Democrats will control both chambers of the US Congress starting in January. NBC News projects they have won the House of Representatives as well as the Senate in Tuesday’s midterm elections. The party passed the 218 seat threshold for a House majority on Wednesday, November 4, according to Associated Press projections. The Senate had flipped a few hours earlier, with CBS News calling it for the Democrats shortly after 11:30 p.m.
To retake Congress, the party needed a net gain of four Senate seats and three House seats. Republicans had held 53 of the 100 Senate seats going into the vote, against 45 for Democrats. Democrats took Republican Senate seats in Iowa, Ohio, Kansas, Texas, North Carolina and South Carolina. Adam Hamilton becomes a senator from Kansas, a state that had not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1932. James Talarico won in Texas, where his party had not picked up a Senate seat since 1988. In Maine, Susan Collins conceded to Troy Jackson and leaves Congress after several decades in office.
American media tie the results to voter frustration over prices and the war in Iran. Before the vote, Donald Trump’s approval rating stood at just 37.5 percent, according to The New York Times. In Florida, results in several districts point to a sharp shift of Latino voters toward Democrats, CNN reported.
Governor races followed the same pattern. According to the AP, Democrats appeared on track to hold a majority of governorships for the first time in two decades. In Georgia, they won the office for the first time since 1998, and Keisha Lance Bottoms becomes the first Black woman elected governor in the country’s history. Gina Hinojosa defeated incumbent Greg Abbott in Texas, a state no Democrat had led in 35 years. In Ohio, Amy Acton beat Vivek Ramaswamy to become the first woman elected to the post. Republicans held Florida with Byron Donalds, who is set to become the state’s first Black governor.
Chris Pappas, elected senator from New Hampshire, becomes the first openly gay man to serve in the Senate. In New Mexico, Deb Haaland is the first Native American woman elected governor.
Donald Trump congratulated the Democrats while refusing to see the outcome as a rejection of his leadership. On Tuesday night, he wrote on Truth Social that he had not been on the ballot and would otherwise have won by a wide margin, then blamed Fox News for his party’s losses. Barack Obama spoke early Wednesday to hail the Democrats’ success.
Ballots are still being counted in several races. NBC News had not yet called the Nevada governor’s race on Wednesday morning. For his last two years in the White House, Donald Trump will have to work with a Congress run by the opposition.