The nation's biggest political shift in a half-century sparked a flood of jaw-dropping headlines.
Democrats take control of the House and Senate, winning even in such deep red states as Kansas and South Carolina. Electoral breakthroughs for candidates who are Black, Hispanic, Native American and gay. A Democratic socialist elected mayor in the nation's second-largest city, Los Angeles, joining one elected last year in the largest, New York.
With the final votes now being counted from the Nov. 3 midterm elections, here are five of the most jaw-dropping developments of all − and ones with the biggest potential to have lasting repercussions ahead.
Most seismic shift by a state: Texas
Texas Democrats, who had not won a statewide elected office since 1994, carried all of them.
Gina Hinojosaousted
Greg Abbott, the nation's longest-serving governor, and newcomer James Talarico defeated Ken Paxton, a fixture in Texas politics. Democratic candidates won races for lieutenant governor, attorney general, comptroller, land commissioner, agriculture commissioner and railroad commissioner, and they claimed seven statewide judicial elections, including four seats on the state's Supreme Court.
It was a Texas-sized sweep.
The swing was stunning among Latino voters, who make up nearly a third of the state's eligible voters.
Hispanics who had swung to Donald Trump in 2024 snapped back to Democrats, especially in the Rio Grande Valley and other Texas border counties. That trend was nationwide: In exit polls sponsored by NBC News and other news organizations, Democrats carried Latinos by 30 percentage points, 64%-34%.
If Democrats can succeed in making the Lone Star State blue or even purple, that could have seismic repercussions for the calculations on how to carry the White House in 2028.
Among the four biggest states, Democrats have generally relied on California and New York while Republicans have counted on Florida and Texas.
It's been 50 years since Texas backed a Democrat for president. If it's no longer reliably red, the Electoral Collegecould face its most fundamental realignment since then.
Most seismic shift by a voter group: Young people
In the 2024 presidential race, Trump scored major gains for a Republican among voters under 30, who had been a Democratic-leaning group. He split them about evenly with Democrat Kamala Harris and carried a majority of young men.
But they didn't stick with the GOP the next time around. In the midterms, more than 7 of 10 younger voters cast their ballots for Democratic House candidates.
Notably, that included more than 6 in 10 younger voters who are White, a demographic that Trump had won by 10 points. And nearly 6 in 10 younger men, a reversal after Trump had carried 56% of them in 2024.
To be sure, young people were as usual less likely to vote than their elders. They made up just over 10% of the midterm electorate.
But their loyalty is clearly up for grabs − and they will be around to vote for decades more.
Biggest unintended consequence: Louisiana v. Callais
In April, the Supreme Court significantly limited the 1965 Voting Rights Act, allowing Louisiana to adopt a redistricting map that eliminated one of the state's two majority-Black congressional districts. By 6-3, a conservative majority set a new and higher standard for triggering the law's provisions, designed to protect minority voting rights.
In a dissent, Justice Elena Kagan warned that the decision left a key section of the Voting Rights Act "all but a dead letter," and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund called it "devastating."
But dismay over the decision ended up creating what has been dubbed a "blacklash," intensifying efforts by Black candidates and activists. In the midterms, Black governors were elected for the first time in Florida, Georgia, Nevada and Wisconsin.
That's more than the total number of Black governors elected ever − there have been three − and it included the first gubernatorial election ever of a Black woman, Keisha Lance Bottoms in Georgia.
Most startling surprise: Mississippi
Only two U.S. Senate races hadn't been called as of Nov. 8. One was in Alaska, which was expected to be close.
The other was in Mississippi. Which wasn't.
With 97% of the vote counted, Democrat Scott Colom led Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith by 49.1%-48.8%, a margin of 2,574 votes. That gives Colom a narrow lead but not a guaranteed victory.
It's been more than a decade since any Democrat won statewide office in Mississippi.
And it's been more than 150 years, since Reconstruction, since a Black candidate won statewide office there.
Shortest-lived voter coalition: Trump 2024
The coalition that sent Trump back to the White House two years ago has fractured.
In 2024, with an electorate dissatisfied with President Joe Biden's leadership, especially on inflation, Trump made major gains among crucial voter groups. They included Black men and moderates as well as Hispanics and young people.
No more.
Voters are still dissatisfied on inflation and most are opposed to the war in Iran, which has driven up the price of fuel and more. Exit polls gave Trump a job-approval rating of 37% at the midterms, lower than Biden's job-approval rating of 41% on the eve of the 2024 election, which his vice president lost.
That's not the first time that declarations of a new governing coalition proved short-lived. Republicans predicted a realignment after George W. Bush's reelection in 2004, and Democrats did the same after Barack Obama's election in 2008.
But Bush was succeeded by Obama, then Obama by Trump as voters sought change.
"The American people clearly want change that's bold, change that's transformational and change that is dramatic," House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, the likely new House speaker, said on ABC's "This Week." "And that's everywhere."
"So I think even though the Democrats had a big night on Tuesday, that does not mean that the country is now all supportive of all the Democrat policies," Florida governor-elect Byron Donalds, a Republican, cautioned on NBC's "Meet the Press."
The question for Democrats now: Can they succeed in building a more durable coalition?
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The 5 most consequential developments from a jaw-dropping election
