The Democrats regaining control of the House of Representatives and Senate in the United States midterm elections was “truly historic”, US Democratic congressman Brendan Boyle has said.
Boyle, the ranking member of the House Budget Committee first elected to the House of Representatives in 2014, is set to become chairman of the powerful congressional committee with his party taking control of the US Congress.
Past chairmen of the committee include Republican Paul Ryan, who was his party’s vice presidential nominee in 2012 and later became a speaker of the House of Representatives.
“Donald Trump’s presidency effectively ended last night, given our system of three coequal branches of government,” said Boyle of his party’s victories in the US congressional midterm elections.
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“Democrats will now be able to check the worst excesses of the Trump presidency.
“For two years, he will still be president, but I think in many ways it reminds me of the last two years that George W Bush was president when there was a Democratic House and Democratic Senate and Bush could no longer pursue his agenda.”
Boyle won one of Pennsylvania’s 17 House seats with 80.8 per cent of the vote, along with 10 other Democrats.
Born in the city of Philadelphia, Boyle’s father emigrated to the US from Co Donegal and his mother, who was born in Philadelphia, was raised by parents from Co Sligo.
He said the Democrats’ victory in the US midterm elections was “the largest margin of victory of any election in my lifetime, the largest since 1974.
“In a country that has been essentially a 50-50 country for my adult lifetime, to see a party win by 15 points is absolutely earth shattering.”
He said he expected Democrats to win a majority in the House, but he did “not anticipate, indeed, no one anticipated the extent of the Democratic victory and some of the places where it took place”.
He said a Democratic victory in typically Republican states such as North Carolina, Mississippi, Kansas and Texas was “absolutely astounding”.
“This is a massive repudiation of the president and his party,” said Boyle, a regular visitor to Ireland.
Boyle gave examples of Trump’s policies which led to “an increase in costs” and “tariffs which are the highest since the 1930s”.
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The “biggest mistake” Trump made was the “reckless, idiotic decision to launch the Iran war,” he said.
He said, in the US, gas prices spiked by more than 50 per cent and diesel prices by more than 70 per cent.
Democrats won a number of seats that “weren’t even thought to be competitive,” he said, “where actually neither campaign committee spent any money because they were considered safe seats.
“We won a seat in Tennessee, again, not thought to be competitive before last night, that Trump won by 24 points in 2024.”
Boyle said voters have shown willingness “to swing from one side to another if they don’t think their needs are being met”.
The Democratic side cannot take this “opportunity” for granted, he said.
“We have to finally address bringing down costs for the American people that Donald Trump has failed to address over the last two years.”
He said he couldn’t imagine a Democratic Senate approving a Supreme Court justice nominee made by Trump but added that other appointments to the administration would probably be taken “on a case-by-case basis”.
“These next two years are going to be very different than these last two years.”
He said he was “not going to make the mistake of overly interpreting these results”.
He believes the best way to win the presidential election in 2028 is to maintain “a laser focus” on “pocketbook issues that most people care about”.
“I also believe that after a decade of Donald Trump and all of his bluster and all of his craziness, I think people are eager to finally turn the page on this dark decade and just move on from him,” he said.
Boyle is “excited” about the 2028 presidential election and “specifically, the race on the Democratic side”.
“This is the most wide open the Democratic presidential nomination has been since 1992 when Bill Clinton came out of nowhere to win it,” he said.
“There is no heir apparent. There is no obvious pick. And I think that we have a very deep bench.
“I think there’s any one of about, you know, a dozen to 15 different Democrats who conceivably could end up winning the nomination and winning the presidency. So I’m not going to prejudge that race.”
