DEMOCRATS SWEEP CONGRESS
Candidates scored victories in GOP strongholds in rebuke to Trump
Democrats seized control of both the Senate and House of Representatives on Tuesday, scoring sweeping victories in Republican strongholds for the first time in generations as tens of millions of voters delivered a scathing rebuke to President Donald Trump.
Voters in conservative bastions who propelled the president to his second term in office just two years ago swung dramatically toward Democrats, fueled by deep frustration over the unpopular war with Iran, anxiety over the high cost of living and anger at Trump's stewardship of the country.
In Texas, the biggest Republican state, Democrats ended a decadeslong losing streak, winning a Senate seat and ousting three-term Gov. Greg Abbott.
Kansas elected its first Democratic senator in almost a century, and in South Carolina, a state Trump carried by almost 18 points in 2024, Democrats turned aside Trump's hand-picked Senate candidate.
The results will usher in a new era of divided government in Washington, after two years in which the Republican-controlled Congress rarely exercised its power to rein in Trump.
Once seated in January, Democrats are expected to use their power to investigate Trump's administration, family and allies and demand concessions on major legislation. The Democratic Senate can block Trump's nominees, including for the U.S.
Supreme Court should a vacancy arise. "There is now a generational remake of the Senate map that is going to change America," said Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the party's Senate minority leader. "Americans voted for change, and now Democrats must deliver."
Trump, who is barred by the U.S. Constitution from seeking a third term, has exercised an iron grip on his party for most of the last decade. The new balance of power in Washington may accelerate his lame-duck status, as attention turns toward the 2028 presidential race and potential successors begin competing for political influence in a post-Trump world.
Despite Democrats' worries that Trump might seek to overturn the election results, as he did in 2020, the president accepted the outcome, congratulating Democrats in an interview with Fox News.
Democratic wave
Republicans, led by Trump, attacked Democrats over culture war issues such as transgender rights while portraying their opponents as radical and extreme.
Meanwhile, Democrats focused their campaign on corruption and affordability, blaming Trump's tariff policy and the war with Iran for driving up costs while highlighting the billions of dollars the Trump family made since he returned to the White House.
The Democratic wave flooded huge swaths of the country. Republicans lost ground in all but a handful of the approximately 2,100 counties where most votes were counted, according to tallies compiled by Reuters and USA Today.
Democrats made gains in the richest counties and the poorest; in counties where more people have college degrees and where fewer do.
Their advances were particularly sharp in heavily Latino counties, including the border counties of Texas that shifted toward Trump in 2024 and the agricultural towns of the Kansas prairie.
Democrats flipped more than two dozen House seats held by Republicans, locking in a majority.
Democrats won all the closely contested House races that were decided as of Wednesday morning, and about a dozen races in districts Trump won by double digits two years ago.
In Seward County, Kansas, home to one of America's biggest beef processing plants and where about half of eligible voters are Hispanic, Democrat Adam Hamilton led incumbent Republican Sen. Roger Marshall by 13 points, two years after Trump won the county by 39 points.
Gambits fail
An unprecedented Republican gambit to redraw several House districts to make them more favorable largely failed, with Democrats hanging on to most of the targeted seats.
Midterm elections are typically seen as a referendum on the sitting president, and Trump did little to disabuse voters of that notion. In the campaign's final weeks, he held dozens of rallies, telling supporters repeatedly to "pretend I'm on the ballot."
He also intervened in several Republican primaries this year to ensure his preferred candidates reached the ballot, despite concerns from some Republicans that his choices carried significant liabilities.
In Texas, Trump backed Ken Paxton, the scandal-ridden state attorney general, over the incumbent, Sen. John Cornyn. In South Carolina, the president anointed Darline Graham, a political neophyte, after her brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham, died suddenly this year. Both candidates lost. Even candidates who sought to distance themselves from Trump were unable to escape voters' wrath. In Maine, Republican incumbent Susan Collins had her 30-year Senate career end Tuesday, despite emphasizing her willingness to break with the president during the campaign.
Progressive Democrat Abdul El-Sayed won Michigan's open Senate seat, the first Muslim elected to the chamber. He defeated Mike Rogers, a former congressman and FBI agent who entered the race with Trump's backing and sought to falsely portray El-Sayed, an Egyptian American born in Michigan, as a religious extremist.
"You chose hate, and Michigan chose hope," El-Sayed told cheering supporters Tuesday night, referring to Rogers.
Competitive Senate races in Mississippi and Alaska had yet to be called early Wednesday.
On Tuesday night, as it grew clear Republicans were in danger of losing their congressional majorities, Trump wrote on social media, "I wasn't on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!"
In media interviews, he acknowledged the conflict with Iran played a role in his party's losses but stood by his decision to go to war.
According to exit polls conducted by SSRS on behalf of a consortium of U.S. media outlets including major television networks and the Associated Press, 70% of voters surveyed said they want Congress to provide more checks and balances on the president.
"In sweeping and decisive victories, the American people have rebuked the depravity, corruption and incompetence of the man named President Donald J. Trump," incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia told supporters at a victory party.
