Democrats win control of House and Senate in midterms, flipping seats in Republican states
Democrats won Senate races in Kansas, Texas, Iowa, Ohio and North Carolina. Some races, including Alaska's Senate contest, were still unresolved overnight.
Democrats won control of both the House and the Senate in Tuesday's midterm elections, according to Semafor and to an Associated Press live report carried by the Idaho Press. Both outlets described the result as a rebuke of President Donald Trump.
The Idaho Press report said Democrats flipped at least seven Senate seats: Kansas, Iowa, Texas, Ohio, Maine, North Carolina and South Carolina. Semafor reported that James Talarico beat Ken Paxton in Texas, Adam Hamilton beat Sen. Roger Marshall in Kansas, Josh Turek won Iowa's open seat and Sherrod Brown unseated Sen. Jon Husted in Ohio. Roy Cooper won in North Carolina, and Sen. Jon Ossoff held his seat in Georgia.
Democrats also won governor's races in Republican-held states. The Idaho Press listed Keisha Lance Bottoms in Georgia, Amy Acton in Ohio, Rob Sand in Iowa and Gina Hinojosa in Texas. WTHI-TV, carrying an AP report, said Bottoms was the first Black woman elected governor in U.S. history.
The result matters because, according to the Idaho Press report, Democrats will now be able to block Trump's legislative agenda, reject his appointees and investigate his administration during his last two years in office. The AP report on WTHI-TV said the House and Senate have flipped in the same midterm only three times since World War II: 1946, 1994 and 2006.
The redistricting push that Trump backed also appears to have fallen short in some places. All three outlets reported that Democrats won three Florida districts that Republicans had redrawn to favor their party. According to the AP Voter Poll cited by WTHI-TV, about 6 in 10 voters disapproved of Trump's job performance, and young voters and Hispanic voters moved away from Republicans compared with 2024.
According to the Idaho Press report, Trump said Democrats "did a good job" and blamed Republican candidates for the losses. Semafor reported that he said in a social media post that Republicans would have done better if he had been on the ballot.
Some results were unclear or reported differently. Semafor said the Maine race had not been called, while the Idaho Press report said Sen. Susan Collins had conceded to her Democratic opponent, Jackson. In Michigan, the Idaho Press report described Abdul El-Sayed as the winner over Republican Mike Rogers, but in another section it said the AP had not yet called that race when El-Sayed declared victory.
Alaska's Senate race between Democrat Mary Peltola and Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan was unresolved. The state accepts overseas ballots for up to 15 days after the election. The Los Angeles mayor's race between Karen Bass and Nithya Raman was nearly tied at midnight, and Nevada's governor's race was still being counted, according to the Idaho Press report.
The final size of the Democratic majorities is not yet known.
