2020 Starts Now | Exclusive: John McLaughlin on a New Era for Foreign Policy

The midterm results serve as the unofficial kickoff of the presidential campaign.

Tuesday was a strange night for Democrats. A substantial popular vote margin swept them to power in the House — with room to spare — and netted a few governorships, including surprises like Kansas.

But Democrats lost ground in the Senate, and the three candidates who set liberal hearts aflutter for the past year — Andrew Gillum in Florida, Beto O’Rourke in Texas and Stacey Abrams in Georgia — appeared headed for defeat. (Abrams has yet to concede). All three, had they won, would have been instantly talked about for the White House. O’Rourke, the fundraising dynamo who made Texas feel almost purple for a night, might still be in with a chance at the Oval.

American voters have had their say. Does this mean a new era for U.S. foreign policy?

While Americans are struggling to make sense of the midterm elections, foreign observers will also be weighing their implications. Expectations overseas, as they were at home, were distorted by talk of a possible blue wave, so the first-blush reaction abroad may be that the vote does not represent the resounding censure of Trump that many of his foreign critics hoped to see. Over time, though, they will realize that the Republican loss of the House will expose Trump to political danger from which his party until now has protected him.

When Narendra Modi’s government sacked Alok Verma, it set off a potentially damaging chain of events.

The 2 am letter to Alok Verma was clear. The Indian government had sacked Verma, the director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the country’s top investigative agency, which boasts many of the same powers as America’s FBI. Citing an ongoing spat between Verma and his second-in-command, Rakesh Asthana, the government in the wee hours of Oct. 24 asked both to stay at home while another agency probed corruption allegations the two had leveled against each other.

If Prime Minister Narendra Modi thought his top cop would go quietly, he was wrong — and the fallout threatens a halo Modi has carefully built for himself as his re-election campaign steams ahead.