{"id":112547,"date":"2026-11-06T16:02:23","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T21:02:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=112547"},"modified":"2026-11-06T16:02:23","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T21:02:23","slug":"brock-experts-weigh-in-on-what-the-u-s-midterm-shakeup-does-and-doesnt-mean-for-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2026\/11\/brock-experts-weigh-in-on-what-the-u-s-midterm-shakeup-does-and-doesnt-mean-for-canada\/","title":{"rendered":"Brock experts weigh in on what the U.S. midterm shakeup does \u2014 and doesn\u2019t \u2014 mean for Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following Tuesday\u2019s historic Democratic sweep<\/a>\u00a0in the U.S. midterm elections \u2014 where the party won enough seats to take control of both Congress and the Senate \u2014 Brock University Political Science experts say Canadians should temper their expectations of a shift in Canada-U.S. relations.<\/p>\n

\u201cMuch will depend on how the Democrats use their power to address the factors that have destabilized Canada-U.S. relations,\u201d says Blayne Haggart, Professor and Department Chair. \u201cThe Blue Wave was a direct rebuke of President Trump, but he is only a symptom of the deeper problems affecting the American republic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beyond delivering a verdict on Trump and his policies, Haggart contends the midterm elections served as a referendum against tech oligarchs, artificial intelligence (AI) data centres and the Trump administration\u2019s uncritical embrace of AI.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt should also serve as a warning to federal and provincial governments here in Canada, who have embraced many of the same players and policies as the United States: voters don\u2019t like the AI future that\u2019s being imposed upon them without their consent,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Associate Professor Stefan Dolgert\u00a0says that while Trump\u2019s attempts to remake the U.S. according to his agenda may have suffered a severe setback with the midterm results, it\u2019s far from clear how the next few years will play out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis defeat was largely self-inflicted. Without the spikes to gas prices and other deleterious effects on the U.S. economy due to the disastrous Iran war, voters would likely not have turned against Trump in the substantial manner that they did on Tuesday,\u201d says Dolgert. \u201cWhile the Democrats in the House and Senate will push back a great deal on his agenda and will attempt to restore some form of accountability, there is so much damage to undo and we simply cannot predict how enduring this anti-Trump momentum will be amongst the citizenry.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says while there is room for optimism, Canadians must temper it with \u201ca healthy dose of caution as the U.S. takes its first steps on the difficult road to repair its battered democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the Democrats having a large majority in Congress, Associate Professor Paul Hamilton\u00a0says there\u2019s little chance a small fragment of the caucus will hold the leadership hostage, like what happened with the Republicans under Speaker Mike Johnson.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe election also demonstrated the power of a disciplined message and the benefits of meeting voters where they are. The win in the Senate means Trump won’t get another judicial appointment \u2014 at least not an ideologically right wing one,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Tuesday was also a night of historic \u201cfirsts\u201d<\/a>\u00a0across the midterm elections, including the first Black female governor, California\u2019s first elected Latino governor, Texas\u2019 first Latina governor, first female Indigenous governor in New Mexico, the first Black governors for three states, the first female governors in three states, the first openly gay man elected to Senate, alongside the first Indigenous woman and first Muslim.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn short, it was a great night for American democracy, which had been pronounced near death by many observers,\u201d says Hamilton.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following Tuesday\u2019s historic Democratic sweep\u00a0in the U.S. midterm elections \u2014 where the party won enough seats to take control of both Congress and the Senate \u2014 Brock University Political Science experts say Canadians should temper their expectations of a shift in Canada-U.S. relations.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":100,"featured_media":112548,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4767,1,38],"tags":[3445,4104,522,4247,3427],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112547"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/100"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112547"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":112549,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112547\/revisions\/112549"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}