Democrats win control of Congress in a historic 2026 midterm blue wave, seizing the Senate and the House in a sweeping rebuke of President Donald Trump.
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Voters delivered their verdict on the first two years of Donald Trump’s second presidency on Tuesday night, and it was unsparing. Democrats captured control of both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives in the 2026 midterm elections, riding a blue wave that washed through Republican strongholds that had not elected a Democrat in generations.
The Associated Press called the Senate for Democrats late Tuesday night, after the party flipped Republican seats in North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio, Texas, Kansas and Iowa β clearing the 51-seat threshold in the 100-seat chamber. Hours later, at 1:35 a.m. Washington time, the AP projected Democrats had also surpassed 218 seats to take the House.
It was the kind of night that redraws political maps. Republicans lost ground in all but a handful of the roughly 1,700 counties where most votes had been counted by Tuesday night, according to tallies compiled by Reuters and USA Today. Exit polls conducted by SSRS for a consortium of major media outlets found that half of voters nationwide saw the midterms as an opportunity to rebuke the president.
Kansas Elects Its First Democratic Senator Since 1932
No result captured the night’s scale better than Kansas. Methodist pastor Adam Hamilton defeated Republican incumbent Sen. Roger Marshall, becoming the first Democrat elected to the Senate from the reliably conservative state since 1932 β nearly a century ago, during the Great Depression.
The upset ran deep into Trump country. In Seward County, Kansas β home to one of America’s largest beef processing plants, where about half of eligible voters are Hispanic β Hamilton led Marshall by 13 points, just two years after Trump carried the county by 39 points.
Texas: A Political Bombshell
If Kansas was symbolic, Texas was seismic. Democrats won statewide office in the biggest Republican state for the first time since 1994, ending a losing streak that stretched back three decades.
Democrat James Talarico defeated Republican Ken Paxton in the closely watched open Senate race. In an even more striking result, Democrat Gina Hinojosa defeated three-term Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to win the governor’s race β toppling one of the most entrenched figures in Texas politics.
South Carolinaβs Stunner and the Seven Flipped Seats
Democrats flipped seven Republican-held Senate seats in total β in Iowa, Kansas, Maine, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina and Texas β defeating several candidates who had been hand-picked by Trump.
South Carolina produced one of the night’s genuine shocks. Democrat Annie Andrews defeated incumbent Republican Sen. Darline Graham, claiming a seat that has been in GOP hands since Strom Thurmond switched parties in 1964. In a state Trump carried by nearly 18 points in 2024, voters turned aside Trump’s hand-picked Senate candidate.
In Maine, Democratic challenger Troy Jackson defeated five-term Republican Sen. Susan Collins. In Ohio, Democrat Sherrod Brown won his Senate race, and in Iowa, Democrat Josh Turek won β Iowa had not elected a Democratic senator since 2008.
Democrats also protected their own turf, holding Jon Ossoff’s seat in Georgia and an open seat in New Hampshire.
History was made in Michigan, where Democrat Abdul El-Sayed defeated his GOP opponent to become the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Senate, according to projections from Fox News and Decision Desk HQ.
The House: 218 and Beyond
The House fell to Democrats after the party ran the table in the most competitive races, winning all 20 of the contests decided in the early hours. Decision Desk HQ’s final forecast had projected 241 House seats for Democrats against 194 for Republicans, and the latest tallies showed the party past 220 β comfortably beyond the 218 needed for control.
An unprecedented Republican gambit to redraw House districts to make them more favorable largely backfired. Democrats held at least eight of the 15 districts targeted by GOP redistricting efforts and flipped at least four seats away from Republicans, according to CNN projections β holding targeted seats in Florida, Texas, Ohio, Alabama and North Carolina while picking up three in California and one in Utah.
In Indiana’s 5th Congressional District, Democratic nominee JD Ford defeated three-term Republican Victoria Spartz. Now that Democrats win control of Congress, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries is in line to become Speaker of the House.
Democrats also celebrated in governor’s races beyond Texas: Keisha Lance Bottoms won in Georgia.
Why Voters Revolted
The wave that helped Democrats win control of Congress had a clear through-line. Voters punished Republicans over the economy and the president’s agenda β widespread discontent with Trump’s policies on inflation, tariffs, AI data centers and the Iran war, according to media projections.
Three-quarters of voters told exit pollsters they were dissatisfied with the direction of the country. The party even won House races in districts Trump had carried by 20 percentage points just two years ago, and toppled GOP state legislative supermajorities in states like Indiana and Missouri.
Trumpβs Response
Trump responded to the Democratic rout with defiance. In a social media post, he claimed Republicans would have won had he been on the ballot β even though the race was widely seen as a referendum on his second term. He later posted a single word: βVeto.β
What Divided Government Means Now
Now that Democrats win control of Congress, the results usher in a new era of divided government in Washington, following two years in which a Republican-controlled Congress rarely exercised its power to rein in Trump. Once seated in January, Democrats are expected to use their new majorities to investigate Trump’s administration, family and allies β and to demand major concessions on legislation.
After Democrats win control of Congress
For the final two years of Trump’s presidency, nothing will pass Congress without Democratic votes. Tuesday night made sure of that.