the world."
