Democrats Win Control of Both House and Senate in Midterm Sweep
Democrats won both chambers of Congress in Tuesday's midterms, flipping Senate seats in Texas, Kansas, Ohio and Maine as Trump's approval hit 38% in exit polls.
Democrats won control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate in Tuesday’s midterm elections, CBS News projected, flipping Republican-held seats across battleground states and in places where the party had not won in decades. The results will end unified Republican control of Washington and leave President Donald Trump facing a divided government for the final two years of his term.
CBS News projected the Senate for Democrats shortly after 11:30 p.m. Eastern time, after earlier projecting a Democratic House majority. As of early Wednesday, final seat totals were not yet available, and dozens of House races, along with Senate contests in Alaska and Mississippi, had not been called.
What happened
The Senate map produced the night’s biggest surprises. According to CBS News projections, Democrats flipped Republican-held seats in several states:
- Texas: James Talarico, a Democratic state lawmaker, defeated Republican state Attorney General Ken Paxton. CBS News said he is the first Democrat to win a Texas Senate seat since 1988.
- Kansas: Democrat Adam Hamilton defeated Republican Sen. Roger Marshall, the first Democratic Senate win in the state since 1932, according to CBS.
- Ohio: Former Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, defeated Republican Sen. Jon Husted.
- Maine: Democrat Troy Jackson defeated Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who conceded.
- Iowa, North Carolina and South Carolina: Democrats Josh Turek, Roy Cooper and Annie Andrews won seats previously held by Republicans.
Democrats also held seats in Georgia, New Hampshire, Minnesota and Virginia. In Michigan, Democrat Abdul El-Sayed defeated former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers; CBS noted that El-Sayed would become the nation’s first Muslim senator. Republicans held Florida and Nebraska, where Sen. Pete Ricketts defeated independent Dan Osborn.
In the House, CBS reported Democratic gains in suburban and rural districts alike, including all three Iowa seats it listed as flips and several in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin. Republican incumbents projected to lose included Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Rep. Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin. Early CBS estimates suggested Democrats could reach about 259 House seats, though the network cautioned that the final number could be lower. About 75 House races remained undetermined early Wednesday.
Democrats also won several governor’s races. CNBC reported that Gina Hinojosa defeated three-term Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, becoming the state’s first Democratic governor since Ann Richards left office in 1995. In Ohio, Democrat Amy Acton defeated Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, according to CBS.
How the parties responded
Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, said that “against all odds, we Democrats have won the Senate,” CBS reported. Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, declared “America is back” and called the vote “a change election.”
Trump congratulated Democrats in a call with CBS News, saying he looked forward to working with them. He also said he would accept the results and use his veto power liberally. In a social media post, he wrote that he “wasn’t on the Ballot” and argued that Republicans would otherwise have won in a landslide. He told Fox News he was “a little bit surprised” by the outcome and faulted Republican candidates, according to CBS.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, said Republicans “will not be deterred by the outcome of one election,” according to CBS. One senior Republican strategist quoted by the network blamed Trump for the losses.
Why it matters
Exit polling conducted for CBS News put Trump’s approval rating among voters at 38%, which the network described as on track to be the lowest for a president in a midterm election. About six in 10 voters said Trump was a factor in their House vote, and 89% said the cost of living was a major or crucial factor.
CNBC highlighted concern about the role of wealthy donors. Elon Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX chief executive and the cycle’s largest individual political donor, spent more than $200 million on the Texas Senate race alone, CNBC reported, and Talarico campaigned against him directly. In a CNBC voter poll, 56% of respondents said data centers were a crucial or major factor in their vote. Several Republican candidates Trump endorsed, including Paxton and Husted, lost.
What comes next
The new Congress will be sworn in in January. With majorities in both chambers, Democrats will lead committees and control which legislation and investigations advance, while Trump keeps his veto power. CNBC reported that Rep. Robert Garcia, the California Democrat expected to chair the House Oversight Committee, had a two-word message for potential targets of investigations: “Lawyer up.”
Before then, the outgoing Republican-led Congress returns for a lame-duck session. Outstanding races, including Senate contests in Alaska and Mississippi and House seats in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Michigan and elsewhere, could take days or longer to resolve and will determine the final size of the Democratic majorities.
