The Social Democrats may grab the headlines, but the US Congress is dominated by the moderates

There is no end to the talk of the ‘socialist’ candidates who won seats in the US Congress in last week’s mid-term elections: following the narrative introduced by President Donald Trump, who has been claiming for months that the radical left will establish communism and jihadism in the United States, much of the media attention has focused on the most radical Democratic Party candidates, as if they were the barometer of the health of the American left. Certainly, the socialists have won seats in often unexpected constituencies, and certainly the American Democrats will find themselves having to manage the deep rift between the moderate and the more extreme wings – a rift that has existed for a very long time and is by no means unique to the US – but Congress is by no means at the mercy of extremists: the centrists are the dominant force.

This parliamentary term will be politically groundbreaking, as many MPs and senators had already chosen not to stand for re-election and many unexpected candidates won in conservative strongholds, bringing us a host of ‘firsts’, such as the first Native American female governor, Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota, and the first Gen Z MP, Melat Kiros. But the story of this election is one of moderate candidates winning in states that had backed Donald Trump in 2024, in both the House and the Senate; and even where more extreme candidates won, they did so by narrower margins than the moderate Democrats. The almost certain next Speaker of the House, Hakeem Jeffries, breathed a sigh of relief: with a majority of nearly 80 seats, he will not be held hostage by the most radical elements and, indeed, will be able to try to do something that has not been done for some time: work with moderate Republicans, or with those who were not moderate but who, now, following their defeat, will have more incentive to become so.