Key points
- Democrats sweep both chambers of Congress, sending the Dow up 3% and Brent crude down 8% to $95.
- Catherine Rampell calls it a generational rout driven by voter fury over the economy and the war.
- Alex Bores says more than 30 local measures restricting data centers passed against one easing them.
Democrats Take Congress as Stocks Surge
Guest interviews
- Catherine Rampell, economic policy columnist. Rampell called the result a generational rout that exceeded expectations, and said the key question is how much it was a Republican loss rather than a Democratic victory. She said Trump pushed the buttons that made the economy worse, and that Democrats should restore Medicaid and SNAP funding and roll back tariffs while rejecting rent freezes and price controls. She predicted a power struggle to inherit MAGA without Trump, with a lane for Tucker Carlson.
- Alex Bores, New York State Assemblymember. Bores said 41 local data center referenda were held and only one was won by the pro-data-center side, and that Gina Hinojosa's Texas win on a moratorium could have national implications. Who Decides polling found over 70% of Americans say AI was forced into their lives without consultation, and he criticised OpenAI's rebranding of data centers as AI compute campuses. He backs pauses over bans, and said the market wrongly assumes regulation will hit data centers but not AI profits.
News
- Democrats sweep both chambers of Congress. Democrats are on track for more than 250 House seats and at least 54 in the Senate, with upsets in Texas, Kansas, South Carolina and Maine. Ed Elson called the result a rebuke of Donald Trump and his economy.
- Stocks rally on the Democratic sweep. The Dow rose 3%, its best day since April 2025, and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq each gained nearly 2% as ten-year Treasury yields fell.
- Brent crude drops 8% to $95. Oil fell after the election. Catherine Rampell partly attributed it to JD Vance blaming the war for the Republican rout, and said Iran now knows it controls the Strait of Hormuz.
- Voters approve data center restrictions. More than 30 local measures restricting data centers passed against one easing them, and 56% of voters called AI and data centers a major factor in their choice. In Texas, Gina Hinojosa unseated Greg Abbott on a moratorium.
- Big tech gains $1tn as neo clouds fall. CoreWeave and Oracle ended deep in the red while Apple and Microsoft were among the big tech names that added nearly a trillion dollars in market value.
- Gas prices up 40% as inflation runs hot. Gas prices were 40% higher than a year earlier, inflation was running well past the Fed's target and mortgage rates were back above 7%.
- Raskin warns oil companies on Russian crude. Jamie Raskin sent oil companies a letter warning them not to cooperate with importing sanctioned Russian oil.