Democrats have won control of Congress in Tuesday’s 2026 midterm elections in a widespread repudiation of President Donald Trump and the Republican Party, a drubbing that reached deep into reliable GOP territory.
Democrats flipped at least seven Senate seats in ruby-red states and battlegrounds alike: Kansas, which hasn’t elected a Democratic senator in nearly a century, Iowa, Texas, Ohio, Maine, North Carolina and South Carolina. They held on to battleground seats in Georgia
and Michigan. In the House, Democrats flipped more than two dozen districts, some that voted for Trump by double digits in 2024.
Democrats Keisha Lance Bottoms in Georgia, Amy Acton in Ohio, Rob Sand in Iowa and Gina Hinojosa in Texas won races for governor, flipping GOP-held offices.
Trump faces a profoundly reshaped Washington for the last two years of his presidency. Democrats will have the power to block his legislative agenda, reject his appointees and investigate his administration.
After telling voters repeatedly to “pretend I’m on the ballot,” Trump tried to shift the blame away from himself, saying Democrats “did a good job” in their campaigns and blaming GOP candidates for losses. Most voters appear to blame his administration for high costs and want Congress to impose more checks on him, according to The AP Voter Poll.
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House Speaker Mike Johnson will not seek election as House Republican leader following the Democrats’ win. That’s according to a person who spoke on condition of anonymity to disclose the plans.
Democrats are riding their sweep of Congress into a new era. They’re eager to meet voter demands for change with plans to tackle high costs of living and confront President Donald Trump’s final years in the White House.
The results of Tuesday’s midterm elections set up a moment of divided government. Democrats ousted Republicans from coast to coast and in many surprising places in between. Voters rejected the president’s party for the promise of something different.
Democrats increased their support with moderate voters, particularly in key Senate races where Democrats flipped Republican-held seats.
Roughly two-thirds of moderates supported the Democratic candidate in their local U.S. House race, an uptick from the approximately 6 in 10 moderate voters who backed Harris.
A large majority of moderate voters, about 8 in 10, said Congress was not doing enough to provide checks and balances on the presidency, and a similarly high share said they had experienced at least a “moderate” hardship in the past year because of inflation.
Many Democratic candidates benefited from significant moderate support. In Kansas, Democrat Adam Hamilton won about 7 in 10 moderate voters, a substantial rise from the roughly half that Harris won in 2024. There was a similar pattern in Iowa as Democrat Josh Turek won about two-thirds of moderates, up from about half for Harris.
Democrats are riding their sweep of Congress into a new era, eager to meet voter demands for change with plans to tackle high living costs and confront Trump’s final years in the White House.
In a nationwide romp, Democrats ousted Republicans from coast to coast, with many surprising places in between, as voters rejected the president’s party for the promise of something different. Democrats’ majorities will be padded by wide margins in both the House and the Senate.
The results set up a divided government, with Congress poised to reassert itself as a coequal branch ready to challenge Trump and reverse course after two years of unified GOP control.
“We hear you,” said House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, who would make history as the first Black speaker of the House if his colleagues elect him to the job when the new Congress begins on Jan. 3, 2027.
Black voters, particularly Black men, were another group where Trump’s 2024 gains didn’t stick.
Only about 1 in 10 Black male voters nationally backed the Republican candidate in their local U.S. House race, down from the roughly one-quarter who supported Trump in the last presidential election. About 9 in 10 Black voters supported the Democratic House candidate, up from roughly 8 in 10 who cast their ballots for Harris in 2024.
These shifts were particularly important in some major races. Black men shifted significantly in the governor’s race in Georgia, where Keisha Lance Bottoms became the first Black woman elected as a governor. About 9 in 10 Black men voted for Bottoms, according to The AP Voter Poll. Only about three-quarters supported Harris in 2024.
About 9 in 10 Black women supported Bottoms, roughly the same share that supported Harris.
Mojtaba Ferdousi Pour, head of Iran’s diplomatic mission in Cairo, said the Trump administration has sought to change leadership in Iran through war but instead witnessed a “significant transformation and shift” at home.
“Those who sow the wind, reap the whirlwind,” he said.
Hani Lahroub, 71, from Ramallah, said U.S. policy toward Israel under Trump has been “Israel first, not America first” and he hopes it will change.
“The Palestinian issue has become one of the main topics influencing elections,” he said.
Roughly 7 in 10 voters who backed the Democratic candidate in their U.S. House race said U.S. support for Israel is “too strong,” according to the AP Voter Poll, a survey of the electorate. That compares to about half of voters overall.
Other Palestinians said they hoped a new Congress could help restore the diplomatic standing of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the internationally recognized representative of the Palestinian people.
The Trump administration has imposed visa restrictions on Palestinian diplomats and closed its Washington office.
Suleiman Maali, 80, from Ramallah, said he hoped PLO diplomats would be able to return to the United States.
“We are a people who want to live,” he said.
Trump has no public events scheduled for Wednesday, according to the White House, following Democrats’ resounding midterm election wins that will give them control of the House and the Senate for his final two years in office.
The Republican president spoke to Fox News Channel for an interview that aired early Wednesday, saying Democrats “did a good job” and faulting GOP candidates for their losses. “I don’t view it as a hit on me,” he said.
Trump had all but guaranteed the results would be seen as a referendum on him by repeatedly urging voters to “pretend I’m on the ballot.” But the results showed how voters rejected his handpicked candidates while airing widespread concerns about high costs following the Iran war and his punishing tariff policy.
The results leave Trump — who watched returns at the White House with his advisers and members of his Cabinet — with dramatically diminished political capital at home and abroad.
British Prime Minister Andy Burnham says the midterm results show the importance of ending the Iran war, which has sent fuel prices soaring.
“The world has an opportunity now to unite around the issue that is affecting us all, and that’s the cost of living,” he said.
Burnham said he would be “working for de-escalation” in the Middle East and urging other leaders to do the same.
He said: “I can’t get people’s cost of living pressures down until the conflict in the Middle East is resolved (and) the conflict in Ukraine started by Russia. These are the things we have to focus on now, and I hope the world has a moment to do that.”
“While the outcome of this midterm is not what we’d hoped and fought for, a new battle is just beginning,” the Republican speaker said overnight on social media.
Johnson is expected to face a challenge from Republican rivals if he tries to stay on as GOP leader in the new Congress, which Democrats will control after the midterm rout. He did not immediately address his plans.
He said, “come 2028, we WILL take back the House and we will finish the job.”
Across the country, states elected a wave of governors who are the first Black, Latina or female leaders of their respective states.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, the only current Black governor, won reelection on Tuesday. Republican Byron Donalds in Florida and Democrat David Crowley in Wisconsin were elected as the first Black governors in their states.
Latino Democrats also will take on the highest state office in two of the biggest states. Texas voters rejected Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in favor of Gina Hinojosa, who will be the state’s first Latina governor. And Xavier Becerra, a former California attorney general, outpaced Republican Steve Hilton. Becerra will be California’s first Latino governor since Romualdo Pacheco in 1875.
Meanwhile, Tennessee elected its first female governor. Republican U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn beat Democrat Jerri Green, a Memphis city councilwoman.
The country’s first Black female governor, the first Native American female governor, the first Native female senator and the first openly gay male U.S. senator had been declared winners on Tuesday.
By early Wednesday, the first Muslim U.S. senator was added to the list of barrier-breaking milestones.
The astonishing Democratic wave also means the United States will likely have its first-ever Black speaker of the House.
“These firsts show how our country is changing,” Alexis Anderson-Reed, president and CEO of State Voices, a network of advocates for civic engagement and equity in democracy, said in an email.
A California measure to tax the net worth of billionaires that divided liberal leaders nationally and triggered one of the most expensive ballot fights in state history was too early to call Wednesday morning as the vote tally continued.
Proposition 40 would impose a one-time 5% tax on the wealth of Californians whose net worth exceeds $1 billion, with most of the revenue dedicated to replacing federal funding cuts to healthcare. The measure left ultra-rich people, some of whom spent heavily to defeat it, scrambling to figure out whether they would pay the tax or leave California.
After more than a decade with Donald Trump at the epicenter of U.S. politics, most voters appear exhausted and exasperated by him, according to The AP Voter Poll, a survey of midterm voters in all 50 states.
The president’s failure to deliver on key promises — most prominently, his vows to tame inflation, which has worsened instead — clearly weighed on his fellow Republicans in Tuesday’s midterm elections for the House and the Senate. The polling shows that voters generally saw Trump as being more focused on his own fortune and gold-leafed existence than their needs.
The president also helped elevate candidates with obvious flaws, amplifying their struggles in an already challenging year.
But the poll also contains a serious note of caution for Democrats. Many voters dislike the party — and while Democrats hold an advantage on key issues such as the economy, their edge is relatively slim. About 7 in 10 voters said that Congress isn’t doing enough to provide checks and balances for the president, setting the bar for Democrats who won back the Senate and the House.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa says the Democrats taking control of the House and the Senate in the U.S. midterms is going to “introduce a new era in world relations.”
Ramaphosa says he hopes South Africa will be able to improve its bilateral relationship with the United States after his country became a target for criticism during President Donald Trump’s second term.
Trump’s Republican administration has made several moves against South Africa’s government, which he has baselessly accused of discriminating against its white minority. Those moves include excluding South Africa from meetings of the Group of 20 countries this year in the U.S. and suspending it from AGOA, a key U.S.-Africa trade program.
