Welcome to a special post-midterms edition of Domain Awareness! Tuesday night’s Democratic victories are poised to usher in an entirely blue Congress come January 2027, with major implications for defense and national security policy. Below, find PPI’s analysis on some of the major storylines to watch in the lame-duck session and beyond.
By Danielle Steitz
As Republican politicians and party officials grapple with how to move forward after devastating electoral results, party leaders from Vice President JD Vance to Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have all pointed fingers at the same leading cause of voters’ nationwide rejection of Republican candidates: the deeply unpopular war with Iran. As the war initially pitched as a three-week operation drags into its ninth month with approval ratings hovering in the low-to-mid 30s, its financial impacts have hit Americans’ wallets hard. NBC News’s latest data shows a 37.5% increase in national gas prices since the start of the Iran War, while the price of food was 2.5% higher in September 2026 than September 2025 — a major blow to Republicans in an election cycle where 4 in 10 voters cited the economy as the top issue facing the country.
PPI Expert Assessment:
Danielle Steitz, Director of National Security Policy: A number of remarkable things not seen in decades happened on Election Day: Texas candidates won every statewide race, many for the first time since the 1990s; Senator-elect Annie Andrews broke a 28-year Republican hold on the Senate in South Carolina; Congressman-elect Sam Forstag is the first Democrat elected to Congress in Montana in three decades. For many online policy commentators and talking heads, it seemed as though the 2026 midterm elections, full of surprising events, had turned into that rarest of things — a foreign policy election. These commentators were not alone in their belief that the deeply unpopular Iran War had turned the electoral tides against Republican majorities (see the list of Republicans above who stated the same). It is undeniable that the conflict represents two major broken promises by President Donald Trump from his 2024 campaign, lower costs for Americans and no new wars, and that voters expressed their disapproval and anger at the ballot box. However, can this result be seen as a repudiation of Trump’s foreign policy writ large?
The short answer is that while foreign policy experts and political junkies across America and the rest of the Western world might hope that this result means a return to normalcy in American foreign relations, this election simply was not a referendum on foreign policy. It was a cost-of-living election where the two clearest causes of increased prices just so happen to be foreign policy choices in the form of the Iran War and tariffs. Those who assert the election results to be a clear sign that their preferred course for Democratic or American foreign policy is the only path forward — that it means Democrats should “truly become the antiwar party” or that the alienation of allies and “how we show up in the world” were motivating factors for voters — should be paid no heed. When fewer than 1 in 10 voters say that foreign policy is their top issue, it’s best to take them at their word and to recognize, in the words of James Carville, that “it’s the economy, stupid.”
By Danielle Steitz
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has never boasted strong support from congressional Republicans — his 51-50 confirmation vote required Vice President JD Vance’s tie-breaking support — but with the economic implications of America’s war with Iran front and center in voters’ ballot-box calculus, the party’s desire to pin the blame on Hegseth seems to have hit a new high. NBC News reports that President Trump has told allies he’s considering replacing Hegseth, who has drawn the ire of Democrats and Republicans alike over the past two years and who could face a vote on his impeachment as soon as the House returns to town thanks to articles introduced by Republican congressman Thomas Massie.
PPI Expert Assessment:
Danielle Steitz, Director of National Security Policy: Pete Hegseth has won himself very few friends on Capitol Hill during his tenure at the Pentagon. He has exhibited a defiant and dismissive attitude towards congressional oversight that has frustrated both Democrats and Republicans, failing to communicate about major personnel decisions and the administration’s Iran strategy and leaving Congress in the dark. Hegseth’s partisan push for a $350 billion party-line reconciliation bill and a $60 billion Iran War supplemental further irritated both parties, particularly as Democrats were excluded from classified budget briefings in a break with decades of bipartisan precedent. While Massie’s vote in a lame-duck Republican House is unlikely to succeed, Hegseth is already in the crosshairs of Democrats like Congressmen Jason Crow and Pat Ryan, who are eager for his impeachment. Although Trump has so far publicly stood by his Defense Secretary, he has also stated that Hegseth would be “very popular” if selected to fill Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn’s seat. Trump has also acknowledged that it would be much easier to confirm a replacement in the lame-duck session while the Senate is still under Republican control, providing a smoother path to confirmation for someone like rumored contender Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.
By Danielle Steitz
The membership and composition of the congressional defense committees will look drastically different come January 2027. In the Senate, the retirements of Gary Peters, Jeanne Shaheen, and Joni Ernst, as well as a still-uncalled race for Dan Sullivan, leave several vacancies on the Senate Armed Services Committee for incoming chairman Jack Reed to fill. The Senate Appropriations Committee will need a new lead Republican after Susan Collins lost her bid for reelection, and the Defense subcommittee is losing Mitch McConnell, Richard Durbin, and Shaheen to retirement, with another vacancy potentially arising if Cindy Hyde-Smith loses a close race in Mississippi.
Turning to the House, several HASC Republicans were on the losing end of some of the most surprising races of the midterms. Some races are still uncalled, but if current vote margins hold, HASC is poised to see the departure of 14 Republican members to retirement or losses, with longtime members Rob Wittman, Mike Turner, and Scott DesJarlais as some of the biggest names not to win reelection. While less turnover is expected on HAC-D, with only David Valadao’s loss called so far and Mario Diaz-Balart still narrowly leading, the House Intelligence Committee is also poised for a big shakeup on the Republican side, with 5 current members either retiring or having lost their reelection campaigns. Meanwhile, the incoming Democratic class boasts a new crop of military veterans, increasing the number of Democrats with military backgrounds to at least 33 and serving as the foundation for a new group of national security leaders in Congress.
PPI Expert Assessment:
Danielle Steitz, Director of National Security Policy: Not only will the chairmanship transition from Republicans to Democrats on these committees, but given the projected margins in both the House and the Senate, the ratio of party representation looks poised to shift heavily towards Democrats as well. No surprises are anticipated in chairman selection; Sen. Jack Reed and Rep. Adam Smith, the current ranking members on SASC and HASC, appear unlikely to face any competition for their gavels. While negotiations between party leaders to set the actual ratios will take place over the next month and a half, expect to see some heavy weighting in Democrats’ favor on House committees like Appropriations and Armed Services, and increased Dem representation on their counterpart committees in the Senate.
Statement on HASC Democrats’ Priorities for the 120th Congress from Congressman Adam Smith (D-WA)
Rep. Adam Smith, current ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, is set to take the gavel in January for a committee rich with bipartisan tradition, but which faces the Herculean task of balancing oversight of a less-than-transparent Pentagon with advancing good and thoughtful defense policy. Smith outlines oversight as the top priority, with HASC bringing back its Oversight & Investigations subcommittee to scrutinize illegal and unauthorized military activity in Iran and the Caribbean as well as potential conflicts of interest in the award of Pentagon contracts. He also points to the need to set a “realistic and sustainable approach” to national security and defense budgets, continuity of acquisition reform efforts, and a focus on undoing the culture of politicization around military and civilian personnel management.
