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Democrats have won control of the U.S. House and Senate as voters expressed their frustration with President Donald Trump at the ballot box during Tuesday’s midterm elections.
Rep. Glenn Ivey won reelection to the U.S. House in Maryland’s 4th Congressional District.
He said he is not surprised at the extent of this year’s “blue wave” and explained what he expects Democrats to do when it comes to judiciary oversight of Trump.
“I think there’s a lot of unethical conduct. He’s $2.4 billion richer personally than he was before he got back in office,” Ivey said.
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He said that the message of the night was affordability.
“I think the public’s going to want us to help bring down gas prices. We need to do that by ending the war because that’s what pushed the gas prices up,” Ivey said. “We need to make sure we get grocery prices down by ending the tariffs because Trump’s tariffs are what made grocery prices go up, and we’ve got to make sure we do things to fight to increase the opportunity for people to get housing. The average age for buying your first house now is 40 years old in America.”
One of the questions on Maryland ballots was “Question 3.” According to the state constitution, legislative districts are to be compact and connected. Question 3, the redistricting amendment, clarifies that the constitutional requirements apply only to state senate and House of Delegates districts. In other words, U.S. House districts would be exempt.
Voters in Maryland threw their support behind the redistricting amendment on Election Day.
“I support Question 3. I think it makes sense for us to try and do it, given the national context of the Republican efforts to essentially try and redistrict in an effort to hold on to power across the country,” Ivey said.
Virginia Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, who campaigned on the theme of affordability, won reelection Tuesday night.
“This was a resounding victory,” Subramanyam said. “I saw Republicans come out and vote for me and other Democrats this election, and it’s because they’re seeing that their quality of life is going down.”
He told WTOP what Democrats plan to do in order to make things more affordable again.
“What we need to do is address this head-on. So we’ve got tariffs that are raising costs on the American people and small businesses. We’re seeing a forever war in the Middle East that’s raising costs. We’re seeing a lack of consumer protections,” he said. “There are so many ways we can lower costs right now: healthcare, food assistance, all those programs were cut that raise costs too. We’ve got a big agenda, and the American people trust us to move with it.”
Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger said she’s excited for what’s ahead after Tuesday night’s results.
“I’m excited by the wins that we’ve seen by the tremendous candidates who have run great campaigns and who are going to be headed to the halls of Congress,” Spanberger told WTOP’s Nick Iannelli. “There’s also some as a governor. I’m excited to see some of the really fantastic gubernatorial candidates who have won in other states as well.”
WTOP asked Spanberger what she attributes the “blue wave” to.
“I think, to some degree, it can be multiple things. Certainly, if it is a referendum on the Trump administration, it is a referendum on the fact that through his reckless policies that have been supported and enabled by the Republican-led Congress, people’s lives are harder,” Spanberger said. “The president ran on a pretty short list of priorities. He was going to work to get inflation down, and he said he was going to end wars. And in fact, now he has started wars, driving up costs, killing American service members, created chaos in international trade that has impacted Virginians and people across the country.”
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