US Midterms: Democrats Win Congress as Iran War Weighs on the Vote, Wall Street Rises but AI Falls Back

The midterm elections in the United States have given the Democrats a majority in both chambers of Congress. Donald Trump told the Wall Street Journal that the war with Iran was “a piece” of the defeat and that he would make the same decision again.¹² Decision Desk HQ projections, as of midday Wednesday, gave the Democrats 249 seats in the House and 54 in the Senate. The Republican Party lost at least seven seats in the Senate and 30 in the House, with more than 20 races still undecided. Candidates backed by the president also lost, such as Ken Paxton in Texas, beaten by 12 points, and Darline Graham in South Carolina, beaten by 4.¹³ The link between the war and the vote runs through the cost of living. Gasoline and diesel have risen sharply since the conflict began on February 28, and the Democrats campaigned on high prices and inflation. Republican Senator Ted Cruz added tariffs to the causes of the price increases and said the war has lasted too long.¹³ Within the party, the blame is openly placed on the conflict. Vice President JD Vance wrote that “the reason we lost is the war.” CBS reports that Trump is sounding out advisers on the future of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, but the president denied it: “I think he’s doing a good job.” An adviser cited by Reuters said Hegseth could be on the blacklist, and according to CBS the name of Ron DeSantis is circulating for the Pentagon.²

Markets: Divided Government Is Welcome, Artificial Intelligence Is Not

Before the open on Wednesday, November 4, Dow Jones futures were up about 1,150 points, more than 2%, and by late morning the gain had reached 1,416 points. Forbes, in an article headline, speaks of more than 1,500 points. Futures are contracts that anticipate where the indexes might open.³ According to Daniel Alpert, executive chairman of Westwood Capital, interviewed by The Hill, markets look favorably on divided governments because they tend toward gridlock. In his view, it will be hard for Congress to pass significant measures for the rest of Trump’s term. Read that way, the rally seems to reward the absence of new initiatives, rather than being a verdict on the war.³ AI-related stocks moved in the opposite direction: by late morning Nvidia and SpaceX were down. Some elected Democrats, including Senator Sherrod Brown and Texas governor-elect Gina Hinojosa, had campaigned on curbing the expansion of AI. The connection is our newsroom’s reading, but the two facts together indicate that investors regard politics as a risk factor for the sector.³⁴

Data Centers: The Limit Is Local Consent and the Power Grid

The vote was also decisive at the local level. In the 38 fully counted contests monitored by Redbud Consulting, voters rejected data center development with a single exception, and the data are still preliminary. In Ohio, at least 14 municipalities approved bans or restrictions. In Texas, which hosts more than 400 data centers, Hinojosa beat Governor Greg Abbott with a campaign for a moratorium on new construction.⁴ An NBC News exit poll reported by The Hill says that more than three in four voters oppose a new data center in their community. The same paper notes, however, that the economy, fuel, corruption and the state of democracy remain at the top of voters’ concerns: data centers are one factor, not the main one.⁴ Part of the industry is looking up: Elon Musk wrote on X that data centers in space seem “quite attractive now.” The costs and technical limits of low Earth orbit remain high.⁴ In Italy the constraint takes a different form. The Committee for the Attraction of Foreign Investment is tracking 88 projects worth more than 104.7 billion euros. Terna, however, has recorded connection requests for more than 100 gigawatts from nearly 600 initiatives, and its chief executive, Pasqualino Monti, believes they far exceed what will actually be built.⁵ The Italian government wants to agree with the regions on where to locate the facilities. In the United States the brake comes from the ballot box, in Italy from grid capacity and permits. Taken together, the two stories suggest that for data centers, capital matters less than the availability of energy and land.⁵⁴

Big Platforms Between Public Pressure and Investment

On the legal front, in March a first verdict on social media addiction awarded $6 million in damages against Meta and Google. Attorney Mark Lanier considers the suits brought by state attorneys general more effective: in one of them Meta agreed to a settlement of up to $16.7 billion, with a limit of two hours a day for teenagers on Instagram and Facebook.⁶ At the same time, Meta acquired Conductor, a startup that coordinates multiple AI agents to write code, without disclosing the price. According to TechCrunch, the company is trying to catch up in AI, and according to The Decoder, big companies are buying tools built around the models to tie developers to their own platforms.⁷ SpaceX has chosen Qualcomm for the radio stations of Starlink Mobile’s terrestrial 5G network, with tens of thousands of sites and first installations in 2027. Read together, these three facts show companies that keep investing in infrastructure and tools while pressure from courts and voters grows.⁶⁷⁸

In Brief

Brazil has presented a voluntary roadmap for the phase-out of fossil fuels. The presentation comes a few days before COP31, which begins on November 9 in Antalya, Turkey.⁹ NASA’s Swift telescope re-entered over Sumatra on November 4, after the failure of the private rescue mission.¹⁰ In Nature, the AutoDNA laboratory in Shanghai showed AI agents conducting DNA experiments, and a CRISPR screen pointed to the genes NR4A1 and SOCS3 as ways to boost CAR-T therapies in tumor models.¹¹¹² A cyberattack hit three blood banks in France without causing any loss of supplies.¹³ Zelensky awarded Melania Trump a decoration for the Oleshky truce, whose results remain disputed between Kyiv and Moscow.¹⁴

This article was written by artificial intelligence from the sources cited, without human review. Automatic newsroom by Redazia.

Sources

Footnotes

1. Trump: la guerra in Iran è «un pezzo» della sconfitta repubblicana alle elezioni di metà mandato, aitoday.it, 2026-11-05 ↩ ↩² ↩³

2. Vance attribuisce alla guerra in Iran la sconfitta repubblicana, Trump esclude di licenziare Hegseth, aitoday.it, 2026-11-05 ↩ ↩²

3. Futures di Wall Street in rialzo dopo il voto di metà mandato, aitoday.it, 2026-11-05 ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

4. Data center nello spazio: dopo il voto in Texas l’industria guarda all’orbita, aitoday.it, 2026-11-05 ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

5. Data center in Italia: 88 progetti da 104,7 miliardi e il nodo della rete elettrica, aitoday.it, 2026-11-05 ↩ ↩²

6. Dipendenza dai social, il primo processo contro Meta e Google: cosa è successo e perché conta, aitoday.it, 2026-11-05 ↩ ↩²

7. Meta acquisisce Conductor, la startup che coordina agenti IA per scrivere codice, aitoday.it, 2026-11-05 ↩ ↩²

8. Rete 5G di Starlink Mobile, SpaceX sceglie Qualcomm per le stazioni radio negli Usa, aitoday.it, 2026-11-05 ↩

9. Roadmap sui combustibili fossili: il piano volontario del Brasile, aitoday.it, 2026-11-05 ↩

10. Rientro del telescopio Swift: la fine di una missione NASA nata per durare due anni, aitoday.it, 2026-11-05 ↩

11. AutoDNA, il laboratorio guidato da agenti IA che sintetizza e sequenzia il DNA, aitoday.it, 2026-11-05 ↩

12. Terapia CAR-T, uno screening CRISPR in vivo indica la coppia di geni NR4A1 e SOCS3, aitoday.it, 2026-11-05 ↩

13. Attacco informatico alle banche del sangue in Francia: i frigoriferi non hanno ceduto, aitoday.it, 2026-11-05 ↩

14. Melania Trump riceve l’Ordine della Principessa Olga per la tregua di Oleshky, aitoday.it, 2026-11-05 ↩