Voters across the country are deciding control of the U.S. House and Senate in the 2026 midterm elections.
Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms won the race for Georgia governor, the first gubernatorial pickup for either party. She is the first Black woman elected governor of any state. In neighboring Florida, Republican Byron Donalds was elected as the state’s first Black governor.
Democrat Roy Cooper won North Carolina’s Senate race, the first Democratic
pickup of the night, and Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff was reelected in Georgia, another top battleground. Republicans fell short in their attempt to pick up a Senate seat in New Hampshire, while Democrats were unsuccessful in Florida.
Democrats need a net gain of three more seats to take the majority. All eyes are on Senate contests in Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Ohio and Texas.
Democrats have flipped three House seats. If they hold on to all the districts they currently represent, that’s enough to win the majority. Republicans are expected to pick up a handful of Democratic seats in states that redrew their district boundaries.
The battle for control is playing out mostly in areas Trump previously won by wide margins. But high costs are weighing heavily on many Americans’ minds, according to The AP Voter Poll, and most voters appear to blame Trump’s administration and want Congress to impose more checks on him.
Here's the latest:
A line of voters Tuesday night snaked around a Las Vegas parking lot in a busy shopping plaza, where a tent was set up as a polling location. With an estimated wait time of two hours, a DJ played music as voters stood in line.
Earlier in the day, pizza, water and other snacks were handed out. Some Clark County voters skipped the line and dropped off their mail ballots.
Voters in Washoe County, home to Reno, also were waiting over an hour.
Amber Falgout with the Institute for a Progressive Nevada, which runs a nonpartisan voter education program, attributed the long wait times to increased voter turnout plus an additional step in-person voters must take this year. Once they finish voting, their ballot is printed out and they must turn that in, Falgout said.
The polls close at 7 p.m. Pacific time, but any voter still in line at that time will be allowed to cast a ballot.
Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, considered a potential candidate for president in 2028, told the crowd celebrating his reelection victory in Pennsylvania that the people spoke with “resounding force” that they are done with leadership “that fails to make life better.”
“You left no doubt,” Shapiro told the crowd at a suburban Harrisburg hotel ballroom.
He said people want to raise Pennsylvania’s minimum wage to $15 an hour, to build more housing and invest in infrastructure, kids, cops and communities. They also want to enshrine abortion rights for women in the state constitution, he said.
A state judge in New Mexico has sided with Republicans who filed a lawsuit on Election Day over concerns that a Democratic county clerk had placed restrictions on election challengers.
The Republican Party of New Mexico, the Republican National Committee and the Republican Party of Doña Ana County sued County Clerk Amanda López Askin. They claimed GOP election challengers were placed in a corner where they could not properly see whether mail ballot envelopes contained the required signatures.
The judge granted a preliminary injunction, ordering that the challengers be positioned where they could properly observe the processing of the ballots.
“Transparency and accountability are fundamental to public confidence in our elections, and we will continue to stand up for those principles,” said Leticia Muñoz, executive director of the state party.
López Askin is running for the secretary of state’s office.
“I want to cry. I’m very grateful and excited that we finally got the first female governor,” said Conqula Milner, 54, who was wearing a long blue shirt with “Blessed” written on the back in silver sparkles.
Milner, who was at Bottoms’ election night party, said she was confident Bottoms would win but thought the margin would be tighter.
A veteran who works at the VA hospital in Atlanta, Milner says she believes Bottoms will do a lot to help veterans.
Paula Sanders, 69, a retired school counselor, said she supports Bottoms because she strongly agrees “with her plan to make life better for all Georgians.”
Dancing to the music with some friends as she waited for Bottoms to come out and address the crowd, she savored the election of the country’s first Black female governor: “This is a real history-making moment. So proud of Georgia!”
Speaking to a cheering crowd in Atlanta, Ossoff cast the results as a defeat for the term-limited president, entering his final two years in office.
“In sweeping and decisive victories, the American people have rebuked the depravity, corruption and incompetence of a failed lame duck President Donald J. Trump,” Ossoff said.
He added that the country’s politics have been “small and selfish, bought by big money, unmoored from fixed moral principles, and resigned to intractable division.”
He called for healing “brokenness” in the country, not just pushing back on the president.
In sweeping language, he said the wealthy had benefited from inside information and favors while families suffered with “higher and higher” bills.
As Election Day voting is wrapping up across the states, Common Cause, a voting rights group that has previously sued the Trump administration, said their volunteers at polling sites noticed few disruptions.
“It was, again, largely uneventful. As our elections should be,” Virginia Kase Solomón, the group’s president and CEO, said during a press briefing. “It is just really great to see a normal election happening.”
Common Cause directors from Arizona, California, Hawaii, North Carolina and Texas didn’t report any serious incidents at polling locations. The relatively routine issues throughout the day included weather-related delays, long lines and electioneering near polling places. Most problems were quickly resolved.
“I want you to hear from Florida that we are still red,” Donalds said to a crowd of cheering supporters. “Mr. President, I also want to tell you thank you for your support and thank you for being in my corner.”
Donalds also thanked outgoing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, promising to continue the work DeSantis has done over the past eight years.
Donalds defeated Democrat David Jolly, a former Republican congressman who switched parties and ran a centrist campaign.
Democrat Rebecca Bennett, a former Navy helicopter pilot, has defeated two-term Rep. Tom Kean, who missed four months of votes in Washington this year as he underwent treatment for depression, a diagnosis he did not disclose until his return.
Kean represents a battleground district that includes Trump’s Bedminster golf club. His great-grandfather was a senator, his grandfather was a congressman and his father is the former two-term Gov. Tom Kean Sr.
The seat has changed hands in the two most recent midterm election cycles, so it was automatically viewed as a competitive race going into this year.
Republicans tried to tilt four more House seats to the GOP in Trump’s adopted home state. Moskowitz was among their targets, but the Democratic congressman decided to run anyway in one of the redrawn districts.
“I’ve worked across the aisle. I’ve delivered results for my community, and they spent $26 million trying to beat me,” he said after his victory in Florida’s 25th District. “They lit that money on fire tonight.”
Moskowitz said voters in his new district, like those nationwide, were most concerned about the economy and their ability to afford a good quality of life. But he said the redistricting and concerns about Trump’s business dealings angered voters, too.
He said Democrats, should they control Capitol Hill in January, must use their power to address affordability but also to hold the Trump administration accountable.
Polls close at 10 p.m. in Montana, Nevada and Utah, with some polls closing in the eastern portions of Idaho and Oregon.
Key contests to watch in this hour include U.S. House races in Montana, Nevada and Utah and congressional and gubernatorial races in Arizona, where polls close at 9 p.m. but results are held until 10 p.m.
The crowd at a watch party hosted by the state’s Democratic Party listened to music spun by a DJ underneath colorful lights as they watched election results roll in from around the U.S.
Democratic leaders in the state, including Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, spoke from a podium flanked by American and Michigan flags.
Attendee Sarah Karim came from Seattle to canvass for El-Sayed, who is friends with her husband after they attended the University of Michigan together, she said.
“This race also represents something really powerful nationwide,” Karim said. “We feel the effect of it in the Pacific Northwest because of what Abdul is representing.”
Democratic volunteers and staff are crowding the room for an election night watch party in Washington.
Cheers erupt when Democratic candidates for House, Senate and gubernatorial races flash on the TV screens.
“America is alive and well!” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries posted on social media.
Stratton, the current lieutenant governor, told supporters at her victory party that she “won’t be sitting back and listening quietly when I get to Washington.”
Stratton says she will fight “loudly” for affordable healthcare, reproductive freedom, workers’ rights, voting rights and for working families.
“Working families have been left to pick up the tab for the wealthy and well-connected while the crook in the Oval Office enriches himself and his allies,” she said.
Stratton supports Medicare for all, a $25 minimum wage and abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Stratton defeated Republican Don Tracy, the former state Republican Party chair. She’s replacing retiring Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin.
A constitutional amendment passed Tuesday could pave the way for Democratic lawmakers to redraw Maryland’s congressional districts ahead of the 2028 election.
Supporters of the amendment touted it as a way to fight back against Trump’s push to reshape U.S. House districts in Republican-led states to the party’s advantage. Democratic former President Barack Obama was among those backing the ballot measure.
The amendment undercuts a 2022 court ruling that struck down a previous Democratic redistricting plan as “extreme partisan gerrymandering.” The judge in that case said a constitutional provision requiring compact districts that respect “natural boundaries” applied to congressional districts.
The newly approved amendment applies those parameters only to state legislative districts — allowing greater leeway to manipulate the boundaries for U.S. House districts.
In a victory speech, the Republican noted that “throughout this campaign, I said that this election would come down to freedom versus socialism. Well, Florida chose freedom.”
She added, “We are the beating heart of freedom, not only for the United States of America, but indeed the rest of the world.”
Moody defeated Democrat Angie Nixon to hang on to the job she was first appointed to in 2025, when Marco Rubio was chosen to be Trump’s secretary of state.
Nixon is a longtime labor organizer who recently joined the Democratic Socialists of America. She championed policies like universal healthcare and childcare and has been an outspoken critic of U.S. foreign policy and the war in Gaza.
Bottoms is the first Black woman elected governor of any state. She also is the first former Atlanta mayor to be elected Georgia governor and the first Democrat to win the state’s highest office since 1998. Bottoms previously worked in President Joe Biden’s administration.
She defeated Republican Rick Jackson, a healthcare tycoon who tapped his personal fortune for his campaign.
Roy Cooper won decisively, holding a double-digit lead in the Senate race at the time of the call. Cooper expanded on his margins in his two gubernatorial victories. He won by 0.2 and 4.5 percentage points in 2016 and 2020, respectively.
Democrats had targeted the seat after Trump won the state by less than four points in each of the last three presidential elections.
Voters have approved a ballot measure that creates a “ fundamental right to reproductive freedom ” in the Virginia Constitution.
The amendment passed Tuesday ensures abortions can occur during the first two trimesters of pregnancy. It allows government regulations during the third trimester while still ensuring that abortions can be carried out to protect the life and health of pregnant women. The amendment also creates a right to contraception and fertility care, among other things.
The U.S. Supreme Court overturned a nationwide right to abortion in 2022, opening the way for states to create their own policies. Since then, voters in more than one-fifth of the states have passed ballot measures protecting abortion rights.
“Together we have an opportunity, my friends, to prove that Democrats can deliver. To provide an alternative to the hollow promises and the lasting betrayals of the right,” he said at an election watch party in Manhattan.
Mamdani, who took office this year, was on stage delivering a speech just as AP called the New York governor’s race for Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul.
“The work that we began here on the streets of New York City is being carried forward tonight all across our country,” he said.
Shelley Moore Capito said she was humbled after becoming the first West Virginia Republican to be elected to three consecutive terms in the U.S. Senate in more than a century.
“From the beginning, this campaign has been focused on listening to West Virginians about the concerns most important to them and coming together to bring those voices to Washington,” Capito said in a statement. “That mission will never change, and I am more energized than ever to continue delivering for our state.”
Capito defeated Democrat Rachel Fetty Anderson.
Trump gathered with political advisers and members of his Cabinet in the East Room of the White House to watch election returns come in, the White House said.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said earlier Tuesday that he planned to attend the reception. Burgum was with the president when he delivered his final message to voters from the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, where Trump spoke at length on the renovation work he and Burgum have completed in the nation’s capital.
Earlier in the evening, Trump complained on Truth Social about Fox News, saying the network was spending “too much time” covering Democrats.
The former two-term governor told cheering supporters that he spoke to Republican Michael Whatley and said his opponent acknowledged the result.
“Thank you for everything you did to take this United States Senate seat back for the people of North Carolina,” Cooper said.
He also promised to be an “independent voice” for the state.
Cooper said the campaign was about standing up for people who felt crushed by Trump’s tariffs and the cost of fuel and fertilizer “because of this never-ending war.”
Democrats have picked up their first Republican-held House seat of the night in western North Carolina.
Democrat Jamie Ager has won an open seat resulting from the retirement of Republican Rep. Chuck Edwards, who was censured by the House this year for engaging in inappropriate conduct toward two young female staffers in his office.
Democrats were hoping Ager’s farming background would appeal to rural voters in the district. He defeated Republican Jennifer Balkcom, a state legislator.
“It looks like maybe, just maybe, something is stirring in the conscience of America,” Pritzker told his supporters after winning election to a third term. He’s the first Democrat elected to a third term as governor in Illinois.
Pritzker is considered a potential Democratic candidate for president in 2028.
“We climbed one mountain tonight,” Pritzker said. “But we are sitting at the base of another.”
Pritzker defeated Republican Darren Bailey, a former state lawmaker.
The Republican acknowledged the result in the Georgia Senate race in a brief speech to his supporters.
“The results may not be what we wanted tonight, but y’all, that’s OK. I’m going to continue to serve,” he said.
Collins, a current House member, praised Trump, calling it an honor and privilege to serve under him.
Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff won the seat.
Supporters erupted into cheers, hugs and chants when they learned the former governor had won election to the U.S. Senate representing North Carolina.
A crowd gathered in a downtown Raleigh hotel ballroom Tuesday night, where music was thumping and CNN played on a big screen. When the news of Cooper’s victory appeared, the crowd exploded and began chanting, “Cooper! Cooper!”
Anderson Clayton, who leads North Carolina’s Democratic Party, said Cooper’s decades in elected office made him an especially strong candidate.
“He’s woven into the fabric of North Carolina,” she said.
By electing Cooper, North Carolina voters chose “competence over chaos,” Democratic Gov. Josh Stein said in a speech shortly after the race was called.
Cooper defeated Republican Michael Whatley.
The Republican says he had a great message and vision but came up short in his New Hampshire Senate race against Democrat Chris Pappas.
“This has been an incredible campaign, but it is not our night. I called Chris to congratulate him a few minutes ago. He ran a good race. More importantly, we ran a good race,” John E. Sununu told supporters.
Pappas, who is in his fourth term in the U.S. House, will replace retiring Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a three-term Democrat who ousted Sununu in 2008.
