WASHINGTON: The battle for control of the US Congress entered its final six months on Sunday, with midterm elections in November that could reshape President Donald Trump’s second term and redefine the balance of power in Washington.

As ever, the midterms will be a referendum on the president, with Democrats hoping to capitalise on economic discontent and Trump’s sliding approval ratings to retake the House of Representatives and Senate — while Republicans fight to defy political headwinds.

At stake is not just legislative control but the trajectory of Trump´s agenda, with a Democratic-run Congress able to launch investigations, block nominees and generally complicate the remainder of his presidency.

Early indicators point to a challenging environment for Republicans, with Trump’s approval rating around 40% and economic dissatisfaction — particularly inflation and Iran war-related costs — eroding confidence.

Polling shows Democrats with a narrow edge on the generic ballot, while some surveys suggest voters now trust them more on the economy.

A Republican-aligned group, AFP Action, warned the party’s Senate majority was “at risk,” citing “structural headwinds” and disengaged voters.

In midterm elections, Americans vote to fill all 435 House seats, about one-third of the 100-member Senate and most governorships. Democrats need to flip three House seats and four in the Senate to take control.

“The Senate is on the table here,” Molly Murphy, of pollster Impact Research, told cable network MS NOW, pointing to Trump’s waning popularity and strong Democratic turnout in recent elections.

“When the president’s approval rating is at or below 40%, that is when you start to see these deeper pickups in much more Republican-heavy terrain.”

Still, the landscape remains fluid, with structural challenges for both parties.

‘Always tough’

Republicans benefit from a favourable Senate map, with Democrats needing to win in states Trump carried. 

And heavily gerrymandered districts — as well as a shrinking number of competitive seats — limit how far a national swing can translate into House gains.

The campaign has been further complicated by a fierce redistricting battle, with states including Texas, California, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Missouri, Utah and Virginia pursuing new mid-decade voting maps.

The overall impact of the changes — alongside a Supreme Court ruling limiting race-based redistricting — remains unclear.

Republicans are banking on financial advantages and voter concerns over immigration and national security, while Democrats are focusing on cost-of-living pressures and framing the election as a defence of democratic norms.

Ahead of the six-month mark, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer accused Republicans of undermining voting rights through pushes for over-zealous election security and immigration enforcement initiatives.

“Let’s call it what it is: an effort to rig the system,” he said.

For Republicans, the central challenge remains the president himself. Midterms typically punish the party in power, and Trump’s weak approval ratings have heightened concerns.

At the same time, even some of his supporters say his focus on foreign policy, particularly the war with Iran, has drawn attention away from domestic economic concerns that typically dominate midterm campaigns.

Even so, Republicans insist the race is far from settled, noting that political conditions can shift rapidly ahead of an election.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told CNBC that Republican prospects would depend on turnout and voters appreciating his party “delivering what we’ve delivered to finally start turning this mess around that we inherited a year and a half ago.”

“Midterms are always tough for the incumbent party, but this is not your father’s Democrat Party,” Scalise said.

• Iran submits 14-point proposal via Pakistan to end conflict.
• Dispute continues over Iran’s nuclear programme, enrichment rights.
• US hints at possible military action if Iran “misbehaves” again.
  

US President Donald Trump said Saturday he will review a new Iranian peace proposal, but cast doubt over its prospects as he left open the possibility of future attacks on Iran.

Negotiations between the two countries have been deadlocked since a ceasefire came into effect on April 8, with one round of peace talks to end the more than two-month war having failed in Pakistan.

The dour outlook came after Iran’s Tasnim and Fars news agencies reported Tehran submitted a 14-point proposal to mediator Islamabad. Details included ending the conflict on all fronts and enacting a new framework for the crucial Strait of Hormuz, Tasnim said.

“I will soon be reviewing the plan that Iran has just sent to us, but can’t imagine that it would be acceptable, in that they have not yet paid a big enough price for what they have done to Humanity and the World, over the last 47 years,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.

In a brief interview with reporters in West Palm Beach, Florida, he declined to specify what could trigger new military action against the Islamic republic.

“If they misbehave, if they do something bad, but right now, we´ll see,” he said. “But it’s a possibility that could happen, certainly.”

On Saturday, Mohammad Jafar Asadi, a senior figure in the Iranian military’s central command, said “a renewed conflict between Iran and the United States is likely.”

“Evidence has shown that the United States is not committed to any promises or agreements,” he added, according to Fars news agency.

Deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi told diplomats in Tehran “the ball is in the United States’ court to choose the path of diplomacy or the continuation of a confrontational approach.”

Iran, he said, was “prepared for both paths.”

‘Hypocritical’

US news site Axios reported earlier in the week that Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff had asked for Tehran’s nuclear program to be put back on the negotiating table.

Iran’s mission to the UN pointed to the massive US nuclear arsenal, accusing Washington on Saturday of “hypocritical behavior” towards Iran’s own atomic ambitions.

There was no legal “restriction on the level of uranium enrichment, so long as it is conducted under the IAEA’s supervision, as was the case with Iran,” it said, using the abbreviation for the UN nuclear watchdog.

Iran has maintained a stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz since the war began, choking off major flows of oil, gas and fertiliser to the world economy, while the United States has imposed a counter-blockade on Iranian ports.

Oil prices are about 50 percent above pre-war levels.

The vice speaker of Iran’s parliament, Ali Nikzad, said that under draft legislation being considered for managing the waterway, 30 percent of tolls collected would go towards military infrastructure, with the rest earmarked for “economic development.”

“Managing the Strait of Hormuz is more important than acquiring nuclear weapons,” he said.

Fighting meanwhile continued Saturday in Lebanon, where Israel has carried out deadly strikes despite a separate truce with the Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah.

The Israeli military said it had struck dozens of Hezbollah targets across southern Lebanon following evacuation warnings for nine villages.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported three deaths in the attacks.

Hezbollah, for its part, claimed several attacks targeting Israeli troops.

The Israeli strikes included one in the village of Yaroun on what its military called a “religious building,” which was damaged.

The French Catholic charity L’Oeuvre d’Orient said the troops had “destroyed” a convent belonging to the Salvatorian Sisters, a Greek-Catholic religious order with which the charity is affiliated.

Iran’s economic toll

In Washington, lawmakers were wrestling over whether Trump had breached a deadline to seek congressional approval for the war.

Administration officials argue the ceasefire paused a 60-day clock, after which congressional authorisation would be required — a claim disputed by opposition Democrats.

In Iran, the war’s economic toll is deepening, with oil exports crimped and inflation surging past 50 percent.

“Everyone is trying to endure it, but… they are falling apart,” 40-year-old Amir, a Tehran resident, told an AFP reporter based outside the country.

“We still have not seen much of the economic effects because everyone had a bit of savings. They had some gold and dollars for a rainy day. When they run out, things will change.”

• Pentagon announced withdrawal of 5,000 troops.
• Two Senior Republican lawmakers express concerns.
• Move spells end to long-range missile battalion in Germany.
  

A planned withdrawal of 5,000 US troops from Germany has triggered fresh debate over Europe’s defence responsibilities, with German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius saying the move should push European allies to strengthen their own military capabilities.

The Pentagon confirmed the drawdown on Friday from Germany, the largest US military hub in Europe, amid rising tensions between Washington and European capitals over the Iran war and trade tariffs.

However, US President Donald Trump indicated the reduction could be only the beginning. “We’re going to cut way down, and we’re cutting a lot further than 5,000,” he told reporters in Florida on Saturday when asked about the plan.

The announcement has also drawn concern from two senior Republican lawmakers, who warned the troops should not be withdrawn from Europe, underscoring divisions within Washington over the future of US military presence on the continent.

As part of the US decision, a Biden-era plan to deploy a US battalion with long-range Tomahawk missiles to Germany has also been dropped – a blow to Berlin, which had pushed for the move as a powerful deterrent against Russia.

Republican lawmakers Senator Roger Wicker and Representative Mike Rogers, the chairs of the Senate and House armed services committees, said they were “very concerned.” They said the troops should not be moved from Europe, but moved east.

“Prematurely reducing America’s forward presence in Europe before those capabilities are fully realised risks undermining deterrence and sending the wrong signal to (Russian President) Vladimir Putin,” they said in a joint statement.

Nato working with Washington for details

Pistorius said the partial withdrawal was expected and would affect a current US presence of almost 40,000 soldiers stationed in Germany.

“We Europeans must take on more responsibility for our own security,” Pistorius said, adding, “Germany is on the right track” by expanding its armed forces, speeding up military procurement and building infrastructure.

Trump called for a reduced military presence in Germany as far back as his first term and has repeatedly urged Europe to take responsibility for its defence. However, he stepped up the threat earlier this week after sparring with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who has questioned Washington’s exit strategy in the Middle East.

The Pentagon said the troop withdrawal was expected to be completed over the next six to 12 months. It did not say which bases would be affected, nor whether the troops would return to the US or be redeployed within Europe or elsewhere.

A Nato spokesperson said the alliance was working with the US to understand the details of the decision.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, whose country is seeking assurances of continued US support on Nato’s eastern flank amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, also expressed concern about the latest setback to the alliance.

“The greatest threat to the transatlantic community is not its external enemies, but the ongoing disintegration of our alliance. We must all do what it takes to reverse this disastrous trend,” Tusk wrote on X on Saturday.

The Pentagon’s plans were the latest blow to Germany from Washington this weekend, after Trump said he would ratchet up tariffs on EU auto imports to 25%, accusing the EU of not upholding a trade deal – in a move that threatens to cost the German economy billions.

A foreign policy official from Chancellor Merz’s CDU party said the two announcements should be viewed in light of pressure on Trump both at home and abroad, amid weak opinion polling and pressure over unresolved conflicts in Ukraine, Venezuela and Iran.

“Against this backdrop, both the troop withdrawal and the trade policy seem less like the expression of a coherent strategy and more like a political reflex and a reaction born of frustration,” Peter Beyer told Reuters.

Long-range fires battalion cancelled

Nato members have pledged to take on more responsibility for their own defence, but with tight budgets and vast gaps in military capability, it will take years for the region to meet its own security needs.

Germany wants to boost the number of active-duty Bundeswehr soldiers from a current 185,000 to 260,000, though critics of the defence minister have called for more in response to a widely perceived growing threat from Russia.

The US military presence in Germany, which began as an occupation force after World War Two, peaked during the 1960s when hundreds of thousands of American military personnel were stationed there to counter the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

The presence includes the giant Ramstein airbase and Landstuhl hospital, both of which have been used by the US to support its war in Iran, as well as previous conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Pentagon decision means one full brigade will leave Germany, and a long-range fires battalion that was due to be deployed later this year will be cancelled.

The long-range fires had been due to form a significant extra element of deterrence against Russia while Europeans developed such long-range missiles themselves.

The US “holds a factual monopoly inside Nato” on long-range fires, Christian Moelling, director of European defence think tank EDINA, wrote on X. “That is why this is operationally more serious than the troop number.”