US Midterms: Is the worst now over for American democracy?

Over a week after the midterm elections, the dust has settled, and we can ask: is the worst now over for American democracy?

Our international affairs editor, Dominic Waghorn, has spent two weeks in the US. He was in Ohio for the Midterms before travelling to the nation's capital, here are his reflections.

Not long ago, there was the very real fear that Donald Trump would subvert US politics so badly it would finish off the republic.

Would the midterms even happen, people asked? Would he contrive a national emergency and cancel them? If not, would he interfere in the results? Would we see Stop the Steal II?

They were pressing questions given this president's history of election denial and attempts to overthrow the outcome of previous votes.

In the turbo-charged news cycles of the Trump era, we forget our old fears and move on too quickly to new ones. The threat of all this happening, though, was not imaginary.

But none of it came to pass. Far from being toppled the republic struck back.

It did so in numerous ways.

Through the courts. One ruling after another has kept this president and his undemocratic efforts at bay.

In more than 30 federal court decisions, judges have blocked efforts by the Trump administration to meddle in voting and elections.

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In California, they blocked an attempt to set aside 20,000 mail-in votes from the register in California.

In numerous other cases, they have thwarted the attempt by the executive to interfere in constitutionally granted state powers to run elections.

The courts have proven a bulwark against an overreaching executive.

Under Donald Trump Republicans tried to rig the electoral map like never before, gerrymandering districts to tip votes in their favour.

But the scale of the opposition rendered that futile.

And in the last few days we have seen a last-ditch attempt to question the vote.

Does anybody believe that this "election" is honest he posted.

Well, pretty much everybody. As conservative commentator Megyn Kelly responded to the president: "Just stop."

The force of the Blue wave in last week's elections is so powerful, trying to push it back makes Trump look like a Cnutian fool.

Even in raw red Mississippi, a state synonymous in the minds of many with the darkest days of America's racist history, voters have chosen for the first time a black democrat to send to the Senate.

The day after Donald Trump's first election in 2016, I asked conservative commentator and Trump critic David Frum how big his fears were for the future.

Have you seen Spinal Tap? he asked, they are as high as 11.

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The checks and balances of the American Constitution, he warned, were only as strong as the willingness of people to operate them.

They have, in six years of Trumpian presidential rule, been tested up to breaking point. But not beyond.

The courts, conventions and institutions of the American republic have been proved resilient enough so far to withstand the autocratic ambitions of this president.

Donald Trump shows no sign of conciliation or contrition.

He sounds up for a fight.

The republic will continue to be tested, but it is hard not to conclude that the moment of greatest danger has now passed.

(c) Sky News 2026: US Midterms: Is the worst now over for American democracy?