Serbia's Vučić Toppled By Student-Backed Movement

Serbia’s longtime leader Aleksandar Vučić has lost a snap election to a student-led movement that won mass support by vowing to fight corruption and reverse democratic backsliding.

 The Student List won about 52.9% of the vote and 140 of 250 seats, according to a projection by Ipsos and the CeSID monitoring group based on 96% of the sample. Vučić’s SNS-led list got 38.8% and 103 seats. Official results are pending.

Vučić, who resigned as president in September to run for prime minister, called the election after almost two years of protests. They were triggered by the 2024 collapse of a train station canopy in Novi Sad that killed 16 people, and spread into broader anger over corruption and creeping authoritarianism, which Vučić’s party denies.

The students became the biggest threat to Vučić since he became prime minister in 2014 and president in 2017.

Whoever forms the next government will have to balance ties with China, a major investor; Russia, Serbia’s traditional ally and main gas supplier; and the EU, its largest trading partner. A presidential election must also be held by late December.

Russia’s War On Ukraine Is Straining Food And Fuel Supply

Russia and Ukraine have stepped up assaults on each other’s core export industries over the past year, causing disruption to global food and fuel supplies.

The Kremlin is targeting ports, elevators, warehouses, ships and other infrastructure critical to Ukrainian agriculture. Kyiv is striking refineries, oil terminals and tankers as well as Russian grain hubs on the Black Sea and ships.

The attacks on vital exports of of food and fuel have shown how quickly a regional conflict can become a global one, with the impacts reverberating through markets, Bloomberg said.

Historical House And Senate Seat Changes

Thirty-five U.S. Senate seats – 13 Democrat, 22 Republican – and all 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up for election. The President’s party has historically paid a heavy price in U.S. midterm elections, losing seats in Congress far more often than making gains

U.S. midterm elections have historically proved difficult for the party occupying the White House, with voters frequently reducing its representation in Congress. Since 1934, the president’s party has lost House seats in 20 of 23 midterms, with some of the heaviest defeats coming under Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1938, Barack Obama in 2010 and Bill Clinton in 1994.

Senate results have been more mixed, although losses remain more common than gains. George W. Bush in 2002 was the only president during the period whose party gained seats in both chambers, while Bill Clinton gained House seats and held steady in the Senate in 1998. Donald Trump’s Republicans enter the 2026 midterms against this historical backdrop, with all 435 House seats and 35 Senate seats being contested on Nov 3.