The Democratic Party rode a wave of victories in the US midterm elections, gaining a majority in both houses of Congress. The question here is whether they can deliver on their promises.
The party campaigned for lowering the cost of living, ending the war with Iran, holding President Donald Trump accountable, and opposing immigration crackdowns.
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However, Democrats will only retain control of Congress until January. Still, there is only so much that can be done without Republican cooperation.
Most bills require 60 votes to pass the Senate filibuster, and even if Democrats control it, President Trump can still veto the bill. He had already threatened to “veto everything” on Monday’s podcast.
But Democrats now have other tools at their disposal, including control over Senate confirmations and committees that can launch investigations.
So what can Democrats realistically accomplish over the next two years, and where might they struggle to deliver on their promises?
Can Democrats lower the cost of living?
Affordability is one of the biggest issues for voters heading into Tuesday’s midterm elections, and Democrats have capitalized on it, pledging to lower the cost of energy, housing, health care and food.
Economist Dean Baker, co-founder of the Center for Economic Policy Research, a U.S.-based think tank, said one of the most effective things Democrats can do to reduce costs is to encourage an end to the war with Iran.
Since February, the conflict has sent energy prices soaring as Iran has restricted commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for oil and gas trading.
Baker argued that Democrats could use congressional investigations and oversight to pressure the Trump administration to end the war, which could lead to relief for consumers.
Baker said foreign policy is an area where some Republicans may find common ground with Democrats.
Another area is health care, which may be an issue that similarly worries voters, he added.
Many Americans face rising premiums as enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies expire in 2025.
With a new congressional majority, Democrats could push to restore those subsidies and reverse cuts to Medicaid, the government’s health care program for low-income Americans.
Baker said a possible path to achieving this goal would be to include such measures in government spending bills that Congress would need to pass. That would make it difficult for President Trump to veto it.
“I think Republicans living in a post-Trump world don’t want to be on the side of depriving people of health care and basically increasing the cost of health care,” Baker said. “They can create politics that he doesn’t want to veto.”
President Trump’s tariff campaign is also driving up consumer costs. But Baker warned that without substantial support from Republicans to override Trump’s veto, it could be more difficult to overturn the policy. Even if it does, it could be a while before prices actually come down.
“Prices are like a rocket and a feather. They go up like a rocket and come down like a feather,” said Alex Jacques, director of policy and advocacy at the Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive economic think tank.
But Jack pointed to another path Democrats could take that doesn’t require President Trump’s approval.
Democrats have a majority in Congress and could use congressional committees to investigate companies that raise prices on everything from groceries to electricity.
“There’s a lot of precedent where just being able to take a gavel and subpoena CEOs and bring people in front of Congress has achieved substantial results,” Jacques told Al Jazeera.
While there is no guarantee that such investigations will result in lower prices, they could put pressure on companies to explain or adjust their decisions.
Can a Democratic Congress hold President Trump accountable?
Laura Blessing, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Institute of Governmental Affairs, expects Democrats to make extensive use of the new investigative powers.
“In terms of time spent and newspaper ink spilled, this is where you’ll see the most Democratic action by a mile,” she told Al Jazeera in an email.
Congressional investigations do not require White House approval. But scrutiny of Trump’s actions inside and outside of government could make his life even more difficult.
Many Democrats have indicated plans to investigate the source of the Trump family’s wealth as part of the next Congress in January.
President Trump’s personal wealth has increased by about $2.2 billion since the start of his term, according to financial disclosure forms released earlier this year.
His family’s business empire has similarly expanded over the past two years into everything from cryptocurrencies and drones to artificial intelligence and predictive markets. These industries are supported by government policy.
Democratic senators have already laid the groundwork for a possible investigation, sending letters to companies and government departments asking them to preserve records.
Among the issues they could investigate are whether donors to Trump’s White House banquet hall received preferential treatment from the government and whether the Justice Department targeted Trump’s political opponents.
However, there is no guarantee that everyone will cooperate.
Trump administration officials may challenge the subpoena in court, potentially delaying the investigation. But while Blessing doesn’t expect “Mr. Trump’s nuclear family to show up for subpoenas,” he said Democrats could still question government officials and people associated with Mr. Trump’s inner circle.
But even if wrongdoing were uncovered, the legal outcome is not guaranteed, as it is up to President Trump’s own Justice Department to decide whether to file a lawsuit.
There is also a possibility of impeachment. Lawmakers have already introduced articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on multiple grounds, including allegations that he waged war against Iran without seeking Congressional approval.
Republican Representative Thomas Massie said he would try to force a vote on Hegseth’s impeachment through the House when Congress resumes next week.
But President Trump, who was impeached twice in his first term, told reporters on Wednesday he ruled out the possibility of him facing a third impeachment, saying he wasn’t worried “in the slightest.”
“If we did that, I think it would destroy the Democratic Party because we would be impeached for no reason,” he said.
Trump also defended Hegseth, saying he was “doing a very good job.”
Even if the House votes to impeach a government official, the case must be considered in a Senate trial.
It takes a two-thirds majority in the Senate to remove an elected official, so removing someone like Mr. Trump or Mr. Hegseth would require the participation of many Republicans. No president in U.S. history has ever been removed from office as a result of impeachment proceedings.
Can Democrats end the war with Iran?
With less than two months until the 120th Congress is sworn in, experts predict Trump will use his remaining weeks with the outgoing Republican majority to push through his remaining legislative priorities.
This leaves a significant opportunity for President Trump to escalate the war against Iran, said Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible State Strategy, a foreign policy think tank.
“He has shown a pattern of becoming more reckless in the face of humiliation and defeat,” Parsi told Al Jazeera.
Democrats could pursue a binding resolution to quell the war. After all, the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the sole power to declare war, and laws like the War Powers Act of 1973 give lawmakers a path to ending unauthorized conflicts that last longer than 60 days.
However, there is no guarantee that these efforts will be successful, given the possibility that President Trump may veto the proposed measures.
But experts say there are other ways Democrats can rein in Trump’s war powers. One of their most powerful tools is control over government spending.
The Trump administration could continue to use funds already earmarked for military operations, but Democrats could seek to block additional funding for the war.
“This puts limits on how long he can wage war,” Parsi said. “If he needs more money, we’re not talking about small amounts that he can easily reallocate from elsewhere.”
By controlling congressional committees, Democrats could also investigate the administration’s wartime conduct, including whether military operations complied with U.S. law.
“Strict oversight would not in itself limit military operations, but it could increase the political costs of war beyond what the president and other key officials can bear,” said David Janofsky, a policy analyst at the Government Oversight Project.
But how much political will Democrats have to end the conflict remains an open question.
Blessing, the government affairs fellow, noted that the party has historically been reluctant to withhold military funding for fear of being accused of weakening the U.S. military.
But Parsi warned that inaction would be politically unsustainable and could be seen by the party’s base as tacit support for U.S. military involvement in the Middle East.
“It’s no longer going to be a war just about President Trump,” Parsi said. “They will co-own it, because they will be accomplices, and they will have the ability to stop it.”
Can Democrats curb President Trump’s immigration crackdown?
Another target of the next Democratic-led Congress may be President Trump’s aggressive crackdown on immigration.
His pledge to oversee the largest mass deportation in U.S. history sparked widespread public backlash. A poll earlier this year found that 65% of Americans think Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) efforts are going “too far.”
With control of both houses of Congress, Democrats could launch investigations into ICE and other agencies involved in the crackdown.
Their investigation could seek information about conditions inside the detention centers, allegations of abuse and how tax dollars are used for immigration enforcement, said Heidi Altman, deputy director for policy at the National Immigration Law Center.
Altman argues that Congress could also take back the roughly $240 billion already given to the Trump administration for immigration enforcement over the past two years.
She explained that this amount allows ICE to operate with few constraints, without having to prioritize which communities to go into or who to detain.
“The only way to force a slowdown and real decision-making, prioritization and enforcement is to make deep cuts to the budget by taking back funding from last session,” she said.
To do so, President Trump would need to pass a bill that he could ultimately veto. But Altman argued that Democrats should move forward anyway.
“The worst thing we can do is throw up our hands and say there are limits to our power,” she says.
“Let’s pass a bill, see what happens, put it on the president’s desk and dare him to look at the American people and say we’re not signing something that the American people have overwhelmingly demanded.”
