From Texas to Tehran: How Papers Across the World Reacted to ‘Dem-olition’ Job on Trump in US Midterms

The results of America’s historic midterm elections reverberated around the world on Wednesday, with front pages reflecting on a night that saw Donald Trump dealt a punishing blow by the US electorate.

“Trumped” was the Guardian’s headline on Thursday’s edition, with reporter Ed Pilkington noting that, with the president’s party stripped of control of Congress, the country was waking up to a “radically altered political landscape”.

A late edition of the New York Post captured the scale of Trump’s defeat on Wednesday. Riffing on Hokusai’s Great Wave artwork, the paper notes it was a “historic romp for Democrats”, under the headline “Blue Tsunami”.

The Daily Mail leads with “Maga turns on Trump”, writing that vice-president JD Vance issued a “brutal post mortem of Republican party losses”, pinning the blame on the president’s war in Iran for the scale of the wipeout.

That was a view that was – unsurprisingly – shared in Iran. The English-language Tehran Times, which is closely aligned with the government, said in its headline: “US hegemony crumbling; Iran will never surrender”.

With a selection of midterms stories across the front page, the paper quotes senior figures under a subhead that reads “Iranian officials link Republican election defeat to US war against Iran”.

Spanish daily El Mundo follows the same theme, using an image of the president touring the half-finished White House ballroom on the day after the elections, with the headline: “Trump blames the war for the electoral tsunami that sweeps away Republicans”.

Across the US, editors worked into the night on Tuesday to get out late editions of their papers. In Chicago, the Sun Times captured newly elected Senator Juliana Stratton as she celebrated her party’s victory, under the headline “Dem-olition”.

A slew of historic wins were recorded throughout the night, including the election of the first Muslim senator, the first openly gay senator and the first black female governor in the US.

Keisha Lance Bottom’s win was described as “historic” by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution – an online publication which produces a daily front page. The paper notes that the governor-elect has shattered “racial and gender glass ceilings” on a day the US elected “four Black governors”.

Highlighting the end of the Republican party’s “stranglehold on Texas politics”, the Dallas Morning News captured two of the night’s biggest wins under the headline “Wave of change”.

Senator-elect James Talarico and Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa shared the front page, after a night that saw the Democrats sweep to victory in deep red Texas.

With the results showing hispanic voters swinging away from Trump, California’s Spanish-language daily La Opinión produced one of the more memorable front pages.

Above a picture of a battered Maga hat, the paper’s headline simply reads “National punishment”.

In Quebec, one the of provinces most affected by Trump’s brutal tariffs on Canadian goods, tabloid Le Journal de Montréal, sums the elections up with: “Quite a slap”.

From Brisbane to Berlin, local publications all had their take on the president’s disastrous night. In Australia, Queensland’s Courier Mail summed things up with: “Don like a dinner”, next to an image of a dejected-looking Trump.

France’s Le Monde displayed an array of images from across the country, under the headline “Electoral rout for Donald Trump”.

And finally, Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine produces a broad range of coverage, with the headline “Trump concedes defeat”.

Source: The Guardian