Much of the midterm “blue tsunami” came from diverse, enthusiastic young voters with financial struggles who flocked to the polls, and also Trump voters sitting out the election, according to two experts analyzing turnout in a handful of states with detailed results. 

The results, they say, could mean a mandate for bringing costs down and more power for young Latinos, but also a danger for Democrats if Republicans rally back to the polls in 2028. 

“It looks like more Trump voters who didn’t vote Republican stayed home rather than switching (to Democrats),” said Lenny Bronner, founder of Broome Street Labs and a data scientist formerly with the Washington Post, based on his analysis of 13 states with detailed results. 

“Those voters are easier for the GOP to win back than those who chose a Democratic candidate,” Bronner said. 

Bronner estimated 75% of Democratic gains came from a turnout gap and about 20% from Republicans switching sides and voting for Democrats.

His analysis included turnout data for Texas, Georgia, South Carolina, Colorado, New Mexico, Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, Iowa, Florida, West Virginia, Minnesota and Michigan. The share of Democrats’ gain that came from a turnout gap ranged from 40% for Texas to 133% for Michigan among the states he studied; some states had only partial detailed results.

Bronner wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that partial results in Texas showed that voters flipped their ballots more than expected; 45% of Democratic gains there came from voters switching away from Republicans. “So far, Texas is the only state where our model indicates that persuasion explains more of Democrats net gain than turnout does!” he wrote.

A University of Florida political science professor, Michael McDonald, also saw a turnout surge for young voters faced with high grocery bills, student loan debt and sluggish wages, based on detailed results from Georgia and Colorado. Trump’s older voter constituency was more likely to stay home, he wrote in a Substack post. 

In both Colorado and Georgia, 18- to 25-year-olds had the biggest jump in turnout compared with the 2022 midterms, he wrote, while it fell for voters older than 40. 

“This all makes sense when you realize that we just witnessed the most diverse electorate for a midterm election in U.S. history, with big increases over 2022 in Latino turnout,” McDonald wrote. “Latinos are markedly younger than whites, so if their turnout increases it means more younger voters are in the mix.”

Even in Florida, where Republicans continued to dominate elections, GOP turnout was lower than in 2022 despite a registration drive that increased Republican registration by 400,000, McDonald wrote in another Substack post. Republican Gov. Rick DeSantis’ drive to purge voter rolls, affecting mostly Democratic and unaffiliated voters, may have played a role, he wrote. 

“DeSantis’ shrewd politics appears in part due to suppressing Democrat and unaffiliated votes through a massive voter registration purge that pushed Florida red, rather than rallying Florida Republicans to vote,” McDonald wrote.

On a statewide basis, midterm turnout increased almost 13 points in Mississippi since the last midterms, as the state appears close to electing its first Black senator since Reconstruction. Turnout fell to a historic low in South Dakota, where Republicans still dominate voting.

The University of Florida’s turnout calculations provide a window into overall turnout, which it measures as a share of voter-eligible population, excluding noncitizens and ineligible felons. McDonald did the calculations for the University of Florida’s Election Lab, and Stateline compared them to 2024 and 2022 turnouts for a state-by-state map.

The analysis shows the highest turnout for 2026 in Maine, Minnesota and Michigan, all at more than 63%, and lowest in West Virginia (33.3%), Oklahoma (37.1%)  and Hawaii, Indiana and Tennessee (all 38.2%).

South Dakota’s midterm vote remained heavily Republican, though Democrats gained legislative seats for the first time in 18 years. They took four new seats, for a total of 12 in the 105-seat legislature. 

South Dakota had higher turnout in 2022, possibly in part because of contentious statewide ballot measures for Medicaid expansion, which passed, and marijuana legalization, which failed. 

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

WASHINGTON — South Dakota Sen. John Thune will remain Republican leader next Congress despite the GOP’s loss of the chamber’s majority in this year’s midterm elections.

GOP senators voted behind closed doors Tuesday to keep Thune at the helm and reelected Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso as their whip. Neither was challenged. 

The other members of Senate Republican leadership will include Republican Conference Chair Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Republican Policy Committee Chair Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Vice Chair of the Republican Conference James Lankford of Oklahoma and National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair Bernie Moreno of Ohio. 

‘Listening intently’

Thune said after the meeting that he and other Republicans were not happy with the results of the midterm elections but will focus more on voters’ concerns in the years ahead. 

“As we move forward, we are going to be listening intently to what the American people are saying,” he said. “And I think right now the issue that matters the most to them, like I said, is the cost of living.”

Thune pledged to extend the lame duck session that spans November and December to give Republicans more time to confirm nominees and approve legislation before handing over power to Democrats in early January. Republicans now hold 53 seats and The Associated Press projects they will have 44 next year, with results in Alaska and Mississippi still not called.

“Our conference is committed to being here to do whatever it takes to get as much done as we can,” he said. “That means extending the calendar here, the number of days we’re here, the number of hours we’re here, the number of votes we may end up taking. But we are going to finish this legislative session strong.”

Push for nominations

There was an attempt by several Republican senators to delay decisions about leadership for at least a week, but they were ultimately unsuccessful. 

Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt said after the meeting that Republican leaders had committed to clear as many nominees through the chamber as possible. Democrats are unlikely to approve President Donald Trump’s picks for the federal bench or administration roles after January. 

“We’re definitely going to maximize the next 54 days for sure,” he said. 

Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley said ahead of the vote that he wanted to delay until later this year to give Republicans an opportunity to “change course” following the election results. 

“It’s easy to blame other people, but we need to look at what has happened here,” he said, questioning why Republican leaders didn’t put bills on the floor to lower the cost of gasoline and healthcare. 

“If you don’t put people first, sooner or later people turn on you,” Hawley said. “And I think that this party thought we can just do whatever we want. People voted for us in ’24, we’ll do whatever we want. No you can’t. You’ve got to do stuff that actually helps people.”

‘Never disappoint voters again’

Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson said following a morning conference meeting that Republicans were “voicing opinions on all sides of the issues.” 

“It’s one of those times in the Republican Conference, you kind of go, ‘We got … some smart people, and we’re having a very good respectful conversation,’” Johnson said. 

Ohio’s Moreno said later in the day that Republicans are committed to “never disappoint voters again.”

“We’re firmly aware of the consequences now, and that’s the strategy we’re going to employ in 2028,” he said. 

60 votes needed

Thune will still have considerable power as minority leader as long as Democrats keep a rule that requires 60 senators vote to advance legislation. 

The hurdle forces bipartisanship on major proposals. But even if Democrats were to remove it next Congress, bills would still need Trump’s support to become law, unless there are supermajorities in each chamber to override a veto.

Wisconsin voters have chosen a new governor and Democratic majorities in the Legislature. The campaigns have ended. The bills will not.

Families and businesses still face rising utility costs. Communities are weighing enormous data center developments. Utilities are proposing billions in new power plants and transmission infrastructure. And too many Wisconsin families live in homes that are expensive to heat and cool.

Governor-elect David Crowley and the incoming Legislature have an opportunity to turn campaign promises into meaningful action. Energy affordability should be the North Star.

That means changing how Wisconsin plans its energy future, holds utilities accountable and invests in solutions that deliver lasting value.

Here are five priorities for the new administration and Legislature.

1. Require utilities to show their math before spending billions.

Wisconsin requires communities to plan for growth and infrastructure. Yet our statewide energy system lacks a comparable process for determining which investments are needed and provide the best value.

Instead, major power plants are largely evaluated one project at a time.

The Legislature should require integrated resource planning, bringing generation, transmission, battery storage, energy efficiency, distributed energy and demand flexibility into one transparent process.

Before approving multibillion-dollar investments, utilities should demonstrate how much electricity is needed, which alternatives were considered, how costs compare and who bears the risk if demand forecasts change.

The Public Service Commission should have the authority to demand these answers before committing customers to decades of costs.

Plan first. Spend second.

2. Make Big Tech pay its own way.

Data centers can bring investment, jobs and economic opportunity. Wisconsin should welcome development that delivers lasting benefits.

But growth should not come with a blank check.

A handful of large electricity users could drive billions in new generation, transmission and grid upgrades. Existing customers should not subsidize those investments or absorb the risks if projects are delayed, downsized or abandoned.

The Legislature should establish enforceable data center accountability standards requiring large users to pay the full infrastructure costs attributable to their operations, provide financial guarantees against stranded costs and bring additional clean energy onto the grid.

Data centers should disclose electricity and water requirements, demonstrate project viability and provide meaningful community participation and enforceable local benefits.

These protections must be established before infrastructure investments are approved.

The question is who pays, who benefits and who bears the risk.

3. Stop treating new methane gas plants as inevitable.

Wisconsin utilities are proposing billions in new methane gas infrastructure that could lock customers into decades of construction, financing and volatile fuel costs.

Growing electricity demand does not automatically justify new fossil fuel generation.

Before approving new gas plants, the PSC should require utilities to demonstrate that they have evaluated cost-effective alternatives, including renewables, battery storage, efficiency, demand response, virtual power plants and transmission improvements.

The new administration should strengthen oversight of utility demand forecasts, reliability claims and proposed investments.

Reliability is essential. But it requires comprehensive planning, not assumptions about which power plants must be built.

4. Put Wisconsin on a path to 100% clean electricity.

Illinois, Michigan and Minnesota have adopted clean electricity standards. Wisconsin should establish its own pathway by codifying a goal of 100% clean electricity by 2050.

The Legislature should pair that commitment with policies accelerating cost-effective renewable energy, storage, grid modernization and Wisconsin’s clean energy workforce and supply chains.

Wisconsin workers can build these projects. Manufacturers can supply the equipment. Communities can benefit from investment and jobs. And energy resources without ongoing fuel costs can reduce exposure to volatile fossil fuel prices.

Clean energy is not simply an environmental priority. It is an affordability and economic development strategy.

5. Lower bills through healthier, more efficient homes.

An affordable energy future begins at home.

More than half of Wisconsin homes were built before 1980. Many families face high utility bills because of inadequate insulation, outdated equipment or repairs that prevent energy improvements.

Wisconsin already has a proven solution in Focus on Energy. Program estimates show approximately $3.57 to $4.17 in benefits for every dollar invested, yet its funding rate has remained unchanged for 27 years.

The Legislature should double Focus on Energy funding and expand weatherization and efficiency assistance, particularly for low- and moderate-income households.

Wisconsin should also establish a dedicated Healthy Homes initiative, combining energy improvements with essential health and safety repairs, including moisture, ventilation and electrical problems.

The Clean Economy Coalition of Wisconsin’s Healthy Homes Campaign is helping connect families and small businesses with existing programs while building support for expanded investment.

At Wisconsin Environmental Initiative, our Green Built Home program has demonstrated that better buildings mean healthier families, stronger communities and lasting affordability.

Efficiency should be treated as infrastructure. The cheapest energy is often what we never need to generate.

Turn promises into measurable results.

These priorities are connected. Data centers influence electricity demand. Demand forecasts drive infrastructure investments. Those investments affect utility bills. Clean energy and efficiency can reduce costs and risks.

The new administration and Legislature should bring these issues together through a comprehensive energy affordability agenda, with clear legislative priorities, stronger PSC oversight and measurable progress on customer costs.

Wisconsin families deserve lower bills. Businesses need greater certainty. Communities deserve a voice. And economic development should strengthen our state without transferring unnecessary financial risks to existing customers.

Affordable, reliable electricity is fundamental to Wisconsin’s competitiveness and quality of life.

The campaigns have ended. Now comes the work of governing.

Plan first. Make Big Tech pay its own way. Invest in clean energy and healthier homes. Hold utilities accountable.

And make affordability the measure of success.

In a handful of holdout states, Democrats appear ready to use their newly won statehouse dominance to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

In at least four states — Georgia, Kansas, Texas and Wisconsin — the midterm election results have tilted the political calculus toward expansion, though lawmakers have yet to lay out details. Medicaid is the joint federal-state insurance program for people with low incomes.

Georgia and Wisconsin have limited expansion programs, but neither has approved the broader expansion allowed under the Affordable Care Act.

“Before Tuesday, I wouldn’t have expected much activity in the 10 remaining states that have not expanded Medicaid” to more adults under the Affordable Care Act, said Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at the health research and policy nonprofit KFF, on a media call after the election.

“But I think that dynamic has changed.”

Under the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, states can expand Medicaid to cover adults earning up to 138% of the federal poverty line — about $22,000 a year for a single person — and the federal government will pick up 90% of the costs for those newly eligible enrollees.

Forty states took the deal, adding nearly 20 million people with low incomes to the rolls. In the remaining 10 states, which have been mostly controlled by Republicans, expansion has been blocked by GOP opponents who think it is too expensive or who are ideologically opposed to growing government programs.

Georgia Democratic Gov.-elect Keisha Lance Bottoms made full Medicaid expansion central to her campaign and has called it “a day one priority.”

“This is thrilling for me because this is the reason I ran for office in the first place,” said Dr. Michelle Au, a Democratic Georgia state representative and physician.

In Georgia, Democrats won every statewide office that was on the ballot and appear poised to take control of the state House, though Republicans will still control the state Senate. Democrats would need bipartisan support to get expansion passed.

“We are going to see a bill and it’s going to be an interesting process in the newly divided government,” said Au.

She said a 2024 Medicaid expansion bill had bipartisan support among state legislators, including from Republicans representing rural districts facing hospital closures and higher rates of uninsured residents. The bill eventually died in committee, she said, in large part because it didn’t have the backing of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp.

“What became apparent in that process was that there was nothing more important to the passage of this issue than having a strong governor who supports it,” Au said.

“If anything, this issue has only gotten more urgent and popular” among voters, she said.

Wisconsin’s new Democratic trifecta — the party will control both legislative chambers and the governor’s office — could make full Medicaid expansion much easier to pass. Wisconsin Democratic Gov.-elect David Crowley has deferred to legislators when asked about expansion.

Democratic state Rep. Greta Neubauer, who is set to become House Speaker, stopped short of promising expansion in a call with reporters after the election. She said lawmakers will look at several options to address healthcare, reported the Wisconsin Examiner.

Neubauer said Medicaid expansion was complicated by the Trump administration’s new work requirements and other changes to the program.

“It’s a shame that Wisconsin has not done that up to this point,” she said. “We are going to be working very closely with the administration to figure out the best way to expand access to affordable healthcare for Wisconsinites, even given the Trump administration’s efforts to cut access and raise costs.”

In July 2025, Trump signed a broad tax and spending measure that is projected to cut federal Medicaid spending by an estimated $886.8 billion over the next decade, largely because new work requirements will push people off the rolls, according to estimates by the Congressional Budget Office. The new rules, which will take effect in January, will apply to people who became eligible for Medicaid as a result of expansion.

But the new Democratic-controlled Congress is expected to look at delaying or reversing the changes, which “may make it even more attractive for places like Texas and Georgia to try to expand,” Levitt said.

Texas voters also voted Democrats into every statewide office that was on the ballot, including electing Democrat Gina Hinojosa as governor and flipping control of the state House. Republicans still control the state Senate.

Hinojosa told a Houston television station that she would push the state legislature to expand Medicaid.

Before the election, Kansas’ outgoing Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly called the Kansas’ Legislature’s refusal to expand Medicaid “the dumbest thing Kansas has ever done.”

She said the main roadblock was opposition by Kansas’ Republican House Speaker. But this week, Kansas Democrats flipped as many as 20 seats in the Kansas House, quashing the Republican supermajority.

Votes are still being tallied, but it appears that while Republicans will retain a majority in the state House and a supermajority in the state Senate, Democrat Cindy Holscher holds a narrow lead in the governor’s race.

Holscher campaigned on promises of expanding Medicaid, saying Medicaid expansion would help prevent hospital closures and improve access to mental health services. She noted that expansion is popular across the state.

“This is approved by, I believe, over 75% of the population,” she said. “This cuts across the political spectrum. Rural as well as urban areas say this is what we need to do.”

Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@stateline.org.

WASHINGTON — Voters may have given Democrats control of Congress in the midterm elections, but Republicans will remain in charge of both chambers during the lame-duck session that spans November and December. 

The relatively brief five-week schedule, which begins Monday, gives GOP leaders a chance to wrap up unfinished work before handing over power when the new session begins in early January. 

Congress could send the president several major pieces of legislation during that time, including the annual defense policy bill, the farm bill, a measure to regulate the college sports landscape and permitting reform to ease regulation on large construction projects.

But lawmakers must pass a government funding bill before Dec. 11 to avoid another shutdown. Congress used a stopgap spending bill to keep federal programs up and running after the new fiscal year began Oct. 1.

Democrats and Republicans don’t have enough time to broker bipartisan agreement on the dozen full-year appropriations bills, which will likely total around $1.9 trillion.

That means lawmakers must use another stopgap spending bill to extend funding into next year, when Democrats will take the lead negotiating with President Donald Trump. 

North Dakota senator obstacle to confirmation push

Senate Republicans are expected to use the rest of their time to confirm nominees before leaving for the holidays in mid-December. Democrats are unlikely to advance Trump’s nominees once they take over the Senate majority. 

A Senate GOP aide told States Newsroom that confirming judicial nominees will be a top priority in the coming session, in addition to funding the government, approving a farm bill and passing the annual defense policy bill. 

Sen. Kevin Cramer, however, continues to block confirmation of “any and all” of Trump’s nominees to pressure the administration to eliminate a President Joe Biden-era rule dealing with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wetland easements that the North Dakota Republican has said harm his state’s property owners.

After FWS Director Brian Nesvik visited North Dakota in October, Cramer said he would release a few more of his holds, according to his office. 

Cramer has been willing to incrementally lift the holds based on progress he sees from the administration, allowing the confirmation of Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling. Cramer has also lifted a hold on Chris Klomp, nominee for deputy secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Overdue farm bill

The farm bill, a substantial package of agriculture aid and nutrition programs, was supposed to become law years ago, but hasn’t amid long-running disagreements between the two parties. 

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman, R-Ark., said in a statement he hoped to finally reach a deal in the next few weeks, an accomplishment that will require support from Democrats. 

“Family farmers contending with numerous challenges to their viability cannot afford another Farm Bill delay,” he said. “Producers and rural communities are counting on us to deliver the predictability, certainty and support that a modernized Farm Bill provides. Congress has the opportunity to show them we understand how urgently they need these critical updates and I remain committed to helping get them signed into law this year.”

The Senate Agriculture Committee approved its version of the farm bill in September but it didn’t garner bipartisan support. 

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn “G.T.” Thompson, R-Pa., said in a statement that moving “a full, five-year farm bill across the finish line remains a top priority of mine as we look to the remaining legislative days of 2026. American producers and consumers cannot afford to wait any longer.”

Minnesota Democratic Rep. Angie Craig, ranking member on the committee, said in a statement she remains “engaged in bipartisan, bicameral conversations” to address the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, allowing a gasoline blend with 15% ethanol and other priorities.

“I remain deeply committed to addressing the unfunded SNAP mandate that Republicans forced onto states and counties,” she said. “Family farmers across the country are hurting right now and desperately want to see a farm bill that opens up domestic markets, like year-round E15, robustly funds conservation programs which are relied upon to boost farm income, and provides certainty for the next five years. I will continue to work with my colleagues to address these issues and more in the coming weeks.”

Defense authorization, college sports bills

Congress could reach a final deal on the massive defense policy bill, known as the National Defense Authorization Act, that lawmakers have approved annually for more than 60 years. 

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., said in a statement that passing “the NDAA continues to be my highest priority, and I’m confident we can get this across the finish line.”

“This legislation is crucial to our national security, and a failure to pass it would not only weaken American deterrence, but also abandon critical support for our men and women in uniform, including a pay raise and better access to healthcare and childcare,” he said. 

House Republican leadership will have to decide whether to put a college sports bill the Senate approved earlier this year up for a vote, a step its supporters say must happen this year. 

A spokesperson for the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee said in a statement there “is no realistic path to secure the same broad, bipartisan support for a new bill in 2027 and beyond. 

“Passing the Senate-approved bipartisan bill through the House and sending it to the President’s desk during the lame duck Congress gives House Republicans an opportunity to close out the 119th Congress with a significant win for President Trump, HBCUs, women’s sports, and student athletes,” the spokesperson wrote. “An attempt to amend it would be a surefire defeat for the colleges and fans counting on PCSA’s enactment.”

House GOP leaders will also have to decide whether to debate and vote on a permitting reform bill that a bipartisan group of senators released in late September. The Senate is scheduled to take its first procedural vote on the legislation, which aims to speed construction of public projects by streamlining regulatory reviews, this week.

GOP leadership shuffle and ethics overhaul

In addition to work on legislation, the House could change its rules to address the various types of ethics violations that lawmakers engaged in during the last couple years. 

Florida Republican Rep. Kat Cammack and New Mexico Democratic Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández have worked together for months on a way to force better behavior.

Off the floor, House Republicans will vote behind closed doors to decide who will lead them in the minority during the next Congress. 

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., announced this week he will not seek to remain at the helm of the House GOP, setting up a race between Republican Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio. 

The other three congressional leaders — House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Senate Republican Leader John Thune — are all expected to remain in charge of their various conferences. 

WASHINGTON — The chair of the campaign arm for U.S. House Democrats said during a Friday press conference that this week’s midterm elections resulted in an overwhelming blue wave because of Latinos. 

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Suzan DelBene said majorities won in the House and the Senate by Democrats couldn’t have happened without Latino voters. She said Democrats were only able to win competitive seats in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Pennsylvania and Texas because of the Latino vote.

While dozens of races are still too close to call, Democrats have won 253 seats, which is far past the 218 seats needed to control the majority in the lower chamber. Republicans have won 161 so far, according to The Associated Press.

DelBene, a Washington state Democrat, said the president and his party broke their 2024 campaign promises when it came to lowering inflation and carrying out a mass deportation campaign of “the worst of the worst.”

“They delivered the most anti-Latino agenda, defined by sky-high costs and out-of-control ICE operations,” she said, referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. 

DelBene said Democrats flipped 27 districts that President Donald Trump won in 2024 by double digits. 

She added that nearly all of her party’s Latino candidates won, with 54 Latinos who will be part of the 120th Congress in January, a historic number.

Latinos who showed up during the midterm elections are “fed up” with inflation, high gas prices and the unpopular war in Iran, said Democratic Rep.-elect Johnny Garcia, who flipped a newly drawn Texas congressional district meant to favor a Republican candidate.

“I knew I had to channel what the frustration was like here on the ground,” Garcia said.

 “Look, folks in this district, they just want to be able to go to HEB to buy their groceries, they want to be able to pay their utility bills with the wages they bring home,” he said.

The Pew Research Center in October released a report that found that the economy was a top issue for Latinos.

Elevation of Stephen Miller decried

In the middle of the press conference, Trump separately announced that he would tap the architect of his mass deportation campaign, Stephen Miller, to serve as the White House chief of staff, and replace Trump’s longtime aide, Susie Wiles. She’s the highest-ranking official from the White House to leave after Tuesday’s election results. 

Elevating Miller to that role signals that the president is doubling down on his aggressive immigration crackdown that has generated an immense backlash across the country. 

Maria Teresa Kumar, who leads Voto Latino, said the decision to place Miller as White House chief of staff shows that “once again the Republicans are not reading the room.”

Voto Latino is a nonprofit organization that aims to get young Latino and Hispanic people to register to vote and get politically involved.

Kumar said the aggressive immigration crackdown by the Trump administration spurred young Latino voters, many of whom were voting for the first time, to head to the polls.  

“The fact that the president is putting Stephen Miller in that seat just speaks that he’s not learned his lesson,” she said.

After months of Democratic anxiety and planning by election officials in case the Trump administration interfered with voters casting their ballots or officials counting them, Tuesday’s election in Wisconsin went off without a hitch. 

The state’s prominent election deniers, including former state Rep. Janel Brandtjen, left Milwaukee’s central count facility on Tuesday long before the city was finished counting as it became clear that Democrats had swept into trifecta control of state government, even before Milwaukee made its final vote tally. The Wisconsin Elections Commission announced Wednesday that the election was held with only minor glitches at the more than 3,600 polling sites across the state. 

“This election is a testament to months of preparation and the professionalism of Wisconsin’s election officials,” Meagan Wolfe, the administrator of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, said in a statement. “Election officials stepped up to serve their communities and came together to run a fair, safe, and transparent election. Their hard work was evident every step of the way.”

A Trump administration official told CNN that Tuesday’s results were “too big to rig,” implying that a closer result could have led to 2020-style interference. Ahead of the election, the Trump administration had sued Wisconsin for access to the private information included in the state’s voter registration database. In other states over the past few years, federal agents had seized ballots and arrested people accused of registering to vote as non-citizens. 

Jeff Mandell, general counsel of the voting rights focused firm Law Forward, said that lawyers and advocates spent two years preparing and planning for the threat of election meddling by Trump. 

“I think that it shows how well and thoroughly the pro-democracy community had thought through all of the possibilities and prepared,” he told the Examiner. “You know, some of it might be that we thought of things, and just by thinking about them and talking about them and preparing, we foreclosed the administration doing those things. The other reality is that it looks like the will of the voters was so strong that those kinds of shenanigans were not going to move the needle, and it’s possible that the administration recognized that.” 

Trump has often questioned the results of elections and the fact that his administration did not undertake any “shenanigans” doesn’t mean that the risk of them doing so was zero. 

“The fact that it didn’t happen is something that we should all be celebrating as a democracy matter,” Mandell said. “This is good, but that doesn’t mean that there was no possibility it would happen, and it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be taking it seriously, and it doesn’t mean that it’s not to the benefit, long-term, for our democracy that we prepared.” 

Ann Jacobs, a Democrat on the elections commission, said that pro-democracy organizations did a good job communicating their plans and discussions and the possible risks while not discouraging turnout. 

“While people talked about the fears that they had about something like that happening, I think there was a lot of thoughtfulness about how to talk to people about it,” Jacobs told the Wisconsin Examiner. “So it didn’t depress turnout. It didn’t convince people not to go vote, and that was a conversation I was having with lots of people at the time, and I think is a good reminder of the importance of being level-headed and keeping in mind that while there are risks of bad things happening, the important part about it is planning and reassurance.” 

Proposed democracy and voting reforms 

With the election now in the rearview mirror and Democrats in Wisconsin preparing for the start of the legislative session in January, among the issues competing for priority attention are reforms to Wisconsin’s democracy and voting system after 15 years of GOP control in which campaign finance laws were eased, restrictions on voting were advanced and the maps were skewed to benefit Republicans. 

In a statement celebrating Democrats winning control of Wisconsin’s government, former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said it’s important they use that power to undertake some structural reforms. 

“In the face of grave, ongoing threats to our democracy, now is not the time for Democrats to sit on the sidelines. Voters are demanding that their leaders take bold action to meet the moment, and now is the time to use the power entrusted to elected leaders to level the playing field and protect the voting power of the American people,” Holder said. 

Jacobs said she’s “so excited about the idea of being able to have those discussions with the Legislature,” and that she has a list of “straightforward” proposals for making voting easier. 

First on the list,  she said, is finally passing a bill that would allow election officials to begin processing absentee ballots on the Monday before an election. She also said that she understands a large majority of Democratic voters support some level of voter ID requirements, but that Wisconsin does not have to have the strictest ID law in the nation. To make voting less burdensome, she suggested helping college students get IDs for voting without so much “rigmarole.” Current law requires that student IDs used to vote have a signature, an expiration date and an issuance date, which many do not.

Also on Jacobs’ list are expanding the period for early in-person absentee voting again. Republicans limited it to just two weeks under former Gov. Scott Walker. She added that WEC should be able to provide grants to smaller communities without the manpower or money to pay to hold in-person early voting.

“There’s a lot of things we can do that would make voting better, that isn’t a huge lift, that we could do right away. I would love to see some of these things happen promptly,” she said. 

Mandell named some of the same priorities as Jacobs while also suggesting Democrats could take bolder action to make the state’s democracy stronger. 

“I think there’s a lot of room in this state and a lot of need in this state to strengthen our democracy and make it more robust, and some of that is about addressing limits and constraints that were improperly put on our democracy during the gerrymander period, and some of that is just updating and bringing new thinking and new ideas, and I think there’s room for both of those things,” he said. 

He said Democrats should advance a nonpartisan, independent system for drawing congressional and legislative maps — a proposal that is likely going to put elected Democrats squarely between their voters, who spent years fighting for fair maps against the Republican gerrymander, and the national Democratic party, which has been in a federal tit-for-tat with Republicans on a series of mid-decade redistricting efforts. 

Ahead of the election, Wisconsin Democrats’ potential trifecta control of both houses of the Legislature and the governor’s office was often brought up in national discussions of states where Democrats could draw new maps to eke out a few more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. 

Mandell noted that Law Forward’s lawsuit against the congressional maps is still pending at the state Supreme Court. He also suggested that the best way to enact a new map-drawing process is through a constitutional amendment, which would have to pass in two legislative sessions before going to voters. That means in order to be enacted by the time the current maps expire in 2030, that process needs to start now. 

“I do understand that there may well be pressure from D.C. and from others that maybe we should be careful to lock Wisconsin in on congressional maps,” Mandell said. “We’ve seen states around the country that have tried to walk away from some of their independent redistricting commitments in response to the White House’s unprecedented effort at mid-decade opportunistic redistricting in red states, and that’s something that’s at least worth considering.” 

 “But,” he added, “fundamentally gerrymandering is bad for voters, and that’s sort of the original sin of gerrymandering. It’s bad for voters. It undermines the value of the right to vote. So I’m not a political campaign consultant, and it’s harder for me to get into the details because I’m not as well steeped in them about the tit-for-tat of state here and state there. But you know we’re in this for voters, and gerrymandering is bad for voters. So I think we should stop gerrymandering.”

On Thursday, Sens. Kelda Roys (D-Madison) and Mark Spreitzer (D-Beloit) expressed a commitment to a fair maps process. 

“​​Having fair maps that make sure that the party that gets the most votes gets control is of the utmost importance to me, and I think to Wisconsinites, because we never want to be in a situation again where right-wing politicians essentially silence the voters and insulate themselves from any political consequence,” Roys told the Examiner. “Because we have seen how devastating that is for Wisconsin: The real harm that has been caused to our public education system, the way it’s caused our property taxes to skyrocket, the harm to farmers and small businesses. You know, it has been really devastating to have a Legislature that felt like it could do whatever it wanted, no matter how extreme and how opposed the majority of Wisconsinites were to what they were doing.”

Spreitzer echoed Mandell’s call for the maps to be handled through the constitutional amendment process and added that he hoped Tuesday’s landslide win for Democrats would discourage more mid-decade redistricting.

“The only way to get ourselves fully out of the equation is to amend the constitution, and the only way to keep a future Legislature of either party from changing it when they happen to find themselves in power after the census is to put it in the constitution,” he told the Examiner. “And we are in a position now where if we initiate a constitutional amendment this session and then hold our majorities in 2028, we could actually get a constitutional amendment on the ballot ahead of the 2030 census, and so that is going to be my goal to figure out how to do that.”

Mandell also said campaign finance reform should be a priority, pointing to the massive amounts of money that flowed into this year’s race for governor and recent campaigns for the state Supreme Court.

“When we have a governor’s race that just shattered all records, it feels like ordinary Wisconsinites are left out of this process, or left out in the sense of influence, but then sort of bear the consequences under the deluge of negative ads and mail that we all experience every election cycle,” he said. “And so I think it would be a good thing for the Legislature to take a really careful look and think about what kinds of campaign finance do we want in this state.”

Spreitzer and Roys said that voting and structural reforms are important, but with campaign promises on affordability to answer to and a state budget that will need to be passed, the timeline is up in the air. 

“Obviously, our first priority as Democrats is to restore faith in democracy by delivering for people on affordability and the economy,” Roys said. “I think that voters delivered a clear rejection of the Trump agenda, both the high costs, but also the corruption and assaults on democracy and authoritarianism. So I feel confident that my colleagues and I are going to be able to deliver for people on affordability and make a tangible difference in people’s lives and pocketbooks, and that’s going to be our very first priority to tackle in January.”

“At the same time,” she added. “I think voters are really hungry for a government that is actually responsive — and, I would say, puts what people need rather than special interests and big corporations first. So pro-democracy reforms are absolutely on the agenda. Everything from getting rid of the Walker and Vos era voter suppression laws, tackling corruption with campaign finance reform and good government measures, things that enhance the ability of people to influence their government, like national popular vote and voting rights measures, and things like fair maps.” 

Roys was the co-author of a 2023 bill that would add Wisconsin to the national popular vote interstate compact, an agreement among a number of states that have pledged to assign their Electoral College votes to the winner of the national popular vote. Since 2006, 19 states have signed on to the agreement, totaling 222 of the 270 Electoral College votes a candidate needs to win the presidency. 

On Tuesday, Democrats took trifecta control of state governments in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, and Nevada. If all five states vote to join, that pushes the agreement to 283 Electoral College votes. 

Roys said that on Wednesday she posted online asking constituents what they want her to start working on in the new session and “hundreds” of comments and direct messages were pushing for Wisconsin to join the agreement.  

Spreitzer, who has been one of the leading Democrats on voting issues during his time in both the Assembly and Senate, said that he thinks the Legislature can tackle “low-hanging fruit” such as the Monday processing bill early in the session and then return to the broader reforms next fall after the budget is signed.

“The two years goes very quick, and we’re going to have to do a lot,” Spreitzer said. “Obviously, that’s why we’ve been trying to prepare and get bills ready and have caucus conversations on a lot of these topics”

With so many new members, he added, it takes time to get everyone on the same page.  

“But I think if I had to guess,” he said, “some of the easier things that are already fully drafted, like Monday processing, we could probably do in the first 100 days …  and then some of the more complicated, more system change kinds of things probably get more attention in the fall, post budget.”

WASHINGTON — As the monumental midterm victories set in, Democrats began to talk strategy Wednesday on how to deliver what voters want: lower prices, attainable health care and an end to a stagnant and expensive conflict in the Middle East.

Starting in January, the party will control both chambers of Congress, giving them the upper hand over much of President Donald Trump’s agenda, including his judicial nominees, and the power to investigate the first two years of Trump’s second term, including his business ventures, war decisions and mass deportation campaign.

Democrats had gained 237 seats — well past the 218 needed — in the U.S. House as of Wednesday afternoon, according to The Associated Press, which also showed Democrats flipped 29 GOP House seats.

The party trounced conventional expectations in the Senate by flipping seven seats, giving Democrats and independents who caucus with them a total of 54 in the upper chamber, according to the AP, as of 4 p.m. Eastern.

Climbing inflation and record fuel prices followed Republicans on the campaign trail, fueling the groundswell for Democrats. Voters blamed Trump for higher prices in stores and at the pump as his war in Iran entered its ninth month, and as sweeping tariffs remained on imports.

Shawn Fain, leader of the United Auto Workers union, said “it’s not a massive win for anybody until these people go to work and deliver results.”

The union, which endorsed Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed in early June, has roughly 1 million active and retired members — 350,000 of them in Michigan alone, according to Fain.

El-Sayed won the Senate race in Michigan on Wednesday.

“I believe this election is a mandate for change, but it is up to the Democratic Party now to deliver. And if they don’t deliver, we’ll be the first ones to call them out on it,” Fain said.   

‘Legislative razor wire’

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said voters delivered “a generational remake of the Senate map that has huge consequences for history.”

The New York Democrat, who is poised to lead the upper chamber once again, told reporters Wednesday morning that Senate Democrats have three priorities: lower the cost of living, “clean up” corruption in government and “check on Trump’s chaos at home and abroad,” including the war with Iran.

“Whenever Trump defies the will of the American people or the law, we will launch investigations, take him to court, and entangle him in legislative razor wire,” Schumer said.

Giving brief answers to a barrage of questions, Schumer hinted that Democrats could end the war in Iran with the “power of the purse” and sidestepped a question about “nuking” the filibuster.

“I’ll have more to say in the coming days about how Democrats pulled off this victory, how our majority plans to deliver for the American people,“ Schumer said.

When asked if Senate Democrats will work with Trump, Schumer said, “We are going to work hard to drive costs down with the president or without him. Period.”

‘A dramatic change in direction’

House Democratic leaders celebrated the blue tsunami across the country while vowing to fight for an “affordable America” in the next Congress. 

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said “the American people have chosen House Democrats because they want to see a dramatic change in direction, and that’s exactly what House Democrats will deliver beginning on Day One,” during a press conference Wednesday afternoon. 

Jeffries got a step closer to becoming the next speaker of the House following Democrats’ dramatic win Tuesday night. If elected by a majority of House members, Jeffries would make history as the first Black person to hold the gavel. 

Jeffries was joined by Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Suzan DelBene of Washington state, House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, and the chair and vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus, Reps. Pete Aguilar and Ted Lieu, respectively, both from California. 

Meanwhile, the GOP’s mid-decade redistricting blitz to shore up several seats flopped Tuesday night following Democratic victories in several districts Republicans redrew. 

DelBene, who leads the Democratic Party’s campaign apparatus for House races, said “every single redistricted Frontliner will return to Congress,” using the committee’s term for its most endangered incumbents. 

“Simply put, their gerrymandering scheme absolutely backfired, and it should send a strong message to any Republican thinking of pursuing any more gerrymanders next year,” she said. 

Agenda items on tap

As Democrats plan to center their agenda on affordability, Lieu spelled out some of the party’s legislative priorities in the new Congress. 

For starters, Lieu said Democrats would pass a bill to reverse the GOP’s mega tax and spending cut law’s sweeping Medicaid cuts, which axe roughly $1 trillion in Medicaid spending over 10 years. 

He also said they would pass legislation to “restore” the enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits, which expired in December 2025 and were used by individuals who buy their own health insurance through the Affordable Care Act Marketplace. 

“We will pass a bill to stop the stupid Trump tariffs jacking up prices on Americans, and we will pass a bill to stop the Iran war,” the California Democrat added. 

Congressional Progressive Caucus

Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus touted victories in the wave election.

Rep. Greg Casar, a Texas Democrat who chairs the caucus, said the group’s roughly 100 members will work with Jeffries on “a mandate for dramatic change” but warned that he and colleagues want significant transformation.

“Last night was not a sign that all of Democrats’ problems are solved,” Casar said on a virtual call with reporters. “The election is not an endorsement of returning to the status quo or tinkering around the edges. This is a message that people in this country are mad as hell, and are giving Democrats a shot to show them we can do something about it.”

Democrat Will Lawrence, who defeated incumbent GOP Rep. Tom Barrett in Michigan’s 7th Congressional District, said Congress needs “to set our foreign policy straight.”

“A huge cause for regret among Trump voters in this district is because he said he wasn’t going to start any new wars, and look at what he got us into now in Iran. So we have a mandate to pass a war powers resolution to restrain further hostilities in Iran,” Lawrence said.

Lawrence co-founded the Sunrise Movement, a climate-focused political action group, and received backing from congressional progressives. 

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., said despite the momentous wins, the Democratic Party is still “not particularly popular.”

“I think we’ve got a shot to show that we can deliver on the kind of bold populist change that people ran on and won on,” Jayapal said. “And I think that is going to be our task going forward for the next two years.”

The blue wave that swept across Tuesday’s midterm election will deliver Democrats new power over state government, giving them the opportunity to advance long-sought policy changes.

Democrats flipped hundreds of seats, won control of several GOP-held chambers, broke veto-proof supermajorities and won a majority of governorships for the first time since 2010.

Democratic lawmakers from multiple states pledged to use their new statehouse power to attack rising prices, protect reproductive rights, pass new gun safety measures and grow the housing supply.

The changed landscape also gives state Democratic leaders more power to oppose the agenda of President Donald Trump, said Marc Farinella, senior advisor to the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy.

That may mean opposing Trump’s immigration enforcement efforts, Farinella said, or bolstering state funding of Medicaid and food stamps, both of which have faced significant federal cuts under Trump.

Legislating will prove much easier in states with newly won Democratic trifectas, where the party controls both chambers and the governor’s office. Those states include Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. But newly divided governments in other states — Iowa, Ohio, Georgia, Texas — could result in gridlock.

Following the midterms, state legislatures will see their biggest leadership shakeup in years, as the National Conference of State Legislatures expects nearly half of state chambers to have new leaders next session.

“None of us have ever been in a majority, so it’s a big learning curve,” said Arizona state Rep. Nancy Gutierrez, assistant House minority leader. She said Democrats, who will control Phoenix for the first time in 60 years, are connecting with their counterparts from other states, such as Colorado, that have swung from red to blue.

The Pennsylvania state Senate flipped to Democratic control for the first time since 1978, handing the party a resounding trifecta after Gov. Josh Shapiro sailed to reelection.

Already, Shapiro and Democratic state lawmakers have pledged to revive a slew of policies that had previously passed the state House but died in the Republican-controlled Senate. Those include raising the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour, codifying abortion rights, passing a law to allow survivors of sexual abuse to sue their abusers and increasing funding for mass transit.

“I think here in Pennsylvania we made very, very clear at the state level and the federal level that we are rejecting Donald Trump’s policies and we want to see costs come down,” Shapiro said Wednesday. “And now you’ve got an opportunity to see that happen in Harrisburg and in Washington.”

At the same time, Farinella said, this week’s “historically forceful rebuke of Trump and his agenda” will prompt an as yet undetermined response from Republicans. After a decade of near-total control by Trump and the MAGA movement, the decisive GOP losses could free some Republicans to return to more centrist policies, he said.

“To me, it’s the big outstanding question coming out of the election,” Farinella said. “How will the congressional Republicans and how will the Republicans in state legislatures now feel about the latitude they have or don’t have in terms of their own policy preferences?”

Progress or gridlock?

In New Hampshire, Democrats pulled off a stunning upset, flipping control of both the state House and Senate.

Though Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte won reelection, Democrats appear to have secured veto-proof supermajorities.

Democratic state Rep. Christal Lloyd said she plans to focus on addressing federal cuts to Medicaid through state funding and address education funding to help alleviate growing local property tax burdens. But she said Democrats won’t just rush to push through progressive bills.

“We want to make lasting changes, positive changes, and we want to write good legislation that helps our constituents and helps their lives,” Lloyd told Stateline. “And it’s up to us to live up to the trust that the voters put in our hands.”

While the governor won her race, her power will be greatly diminished by legislative supermajorities.

“If she tries to veto anything, we’ve got the supermajority,” Lloyd said. “But that’s not to say we won’t work with the other side. We’re going to negotiate where possible.”

Democrats will also wield new power in Concord after winning total control of the state executive committee, a unique-to-New-Hampshire body that serves as a check on the governor, approving or rejecting state contracts and vetting gubernatorial nominees.

That body has pledged to immediately focus on funding Planned Parenthood and holding the scandal-ridden state Supreme Court accountable.

“There is no rubber stamp for the governor,” said state Rep. Luz Bay, a Democrat newly elected to the council.

In other states, the new legislative mix may produce gridlock.

In North Carolina, Democrats already controlled the governor’s office and on Tuesday night they flipped control of the state House, though Republicans held onto the state Senate with a two-seat margin. It’s possible some Republican senators will join Democrats to approve legislation, said Chris Cooper, a professor of political science and public affairs at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina.

But he wouldn’t count on it.

“I think the greater possibility really is that we see very little, that we just see stalemate coming out of Raleigh and if you’re a Republican, maybe that’s not so bad,” Cooper told NC Newsline on Wednesday.

The GOP has already ticked off many of the items on its legislative wish list since gaining power in 2011, he said. And Democratic Gov. Josh Stein has seen a dozen of his vetoes overridden by the GOP-controlled legislature.

“If less happens in Raleigh and you’re a conservative Republican, I’m not sure you’re that upset about that,” Cooper said. “It’s the Democrats who still wouldn’t be able to act.”

In Texas, where Democrats hadn’t won a statewide office since 1994, they swept all statewide offices and flipped control of the state House. Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa has pledged to declare a “high-cost emergency” in Texas and to issue executive orders to suspend the state gas and diesel taxes and to freeze electricity rates.

But Senate Republicans, who held the upper chamber Tuesday, have promised to oppose her.

“Texas stands as long as the Texas Senate Republican caucus holds the line,” Republican state Sen. Charles Schwertner posted on X Tuesday night. “We will.”

Focusing on pocketbooks

In Arizona, Democratic lawmakers say they’re focused squarely on affordability.

“In Arizona, lots of people have lost their SNAP (food stamp) benefits, and lots of people are having a really hard time affording their rent and their mortgages,” said Gutierrez.

She said her caucus will aim to ban grocery stores from using dynamic pricing to gouge consumers; control rent hikes; and try to make homes more affordable by placing restrictions on corporate property purchases, which can drive up prices. Arizona Democrats also want to constrain a state program that allows K-12 students to receive public funding to pay for private school tuition.

In Missouri, Republicans are questioning their legislative agenda after losing 16 House seats in their worst performance since the Watergate scandal. The GOP maintained its majority but lost its supermajority status.

“We’re in a total reassessment,” Rep. Darin Chappell, who was selected as the House majority leader, told The Missouri Independent. 

Other Republican lawmakers said they needed to focus more on voters’ affordability priorities and less on legislative pet projects. “People have been speaking loud and clear that they want us to focus on issues that affect their pocketbooks,” said state Rep. Israel Baeza, a Republican.

Major Republican losses in Utah deprived the GOP of a legislative supermajority for the first time since 1993. While Republicans maintain total control of state government, this week’s “blue tsunami” could cause leadership shakeups and reshape policy priorities, the Utah News Dispatch reported.

Democratic state lawmakers must act quickly to capitalize on their momentum, said Gaby Goldstein, the founder and president of State Futures, a nonprofit that coordinates hundreds of Democratic lawmakers across the states.

She said states have the ability to immediately alleviate affordability pressures by bringing down the costs of prescription drugs, erasing medical debt and addressing labor issues such as minimum wages.

“These are policies that have a big, immediate impact on people’s lives, and can tell that broader story about why people’s lives are different when Democrats are in power,” she said.

After winning control of both chambers of Congress, Democrats are poised to launch investigations and increase oversight of the Trump administration. But Goldstein said state Democrats must deliver on the affordability promises they made to get into power.

“It needs to result in people’s lives feeling appreciably better if Democrats want to hold on to power in ‘28,” she said. “At the federal level, the story has to roll up from what Democrats have done at the state level because oversight hearings are going to feel good, but they’re not putting any money in your pocket.”

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org. Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@stateline.org. 

Alabama Republicans had hoped Rep. Shomari Figures would deliver a concession speech on Tuesday night after the state legislature redrew his district to be more GOP-friendly. 

Instead, the Democrat declared victory — winning nearly 54% of the vote.

“We know what happened with this district,” Figures told supporters as he invoked the Republican gerrymander. “But we had a job to do. And so we put our hands to the plow and we did not look backwards.”

The Republican project to gerrymander congressional districts across the country, initiated by President Donald Trump more than a year ago, failed to deliver significant wins for the party — and, in North Carolina at least, even worked against it. Amid a nationwide blue tsunami and voter backlash in Southern states that split apart districts where a majority of residents are Black, Democrats won seats that Republicans redrew to give themselves an advantage.

States typically draw new maps every 10 years after the census. But Trump’s redistricting push, which kicked off in Texas in the summer of 2025, triggered a nationwide rush as Republican and Democratic states battled to set the electoral landscape ahead of this week’s midterms.

A late April decision from the U.S. Supreme Court set off another round of gerrymanders. The court sharply curtailed federal protections against racial gerrymandering, clearing the way for Southern states to break apart majority-Black districts that often elect Democrats.

Republicans had once hoped mid-decade redistricting would create a buffer against the losses the president’s party traditionally suffers in midterm elections. Perhaps, the thinking among Republicans went in 2025, the party could even maintain a narrow majority with the help of the gerrymandered districts.

It didn’t turn out that way, as the GOP’s effort proved woefully insufficient against the strength of the Democratic vote. 

As of Thursday afternoon, Democrats had won 247 House seats, far above the 218 needed for a majority, while Republicans had won 153, according to The Associated Press. Thirty-five races had yet to be called.

“Let this be a lesson: never capitulate, never acquiesce to those who would use power for improper purposes,” Eric Holder, a former U.S. attorney general under President Barack Obama and the chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said in a statement.

Gains were expected

New Republican maps could have netted the party as many as 15 seats, according to estimates from the nonpartisan Cook Political Report with Amy Walter. GOP-controlled state legislatures advanced news maps in Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina and Tennessee, in addition to Alabama and Texas.

In response, Democrats successfully gerrymandered a single state, California, where the party picked up five seats it had targeted. Voters approved a Democratic gerrymander in Virginia, but the state Supreme Court struck down the measure. A state court also imposed a Democratic-leaning district in Utah.

In states where Republicans targeted Democratic seats for gerrymandering, the party made no net gains, according to a Wednesday memo from the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. 

“This is close to an extinction-level event for Republicans in many parts of the country,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said at a news conference Wednesday as he broadly described his party’s losses.

GOP efforts fail

DeSantis signed a new Florida map aimed at securing four new GOP seats into law in May. Democrats now appear likely to retain all four.

The redistricting failure was starkest in North Carolina, where Republicans are on track to lose six seats. 

In the state’s 1st Congressional District, Democratic Rep. Don Davis won reelection Tuesday with just over 50% of the vote, overcoming a GOP gerrymander in what was the most expensive U.S. House race in history.

In Rocky Mount, a city of about 55,000 in North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, Letrice Felton voted for the first time on Tuesday. The 50-year-old said she cast a ballot because of rising costs and poverty within the city. More than 60% of the city’s residents are Black and roughly 1 in 5 residents live in poverty, nearly double the national rate.

“To see people out in Rocky Mount, walking with beds of carts, with clothes and stuff,” Felton said. “It’s very sad. And they need help, and it’s like, there’s no resources here for it.”

Jislem Rodriguez, 18, voted for the first time Tuesday at Edgecombe Community College in Rocky Mount. Rodriguez said she is concerned about the economy.

“Money isn’t really lasting like it used to,” she said. 

In Texas, state lawmakers sought to secure five additional seats for Republicans. The party instead flipped only a single newly gerrymandered district and suffered a net loss of one seat.

When Republicans redrew most of the targeted districts, they assumed Latino voters would continue backing GOP candidates, Brandon Rottinghaus, a professor of political science at the University of Houston, said in an interview.

A significant share of Latino voters instead cast ballots for Democrats. Nineteen percent of Latino voters in Texas who said they voted for Trump in 2024 voted for Gina Hinojosa, the Democratic candidate for governor, in 2026, according to CNN voter polls (poll results weren’t available for specific House races).

“On paper, these districts are still Republican but the trend has been in general toward the Republicans and the Latino vote — which these are premised on — has shifted back to the Democrats,” Rottinghaus said.

Black voter backlash

The NAACP reported strong turnout among Black voters on Tuesday. Eighty-one percent of Black voters supported Democrats in the election, up from 70% in 2024 and 73% in 2022, according to exit poll data analyzed by NPR.

Janai Nelson, president and director-counsel of the Legal Defense Fund, a legal advocacy group focused on racial justice, said in a statement that Black turnout was especially pronounced in states that redrew maps following the Supreme Court’s decision on racial gerrymandering — Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Tennessee.

In the case, Louisiana v. Callais, the court’s conservative majority significantly limited the consideration of race when drawing legislative maps. Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act had previously limited states from using maps that diluted the voting power of minority citizens.

“Black and brown voters made a statement last night,” Nelson said. “Despite relentless attempts to silence their voices and stifle their power, voters of color turned out in extraordinary numbers.”

For example, Alabama voter turnout was nearly 44%, up from nearly 39% in 2022. In Montgomery County, part of Figures’ gerrymandered district, turnout among Democratic voters rose 39% over 2022.

“I’m at a loss for words, because we had the deck stacked against us,” Figures said during his victory speech.

Future maps?

The prospects of additional gerrymanders before the 2028 election are mixed.

Maryland voters approved a measure that would ease the way for the blue state to pass a Democratic gerrymander. Democratic Gov. Wes Moore said Wednesday that he wants new maps after the redistricting measure, called Question 3, passed with 60% of the vote.

“Donald Trump is not done. He has already been very clear about his intention to go after additional states,” Moore told reporters Wednesday.

The White House didn’t respond to questions about Trump’s support for future GOP redistricting efforts.

At least some Republicans have expressed reservations about pursuing new maps after such a sharp rebuke by voters. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, announced Wednesday that he wouldn’t call the state legislature into special session to pass new maps before the Democratic governor-elect, Keisha Lance Bottoms, takes office in January.

Kemp had previously called a special session earlier this year, but lawmakers opted not to advance redistricting legislation.

“The voters of our state have spoken,” Kemp said in a statement.

Gerrymandering critics have called for a national ban on the practice — or at the very least, a ban on the mid-decade redraws.

Common Cause, a nonpartisan watchdog that opposes gerrymandering, said the failure of Trump’s redistricting push sets the stage for federal reform.

“At the end of the day, the American people this time around, they rejected the attempts to rig the midterms through gerrymandering,” Common Cause president and CEO Virginia Kase Solomón told reporters on Wednesday.

In Missouri, voters rejected a gerrymander passed by the GOP-controlled state legislature — called the Missouri First map — that targeted a seat in Kansas City held by longtime Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver. 

The measure failed resoundingly, 62% to 38%. The map wasn’t in effect for the 2026 election because of a state Supreme Court decision, but voter approval would have implemented it for the 2028 election.

“In the future, I hope that the people of Missouri will be served by a Congressional map like the Missouri First map that better represents our state,” Rick Brattin, Cleaver’s Republican opponent, said in a statement that attacked the Missouri Supreme Court for issuing a decision “to benefit Democrats” by blocking the map.

Cleaver, who won reelection with 69% of the vote, said in his own statement that his campaign overcame major hurdles, including the gerrymandered map, which was in place for the primary election and part of the general election.

“As I’ve always said from the beginning,” Cleaver said, “the will of the people always prevails in the end.”

Stateline’s Elisha Brown contributed reporting.

WASHINGTON — Winners of more than a dozen congressional and gubernatorial races have broken longstanding barriers of race, gender and sexuality. 

The results set records for the most Black governors and most women governors, and the first Black woman governor, Georgia’s Keisha Lance Bottoms.

Democrats, who flipped the U.S. House and Senate, had more historic firsts, though Rep. Byron Donalds will become the first elected Black Republican governor in the country after winning his race in Florida. 

Nevada and Wisconsin also elected their first Black governors. 

Seventeen women will serve as governor in 2027, breaking the previous record of 14 in 2025, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. 

That includes Democrat Deb Haaland, a member of the Pueblo of Laguna who made history in 2021 as the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary. Haaland won her race in New Mexico, making her the first Indigenous woman to be elected governor in the U.S.  

And three Democratic senators-elect will make history once they are sworn in for the 120th Congress in January. 

In New Hampshire, Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas will be the first openly gay elected senator. Michigan elected the first Muslim senator, Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, and Minnesota voters made Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan the first Native American woman senator, who could be joined by Alaska Democratic candidate Mary Peltola, an Alaska Native whose Senate race was too close to call Wednesday. 

Another tight Senate race is in Mississippi, where Democratic candidate Scott Colom could become the first Black senator from the state since the Reconstruction era if he defeats GOP incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith.

Race-based caucuses expand

Tuesday’s historic wins also means growth for certain caucuses aligned with Democrats. 

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus will grow to more than 50 members from 44. Six incoming members of the all-Democratic caucus flipped Republican-held seats in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada and Texas.

The Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus will gain at least four new members, growing to the largest size in its history at 22 members, Rep. Grace Meng, chair of the caucus said in a statement.

A House race in Arizona that has not been called would give the caucus 23 members if Democratic candidate Amish Shah wins.

“Last night’s election was a resounding repudiation of President Trump and his failed policies that put the safety, security, and civil rights of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders at risk,” Meng said. 

Record-setting women

Following Tuesday’s election, Democrats will control 28 governorships compared to 20 for Republicans, with two results still unknown. 

Several will be their states’ first elected women governors.

“This was an impressive result for women in American politics, with women setting records and breaking significant barriers around the nation,” the Center for American Women and Politics Director Debbie Walsh said in a statement. “I’m particularly encouraged to see an increase in the number of women governors.” 

In Minnesota, Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar will become the state’s first woman governor. 

As part of a Democratic sweep of Texas, the Lone Star State elected its first Latina governor, Gina Hinojosa, who ousted Republican Gov. Greg Abbott seeking his fourth term.

And in Ohio, Dr. Amy Acton will become the Buckeye State’s first woman and first Jewish governor. 

Acton, who served as Ohio’s health director, defeated her Republican challenger Vivek Ramaswamy, who in the closing weeks of the campaign stood by a political ad featuring Acton’s estranged mother calling her daughter a liar. Acton was removed from her mother’s custody after her stepfather was indicted for sexually abusing her as a child.  

Black governors

Five Black governors won their races on Election Day, setting a record for the most Black governors in office at once. 

Bottoms, Georgia’s first Democratic governor since 1998, will be the first Black person and first woman governor of Georgia.  

In Wisconsin, voters elected their first Black governor, David Crowley, a former county executive who billed himself as a centrist Democrat.

And in Nevada, Aaron Ford, a Democrat and the state’s attorney general, ousted Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo. 

Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore easily won his reelection bid. 

WASHINGTON — Democratic leaders in Congress have just a couple months to decide how they want to balance investigations into President Donald Trump and his administration with securing his signature on major bills to address the cost of living, a top concern for voters.

While Democrats gained control of the House and Senate in this year’s midterm elections, the party won’t hold veto-proof margins when the new session of Congress begins in early January. That will require congressional leaders and the president to find compromise on legislation.

Failure to do so would block any bills that could improve the lives of Americans from becoming law and potentially lead to more shutdowns, since Congress must fund the government every year. 

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who will very likely become speaker in January, and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, will set the tone for that relationship, though committee chairs will play a significant role as well.

Trump said during an impromptu press conference Wednesday in the construction zone for his White House ballroom that he will “get along, probably, with the Democrats unless they want to be destructive. But I have the power of the veto.”

Trump said he wasn’t concerned about Democrats potentially trying to impeach him for a third time. 

“I think it would destroy the Democrat Party if they did that,” he said. 

‘Trump’s supplicant Senate’

Schumer said earlier in the morning his top priorities will be to address the rising cost of living, to “clean up corruption in government” and act as a check on “Trump’s chaos at home and abroad.”

“This war must end,” he said. “And make no mistake, whenever Trump defies the will of the American people or the law, we will launch investigations, take him to court and entangle him in legislative razor wire. The days of Trump’s supplicant Senate are over.”

Trump said during his press conference that the war in Iran will continue until “whenever” he wants to end it.

Schumer said he’d share more details in the weeks ahead about what the Democratic majority will do come January, but added he hadn’t yet spoken to the president about how the two separate but equal branches of government might work together. 

Democrats, he said, will use must-pass government funding bills to place guardrails on the administration and the war in Iran, though he didn’t say how he’d get the president to sign those bills. 

“We are going to end the war,” he said. “We have some Republicans already who have joined us in ending the war and the founding fathers had the power of the purse as one of the ways of deterring a president who does war without the consent of the American people.”

Schumer sidestepped a question about whether he would try to eliminate the legislative filibuster, which has forced bipartisanship in that chamber for decades. The rule requires at least 60 senators vote to advance a bill before it can move onto final passage.  

“The first thing we’re going to do is reduce people’s costs and work the legislative process so it does,” he said in response to the reporter’s question. 

Schumer also declined to say directly whether Democrats will seek to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a process that would start in the House. 

“Everyone will make their own interpretation of what it meant in terms of Hegseth,” he said, responding to a question about the election results. 

Schumer intends to seek the role of majority leader, according to his office. No Democrats have announced they plan to challenge him, making the race unopposed. 

Medicaid cuts targeted

Jeffries said during an afternoon press conference that Democrats “are ready, willing and able to find bipartisan common ground with the other side of the aisle as long as we can bring about meaningful change on the issues that matter. And that begins with decisively addressing the affordability crisis.”

But he also made clear House Democrats’ to-do list will begin with reversing changes and cuts to Medicaid, the state-federal health program for lower-income people, that Republicans included in their “big, beautiful” bill, as well as restoring the enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits that lapsed at the end of last year. 

Jeffries did seem to brush aside the possibility of impeaching Trump or Hegseth, responding to questions by asking if Hegseth was actually still around.

“I haven’t had a single member of the House Democratic Caucus talk to me about impeachment,” he said. “We’ve been relentlessly focused on affordability and on accountability because the House is a separate and co-equal branch of government.”

House Democrats are likely to reverse Republicans’ “hands off” approach to artificial intelligence and data centers with their majority. 

California Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu said during the same press conference that it was a “bad decision” for Republicans to “let the AI industry run wild.”

“Two things will change next term,” he said. “We will hold public hearings on AI. We will pass legislation, reasonable guardrails on AI, and specifically data centers. You see huge pushback from the American people for the out-of-control AI industry.”

Republican leadership battle ahead

Republican leaders will play a role in brokering deals with Democrats, though Senate GOP lawmakers will have more influence than their House counterparts. 

House Democrats will be able to pass most legislation with a simple majority vote. But in the Senate, Democratic leaders will still need to garner some level of bipartisan support to advance bills unless they eliminate the procedural step that requires at least 60 senators to vote to move toward final passage. 

Senate Republican Leader John Thune, R-S.D., plans to run for another term heading up his party in that chamber, though this time as minority leader, according to a spokesperson. 

Thune, first elected to the Senate in 2004, rose through the ranks of Senate GOP leadership before taking over as majority leader this Congress. That gives him two years of experience negotiating floor schedules and amendment debate with Schumer. 

In the House, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., plans to step down from leadership rather than try to stay in the top spot, which will be minority leader for the GOP next year, according to a spokesperson. 

Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, currently the majority leader, and Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, are both running for that role. 

An individual familiar with Scalise’s plans told States Newsroom his “number one goal will be to lead the conference back into the majority. He is a proven and tested leader who is ready on day one. He’s spent his career unifying Republicans, and he is prepared for the big legislative and oversight battles ahead. The conference knows him, how he fights, and that he’s a trusted leader.”

Jordan wrote in a letter to his fellow House Republicans that the party “must learn” from the results of this year’s election as it looks forward. 

“I am battle-tested on the oversight front and I know the Democrats’ playbook. I know what it will take to lead our Conference in the minority, to stay unified, and to coordinate and calibrate our response to the Democrats’ tactics,” he wrote.” We need a Leadership team that is active and engaged, forward-thinking and straight-shooting.”

Scalise has been a member of the House since May 2008 and a member of House GOP leadership since 2013, first as whip then as leader. 

Jordan was first sworn in as a member in January 2007. He became chairman of the Judiciary Committee four years ago.

Trump said he planned to “stay out” of that race and that he didn’t ask Johnson to step aside as the leader of House Republicans. 

Those elections are expected in mid-November. Whoever House Republicans elect will set the tone for when to negotiate legislation with Democrats and when to try to block bills from passing that chamber. 

Democrats seized more power over state governments than the party has had in years after the party swept races up and down the ballot in Tuesday’s midterm elections.

Republicans have held a majority of state legislatures and governorships since 2010. But that reign appears over as Democrats swept a majority of governorships and state legislative chambers.

Tracking from the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee on Wednesday showed the party had flipped 12 chambers so far, winning the most chambers since 2008 and putting Democrats in control of more than half the nation’s state legislative chambers.

“With this sweep, Democrats have achieved their best performance since the Watergate scandal,” the committee, which works to elect Democrats at the state level, said in a news release Wednesday.

Unofficial results show Democrats will control the Arizona legislature for the first time in 60 years. Building off a historic sweep of statewide races, Democrats are poised to take control of the Texas House for the first time in over 20 years. In North Carolina, Democrats flipped several House seats held by influential, veteran Republicans to give the party control of the lower chamber for the first time since 2010.

“We have the power to make this state better,” state Rep. Robert Reives, who was introduced as the next House speaker, said Tuesday night.

Many legislative races had yet to be called by midday Wednesday. But the National Conference of State Legislatures said current results showed Democrats would secure new trifectas – control of both chambers and the governor’s office – in Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Democrats also broke Republican trifectas in Georgia, Iowa, Ohio and Texas.

Additionally, Democratic wins crushed GOP supermajorities in several states. In Florida, the loss of the Republican supermajority takes away the party’s power to override rules regarding procedure and debate and override the governor’s veto.

Democratic gains also ended supermajorities in the Indiana state House, the Kansas House, both of Missouri’s legislative chambers, the Ohio House, and the South Carolina House.

In a statement on Wednesday, the Republican State Leadership Committee, which works to elect Republicans at the state level, cited an “historically difficult political environment” facing the party.

“Democrats made state legislative races a national priority, pouring unprecedented resources into these contests because they understand the power state legislatures hold in shaping policy and building the pipeline for the next generation of leaders,” President Edith Jorge-Tuñón said in the statement. “In many key battleground states, the national political environment and the impact of top-of-the-ticket races significantly affected our candidates’ ability to defy historical trends.”

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org.

Ahead of the midterms, Democrats wargamed dozens of scenarios looking at how President Donald Trump might try to undermine the election, everything from seizing voting machines to falsely declaring a foreign attack.

But when the blue tsunami arrived Tuesday night, Trump seemed to let it wash right over him.

In a series of late-night interviews, the president said he would accept the results. He acknowledged that Democrats had performed well as they retook the House and Senate. And while he refused responsibility for Republicans’ newfound misfortune, he also spoke of cutting deals with Democrats.

“Yes, I’ll accept them,” Trump said on Fox News when asked about the results. He added a short time later, “Congratulations to the Democrats, they did a good job.”

The comments marked a stunning departure for a mercurial president with a long history of alleging elections were stolen in response to unfavorable results. 

They also stood out because this year’s midterms were his first election while in office since 2020, when he led a campaign to overturn his loss that helped spur the mob that sacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“My first thought was, ‘Well, I’m glad that’s on tape,’” Pamela Smith, president and CEO of the election security nonprofit Verified Voting, said in an interview.

Fears of federal interference

Election officials spent months planning for the possibility of federal election interference on Election Day. After the FBI seized ballots from the 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia, in January, state and local leaders across the country weighed how they would respond if the Trump administration tried to take their ballots or voting equipment. 

They mapped out what poll workers would do if federal agents showed up at the polls. Some states even passed new limits on federal law enforcement and military servicemembers at the polls, even though federal law already prohibits armed personnel at election sites.

“There have been so many different kinds of threats and it’s just been so far to get to this day, far too hard for the election officials,” Smith said Wednesday.

None of those extreme scenarios came to pass on Election Day. Instead, Democrats won resounding victories up and down the ballot.

As of midday Wednesday, Democrats had secured 54 Senate seats, according to The Associated Press. Democrats had also won at least 228 seats in the House, well above the 218 necessary to control the chamber. 

The not-close race for control of Congress and a high voter turnout “made it impossible to challenge these results,” David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research, told reporters.

Trump blamed the loss on his absence from the ballot, even though he had exhorted Americans to vote as if he were on the ballot. Vice President JD Vance blamed the war with Iran. 

“The main problem is that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026,” Vance wrote on social media.

Both men sought to explain Republicans’ deep losses — not claim that they didn’t happen. 

Ballot fight consumed officials

But despite Trump’s pledge to accept the results, voting rights advocates said the Trump administration very much attempted to interfere ahead of Election Day and influence how states ran their elections.

The U.S. Department of Justice sued California over the ballots of 20,000 suspected noncitizens and Alaska over alleged voter confusion in the U.S. Senate race. 

California election officials had warned the Justice Department’s demand would have thrown the election into chaos and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the request Monday. Meanwhile, a federal judge tossed the Alaska lawsuit on Sunday.

Justice Department lawyers raised the possibility that election officials could be prosecuted if they counted the ballots of noncitizens or if they failed to follow federal recordkeeping laws. They issued subpoenas to election workers in Los Angeles County, demanding records that suggest prosecutors are examining whether election officials were “aiding and abetting” noncitizen voters.

The DOJ also sued dozens of states for unredacted copies of their voter rolls containing sensitive personal data. Federal judges have rejected those lawsuits in at least 27 decisions so far, and the Trump administration has won none of its cases.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security ran election-related field operations that federal judges found could intimidate voters. The department also launched a powerful computer program to identify possible noncitizen voters, but Democrats and election experts said its results were unreliable and prone to falsely flagging U.S. citizens.

More broadly, Trump urged GOP state lawmakers across the country to redraw their congressional maps to be more favorable to Republicans — a process that accelerated after the Supreme Court weakened limits on racial gerrymandering. But in Alabama, North Carolina, Texas and elsewhere, the new maps did little to shield GOP candidates.

Earlier this year, Trump also pushed the U.S. Postal Service to impose restrictions on mail ballots, a move blocked by the Supreme Court. And he unsuccessfully demanded Congress pass the SAVE America Act, which would have immediately imposed stringent rules requiring voters to prove their citizenship, leaving states with no time to prepare.

“Despite unprecedented executive branch efforts to interfere in election administration, state and local officials responsible for running our elections have continued to do their jobs and uphold the process,” Michael McNulty, senior policy director at Issue One, a group focused on protecting American democracy, said in a statement.

Some legal wrangling continues

Trump’s admission of defeat may not fully end his administration’s pressure campaign over elections.

Late on Election Day, the Justice Department secured a rare court victory when the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a decision by a three-judge panel removing limitations on the Trump administration threatening election workers with prosecution. 

The decision came after a federal judge in California last week issued an order prohibiting the DOJ from threatening election officials with criminal charges if they didn’t comply with demands related to setting aside the ballots of alleged noncitizen voters.

“We will conduct our criminal investigations without fear or favor,” Bill Essayli, first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, wrote on social media Tuesday.

The Justice Department’s lawsuit seeking to require California to set aside the ballots of 20,000 suspected noncitizens also remains unresolved. Even though the Supreme Court declined an emergency request by the DOJ, a federal judge has scheduled a hearing on Nov. 13 to examine the list that could include witness testimony.

The consequences of any ruling now aren’t clear. California’s ballots are currently being counted, meaning it would be effectively impossible now to identify whether a ballot came from a suspected noncitizen. The hearing will take place several weeks before election officials must certify results, however.

The hearing could reveal new information about how the Trump administration developed the list. The DOJ has said Homeland Security compiled it based on a public copy of California’s voter roll that was checked against government records and data from the Lexis Nexis research service. 

California election officials have said they’ve found evidence that U.S. citizens are on the list, and in a court hearing on Monday, a Justice Department attorney acknowledged it has a “high error rate.”

Jonathan Miller, chief program officer of Public Rights Project, which represents Los Angeles County in the lawsuit, in a statement framed the dispute in simple terms.

“State and local officials run our elections — and the federal government cannot interfere,” Miller said.

The fingerpointing is coming from inside the house.

Vice President JD Vance said in a lengthy social media post Wednesday that Republicans’ shellacking in the midterm elections the night before was mainly due to the administration’s war in Iran.

Though Vance sought to soften the blow to President Donald Trump by ascribing the same opinion to the president, the post was an unusual public distancing by a sitting vice president and marked a significant first step in a post-Trump Republican political landscape that Vance will likely seek to lead.

“The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night,” Vance wrote. “If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that’s at least honest.

“But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.”

Vance served as a U.S. Marine in Iraq and later heavily criticized that Middle East war, calling it “an unforced disaster,” in a 2023 social media post.

‘Largely true’

Speaking to reporters Wednesday afternoon, Trump said Vance’s view was mostly correct.

“I think it’s largely true because it drove the gasoline up a little bit short term,” he said when asked about Vance’s post. “Probably it’s true. But at the same time, if I had to do it again, I’d have to do it again because long term, it’s the only answer. You can’t let Iran have a nuclear” weapon.

“I know how he feels about it,” he said later. “I thought it was fine.”

He repeated that he’d expected the war to have a negative effect on the midterms, but that it was worth pursuing.

Trump launched military operations in Iran in February, despite no apparent active threat from the Islamic republic. He promised the conflict would soon end, but when polls closed Tuesday night, it was still active and Iran maintained a block of the critical shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz that has squeezed the global supply of oil.

2028 message?

Vance is seen as a frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination in 2028, but Tuesday’s drubbing, in which Republicans lost Senate seats and governorships in states Trump and Vance carried by double digits in 2024 and ceded a large House majority to Democrats, could demonstrate a need to distance himself from Trump to stand a chance in the general election. 

In his post, Vance noted that Republicans’ problem on Tuesday was not turnout, but that many voters who supported the Republican ticket in 2024 flipped to Democrats this year.

He said those voters identified four issues that drove their switch: end the war, focus on the cost of living, “Put America First” and change the United States’ “relationship to Israel.”

“Our voters showed up,” he wrote. “And the above four reasons are why many of them voted for Democrats.”

Vance also predicted calls would come for significant changes to immigration policy after some analysts said that an aggressive — sometimes deadly — enforcement campaign led to backlash among some Trump 2024 voters.

Vance rejected any major overhaul, while again signaling some daylight between himself and Trump on the administration’s signature issue.

“Expect to hear any number of establishment politicians say the solution to our woes is amnesty,” he said. “I’m open to the idea that we should change enforcement—by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labor, for instance. But anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you.”

In local elections across the country, Americans voted overwhelmingly to restrict the buildout of data centers in their communities.

As of Friday, 44 ballot measures to restrict data centers were passed by voters and two held significant leads in ongoing vote counts, according to the tracking website Data Centers on the Ballot.

The measures included outright prohibitions, temporary moratoriums, limitations on energy use, mandating voter approval before construction and advisory measures urging local officials to restrict data centers.

Only one measure, in North Dakota, resulted in a victory for voters who supported the construction of data centers.

The national backlash to data centers has become a major political issue. Residents in Republican and Democratic cities alike have pushed back on tech companies’ plans to aggressively build data centers to power their artificial intelligence platforms. Local and national activists have raised concerns about energy costs, pollution, water use, noise and conversion of farmland and other open spaces.

According to an NBC exit poll, 56% of voters said AI and data centers played a “crucial or major factor” in their vote for Congress.

In some communities, including 21 municipalities in Ohio, residents turned to local ballot measures or referendums in an effort to block the construction of proposed data centers. In nearly every result so far, voters overwhelmingly backed new restrictions or declined to approve measures that affirmed the buildout of such facilities.

Conserve Ohio, a campaign seeking to block data center development, worked with leaders in many of those communities to help draft ballot language.

“It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen, people coming together across communities, putting partisan differences aside and uniting (to oppose data centers),” Nick Owens, an attorney with the group, told Stateline last month.

A poll published by UMass Amherst earlier this year found that only 11% of Americans would support the construction of an AI data center in their community.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect more recent vote totals. Stateline reporter Alex Brown can be reached at abrown@stateline.org

Democrats have won the majority of governor’s offices for the first time in 16 years after the GOP racked up major losses across the country.

Democrats flipped governorships in Georgia, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio and Texas and defended competitive races in Maine, Michigan and Wisconsin, according to unofficial results from The Associated Press and Decision Desk HQ.

As of 10 a.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, Democrats were set to hold 28 governor’s offices compared with Republicans’ 20. Races in Alaska and Kansas have not yet been called.

In a historic night, voters elected a record number of four Black governors, including the first Black woman and first Black Republican ever elected governor.

Midterms are always tough for the party that holds the White House, but high prices and growing disapproval of President Donald Trump delivered even stronger than expected results for Democrats Tuesday.

“It’s a blue wave that was bigger than anyone had expected, and it’s having consequences across the country, including here in Texas,” said Mark Jones, a political science professor at Rice University in Houston. “Overall, Donald Trump has single-handedly turned many red states blue — or at least purple.”

By late Tuesday, Democrats had won races for attorney general and lieutenant governor for the first time in decades and flipped the Texas House.

“One of the real questions will be what do Democrats do with this power, and will they be able to retain it,” he said. “This has effectively opened a door for Democrats across the country.”

Gubernatorial races proved historic for both Democrats and Republicans on Tuesday with the election of the nation’s first Black woman governor and the first Black Republican governor.

But the Democratic party made major gains coast to coast, particularly in reliably conservative states, that could reshape state policy for years to come.

In Iowa, the election of Democrat Rob Sand ends more than a decade of Republican control of the legislature and the governor’s office.

In Ohio, Democrat Dr. Amy Acton’s win marks the first time in 20 years that Ohio voters have selected a Democrat to lead the Buckeye State.

Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms will become Georgia’s first Democratic governor since 2002 and the nation’s first Black woman governor.

While governors were on ballots in 36 states, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report with Amy Walter had only identified a dozen races for governor as competitive. Those included: Alaska, Georgia, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Texas and Wisconsin.

Republicans have controlled a majority of state governments since 2010. Before Tuesday’s election, Republicans boasted a 26-24 gubernatorial advantage over Democrats. But the GOP’s state legislative advantage was even stronger, with Republicans controlling 28 state legislatures and Democrats controlling 18 with divided control of chambers in three states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

By Wednesday morning, Democrats had notched major legislative wins. Democrats broke the GOP supermajority in Florida, flipped control of the Wisconsin state Assembly and Senate, and flipped the North Carolina state House.

In Pennsylvania, Democrats won the GOP-held state Senate, seizing  a trifecta – control of the governor’s office and both chambers of the legislature – in Harrisburg.

“Tonight’s earth-shattering victory is undeniable proof that voters are fed up with the MAGA agenda,” Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, said in a news release.

In Arizona, Democrats declared victory in a yearslong effort to win control of the legislature, proclaiming that Republicans would be in the minority at the state Capitol for the first time in 60 years.

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org. 

WASHINGTON — Voting ended Tuesday in this year’s midterm elections, leaving officials and volunteers counting tens of millions of ballots to determine which U.S. House and Senate candidates will take the oath of office in January.

The post-election process includes numerous steps and varying deadlines for when ballots have to be certified, since each state has different laws governing not only what happens on Election Day but what happens afterward.

Once local and state election officials wrap up their work, the process moves to Congress, which has its own rules and procedures. The Constitution also gives the House and Senate final say over whether to seat someone.

Here’s a look at what’s next and where issues could arise, aside from lawsuits that may be filed or already in progress.

When will there be official results? 

Counting ballots and certifying the results takes at least a week in most states, often longer.

Kyle Yoder, research director at The Center for Election Innovation & Research, said that is exactly the type of deliberative process voters should want and expect. He also cautioned the results news organizations report in the hours and sometimes days after Nov. 3 aren’t final totals. 

“Results aren’t official until every ballot has been counted by every eligible voter,” he said. “That process takes time, and when you sit back and think about it, you want it to take time because what we want is for that count to be correct, for it to be accurate, for it to be complete.”

Yoder added that the “biggest point of confusion that we run into when we’re talking to voters about all this is they think the results they’re seeing on their TV on election night are the final results.” 

The Associated Press, which many news organizations look to for race calls, explains how its experts decide when to announce a winner and when to wait for more ballots to be counted. The Election Law Program, a collaborative effort between William & Mary Law School and the National Center for State Courts, has timelines for the various state deadlines. 

How long can states take to recount ballots?

After election officials certify the first count of ballots, especially close races can head into a recount. Some state laws require it automatically if the margin of victory is under a certain percentage. In other circumstances, specific people can request a recount, typically the runner-up, though some state laws allow voters or even political parties to request another count. 

“In many states, election recounts, legal challenges to the results, etcetera, can only begin once results have been certified,” Yoder said. “So it is in the interest of politicians who may be saber-rattling to allow certification to happen, so that they can begin those recounts, legal challenges.”

States have various deadlines for how long those recounts can last. But they can drag on amid lawsuits and Congress has the authority in some cases to conduct its own recount. 

Who decides which candidate wins an election and can the official decide not to send a certificate of election to Congress?

James Alcorn, senior director of the Election Law Program at the William & Mary Law School, said “it depends” on the state law, but that statewide races are typically certified by a secretary of state or a state board of elections.

“For an office that is not statewide, that may be certified at a local level, and in some states, congressional races are going to be similar,” he said.

There are very few modern examples of a local or state election official not sending a certificate of election before the new Congress convenes in early January. And those were due to ongoing lawsuits. 

New York Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney wasn’t sworn in until February 2021, more than three months after the election, amid a lawsuit over the outcome. The election was ultimately resolved when a state Supreme Court justice ordered election officials to certify the race and her opponent decided not to appeal the decision.  

Following an especially contentious election in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District in 2018, the state board of elections decided not to certify either candidate as the winner and called for a special election. That seat had no representative in the U.S. House from early January until September. 

It took nearly eight months following the 2008 election for Democratic Sen. Al Franken to join the upper chamber of Congress amid a legal fight over the vote tally that ended at the Minnesota Supreme Court. 

What happens once a state sends the certificate of election to the House or Senate?

The House Clerk uses the certificates to compile the list of members-elect that is used on the first day of the new Congress to determine who can vote for Speaker. Once that first step is complete, members normally take their oaths and move on to other matters. 

Certificates of election must be sent to the Secretary of the Senate before newly elected or reelected members can take their oath in early January. 

“After the opening prayer and recitation of the pledge, the vice president of the United States, who serves as the president of the Senate, announces the receipt of certificates,” according to a post from the Senate Historical Office. “Following established tradition, senators-elect are then escorted down the center aisle of the Senate Chamber to the presiding officer’s desk.”

Only newly elected or reelected senators, about one-third of the chamber, are sworn in since it’s what’s known as a “continuing body.” That’s a very different set of rules than in the House, where every lawmaker typically takes the oath on the first day. 

Can either chamber of Congress refuse to seat someone with a certificate of election? 

Yes. The Constitution grants each chamber of Congress the power to be the “Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members.”

The Federal Contested Elections Act, a 1960s law, gives the House Administration Committee the ability to investigate the results of certain elections and make a recommendation to the full chamber about which candidate to seat. The law, which doesn’t apply to the Senate, gives the committee the authority to accept the certified results from election officials or conduct its own recount. Any recommendation would need to be approved or rejected by a majority vote on the House floor. 

Complaints have been filed under the FCEA several times during the past few decades, including after the 2020 election, when Iowa Democratic candidate Rita Hart asked the House to decide whether Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks won the race. The panel investigated for months before Hart withdrew the complaint in April 2021.

A report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service says that “FCEA contests rarely change election results, as doing so typically requires the House to overturn a state-certified election result.”

There is a separate process on the first day of a new Congress that allows any member-elect to object to another member-elect taking the oath. 

Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy tried this unsuccessfully in January 2021. It was rejected following a 371-2 vote of members-elect who had yet to take their oaths. Roy voted in favor of the resolution, which directed the speaker “to administer the oath of office to all Representatives-elect.”

The Senate also holds the ability to look into and ultimately decide the winner of a contested election, likely through the Rules and Administration Committee. 

The chamber’s official website on disputed elections notes that “a senator with the proper credentials against whom a challenge had been filed would be seated ‘without prejudice.’”

“Under this arrangement, if a committee investigation later determined that for some reason the individual was not entitled to a seat, he could be ‘excluded’ from the Senate by a simple majority vote, as opposed to having to be expelled, which required a two-thirds majority,” the webpage continues. 

The post later adds that the Senate historically has not intervened “where legal action in the federal or state courts was appropriate, and it seldom took very seriously the claims of a contestant who had failed to follow these avenues of redress. 

“Similarly, when a losing candidate demanded a recount of ballots, the Senate preferred to become involved only if the state law made no provision for such a recount. Still, in some cases the Senate felt impelled to act, and the sealed ballot boxes were shipped to Washington where staff members, carefully observed by representatives of both candidates, scrutinized the ballots and election records for possible irregularities.”

Voters across the country administered a sharp reprimand to President Donald Trump and Republicans who hold majorities in Congress, with Democrats gaining comfortable majorities in the Senate and the House.

Several U.S. Senate and House races remained uncalled by The Associated Press as Election Day ended on the East Coast. But by Wednesday morning, Democrats had notched 54 Senate seats to control that chamber and 228 House seats, clearing the thresholds needed to win majorities in each chamber as the party swept virtually all of the races that were expected to be competitive.

Those wins included Senate contests in states Trump won by double digits just two years ago, some of which had not elected Democrats in decades: Iowa, Kansas, South Carolina, Ohio and Texas.

Democrats also won a seat left open by retiring Republican Thom Tillis in North Carolina, bringing their total of Senate pickups to five, with leads in a handful of other states. And they retained their seat in Minnesota, electing Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan to the Senate.

By the early hours of Wednesday, they’d netted 25 new House seats, putting them on track to start next Congress with a majority that will give House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, whom Democrats are expected to make speaker, some room to maneuver. The AP had not yet made a call by midnight that Democrats had control of the House.

Democrats also flipped four governorships, in Georgia, Texas, Ohio and Iowa.

Republicans had not flipped any Democratic-held governorships, U.S. House or Senate seats by midnight, according to race calls by AP.

WASHINGTON — In a stunning upset, Democrats ousted Republicans and flipped control of the U.S. Senate Tuesday night, effectively establishing a barricade for President Donald Trump’s agenda for the last two years of his term.

Democrats will now have the power to block many of Trump’s nominees, both executive and judicial, including if a spot opens on the U.S. Supreme Court bench.

The decisive rebuke of Trump became apparent just after 11:30 p.m. Eastern, when The Associated Press called the Iowa Senate race for Democrat Josh Turek, who clinched the open seat over Republican candidate Ashley Hinson.

By Wednesday morning, Democrats held 54 seats in the Senate, with results in Mississippi and Alaska still outstanding. Republicans were at 44. Seven of the Democratic seats, like Iowa, were flips from Republicans.

In Michigan, Democrat Abdul El-Sayed bested former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, the AP projected early Wednesday.

 

Voters increasingly grew dissatisfied as the midterms approached with high gas and diesel prices, and overall inflation, driven up by Trump’s stalled war in Iran and erratic tariff policies. The economic woes, which also include increasing food prices and skyrocketing healthcare costs, hung over Republican candidates as they campaigned in recent months.

As election results rolled in, Trump posted on Truth Social, “I’m going to become a Political Pundit, both good and bad, on the reasons these Candidates won and lost!”

During a live phone interview with Fox News early Wednesday, Trump chalked up the widespread losses to him not being on the ballot and to high gas prices.

“If I was on the ballot, they would have gotten out. Look, they got out for the rallies. You never saw rallies that big,” he told the Fox hosts.

When asked whether he thought the prolonged war in Iran factored into the results, he said, “I don’t think it’s the war.”

“I think it’s the gasoline prices. People agree with what I’m doing on Iran, but they really probably weren’t willing to do the short-term consequence of paying more for gasoline. And that you know, I understand that,” he said. 

He ended the relatively brief call by congratulating the Democrats.

“Well, I say this: congratulations to the Democrats. They did a good job. They’ve been looking for this one for 11 years, and they finally got it. But I don’t view it as a hit on me. I think we’ve done a, we’ve had the greatest two years in the history of the presidency in terms of the economy, in terms of all the things that we’ve done.”

Earlier in the evening a White House official said on background that Trump’s mood remained “defiant.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called the results Tuesday night “a generational remake of the Senate map.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said his party will continue “to stop the worst impulses of Democrat extremism.”

In an early morning post on X, the South Dakota Republican touted Republicans’ “strong record of accomplishments,” citing closing the southern border and passing tax cuts, among other items.

“As we head into 2027, Senate Republicans will not stand idly by as the far-left, socialist wing of the Democrat Party attempts to unwind everything we’ve done,” he wrote.

Kansas shocker

A political earthquake rattled Kansas, where Democratic candidate Adam Hamilton sailed past incumbent Republican Sen. Roger Marshall, marking the first time Kansans have elected a Democrat in nearly a century.

Marshall, an OB-GYN, had released his closing argument Sunday in a brief video during which he defended his former medical practice for sending clients who carried unpaid balances to collection agencies. 

Speaking directly to the camera, Marshall said during the one-minute ad, “To ensure that 40,000 Kansans would still have access to care, we did have to keep the lights on. So we occasionally handed some accounts over to a collection agency, just like nearly every private medical practice does.” 

The issue had dogged Marshall’s campaign since the New York Times reported in September that the Kansas doctor had filed lawsuits against more than 700 patients with unpaid bills. Patients were arrested in 81 of the cases for missing court dates.

The patients filed a class action lawsuit against Marshall Thursday, Kansas Reflector reported.

 

In Iowa, Democratic state legislator Turek defeated Hinson, a GOP member of the U.S. House, to win the open Senate seat — delivering another massive setback for Republicans. 

Turek will now be the first Democratic senator to represent Iowa in more than a decade. 

The two-time Paralympic gold medalist and state representative received an early endorsement in July from former President Barack Obama. The two appeared in a campaign ad playing basketball. 

Iowa was Trump’s next-to-last in-person campaign stop on his whirlwind schedule to support midterm candidates in several reliably Republican states.

And in Michigan, El-Sayed kept the the Senate post for Democrats in an open race that the Cook Political Report shifted from “toss-up” to “lean Democrat” on Monday. 

In an unexpected move Sunday, El-Sayed’s primary opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens, endorsed Rogers, a former member of the U.S. House. Stevens told reporters in a joint press conference with Rogers Sunday she changed her mind because “we have to stand with country.”

“We can’t stand with hate, we can’t stand with Hasan Piker,” she said, referring to the far-left influential streamer and known Israel critic who appeared at El-Sayed’s primary campaign events.

The shake-up reportedly shocked many Democrats. 

Schumer called Stevens’ flip a “despicable betrayal” in a post on X Sunday.

The race has been among the ugliest of the 2026 midterm cycle. El-Sayed detractors have accused the former Detroit public health official of antisemitic statements.

Trump and other Republicans, including Rogers, have repeatedly hurled Islamophobic attacks at El-Sayed. Rogers described El-Sayed during an Oct. 26 campaign event as “the most radical extreme candidate in the country” and said he is “pretty close” to the nearly century-old political Islamist group the Muslim Brotherhood, which El-Sayed denies.

Upsets all over the map

In another major upset, Dr. Annie Andrews, a Democrat, won the Senate race in South Carolina, defeating Republican Sen. Darline Graham. 

Graham had been appointed in July to serve out the remainder of her late brother Lindsey Graham’s term.

Andrews will be the first Democratic senator to represent South Carolina in more than 20 years.

Texas voters also delivered another staggering upset in electing Democrat James Talarico by a wide margin over Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. The flip of deep red Texas to blue signified a major blow for Trump, who backed Paxton in the GOP primary over four-term Sen. John Cornyn.

Paxton, who has served as Texas attorney general since 2015, was impeached by the Texas House in May 2023 on charges of bribery, disregard of duties and several other articles of impeachment. The Texas Senate acquitted Paxton of all charges the following September.

Paxton was indicted on state fraud charges in 2015. He reached a $300,000 settlement deal to end the state probe in 2024.

Veteran Republican senator ousted

In an early-morning statement, longtime Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins conceded her Senate seat to a newcomer, Democrat Troy Jackson.

Collins called her nearly 30-year run in the Senate “the honor of my life.”

Jackson entered the race as a late candidate after the Democrats’ initial choice, Graham Platner, ended his campaign in July following multiple allegations of sexual assault.

Jackson was mobbed by national press at his final campaign stop in South Portland. He told reporters he’s very hopeful given “the amount of people turning out, the way things are going, the way people are talking.” 

“In the end, people want change and I think people see me as a change candidate, for what’s going on in this country, I feel really good about it, I really do.”

In North Carolina, in yet another upset that had been predicted in polling, Democratic former Gov. Roy Cooper won the Senate race in the Tar Heel State, flipping the open seat held by retiring Republican Sen. Thom Tillis.

Cooper had faced GOP candidate Michael Whatley, who previously chaired the Republican National Committee and the North Carolina Republican Party. 

Tillis announced in June 2025 he would not seek reelection after Trump vowed to primary him because he voted “no” on the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” the president’s major tax and spending cuts package.

In the Buckeye State, Democratic former Sen. Sherrod Brown won his Senate seat back, defeating incumbent GOP Sen. Jon Husted in another major upset for Republicans.

Brown spent 18 years in the Senate but lost his reelection bid in 2024 to Ohio Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno. 

Husted’s seat was formerly held by Vice President JD Vance before Vance was elected on the Republican presidential ticket with Trump in 2024. 

Trump and Vance headlined multiple rallies throughout Ohio in support of Husted. Trump’s campaign stops for Husted drew attention last month for his repeated remarks about Husted’s physical appearance, with a focus on his backside.

More races

Democratic Sen. Mark Warner retained his seat in Virginia, according to a race call by The Associated Press just after 7 p.m. Eastern. 

Georgia Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff also kept his Senate seat, the AP called shortly before 8 p.m. Eastern.  

Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ed Markey also kept his Senate spot, the AP called, as did Democratic Sens. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, Chris Coons of Delaware, Cory Booker of New Jersey, John Hickenlooper of Colorado, Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico and Jeff Merkley of Oregon. 

Juliana Stratton, a Democrat, also won the Senate race in Illinois. 

In Minnesota, Peggy Flanagan, a Democrat, won her Senate bid, AP called early Wednesday. 

New Hampshire Democrat Chris Pappas won the Senate race there, keeping a seat that was held by Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the AP called. Pappas ran against Republican John Sununu. 

Republican seats

In Florida, incumbent Republican Sen. Ashley Moody pulled ahead of Democratic candidate Angie Nixon, according to an AP race call, after precincts in the Florida panhandle tallied results. 

The race between Moody and the progressive state representative was unexpectedly close in the Republican stronghold. Progressives flocked to Florida to stump for Nixon, including independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York City. Nixon’s platform was closely aligned with but not identical to the national Democratic Socialists of America.

West Virginia GOP Sen. Shelley Moore Capito won the Senate race in the Mountain State, AP called shortly before 9 p.m. Eastern. 

In another expected win for the GOP, Wyoming Republican U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman cruised to victory for a seat in the upper chamber.

Kentucky GOP U.S. Rep. Andy Barr won his Senate race in the Bluegrass State, AP called.  

In Oklahoma, Republican U.S. Rep. Kevin Hern won a Senate seat in the reliably red state.

In Arkansas, GOP Sen. Tom Cotton won his Senate race, AP called. 

Alabama GOP U.S. Rep. Barry Moore won his Senate bid in the ruby red state.  

In Tennessee, Republican Sen. Bill Hagerty won his Senate race. 

In South Dakota, GOP Sen. Mike Rounds won his Senate race, AP called early Wednesday. 

In Louisiana, GOP U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow won her Senate bid in the Pelican State.

In Idaho, Republican Sen. Jim Risch was reelected.

And in Nebraska, Republican Pete Ricketts prevailed over independent challenger Dan Osborn.

Ahead of Election Day, the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter had identified close contests in Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Ohio and Texas. 

Trump’s Republican party vied to hold on to its narrow majority in the House and maintain control in the Senate, where the party currently holds 53 Senate seats. Tuesday’s results delivered Democrats the majority in the upper chamber.

In Alaska, which remained to be called Wednesday morning, former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola is up against incumbent GOP Sen. Dan S. Sullivan in Alaska. 

Trump’s Department of Justice preemptively sued the state’s election officials to try to block them from certifying the Senate election results if Dan S. Sullivan loses by a smaller margin than the number of votes cast for Dan J. Sullivan.

A federal judge in Alaska dismissed the case Sunday, citing the federal government’s failure to explain how it had the authority to bring the case.

Dan J. Sullivan’s candidacy was challenged earlier in the year in state court, and Alaska’s Supreme Court ruled in June he could remain on the ballot.

The Trump administration vowed to appeal.

The New York Times reported Oct. 28 that Democratic operatives recruited Dan J. Sullivan to be a spoiler candidate. States Newsroom has not independently verified the allegations. 

Peltola denied any knowledge of the alleged scheme, according to Alaska Beacon.

Jennifer Shutt , Jonathan Shorman and Eesha Pendharkar contributed to this report.