A Blue Wave in Washington: Inside the 2026 Midterm Results

Nov 4, 2026

Democrats needed a net gain of four Senate seats and three House seats to retake Congress. They blew past both targets on Tuesday night, flipping at least seven Senate seats and more than two dozen House seats, and winning a majority of the nation's governorships for the first time since 2010.

The wave was bigger than nearly anyone forecast. It reached into Texas, Kansas, Iowa, and South Carolina, states where Democrats had not won a Senate race in decades, and it put a seat in Mississippi that every major forecaster rated safely Republican into a dead heat. Senate control was projected shortly after 11:30 p.m. Eastern, and the Associated Press called the House at 1:24 a.m. Wednesday.

This post walks through the results chamber by chamber, the races that defined the night, what drove voters, the contests still being counted, and what a Democratic Congress can and cannot do with its new power.

By the numbers

Democrats now lead in all three major counts, and each number below can still grow as late ballots are tallied.

Office	Before the election	As of Wednesday morning	Still uncalled
U.S. Senate	53 R, 47 D	54 D, 44 R	2 (Alaska, Mississippi)
U.S. House	218 R, 214 D, 1 independent, 2 vacant	231 D, 144 R	About 60
Governors	26 R, 24 D	28 D, 20 R	2 (Alaska, Kansas)

Senate counts include independents who caucus with Democrats. House figures are from NBC News; the AP count earlier Wednesday stood at 228 D to 139 R with 68 races uncalled.

The Senate: seven flips and counting

Democrats flipped seven Republican-held seats, all in states Donald Trump carried or where Republicans had held the seat for decades.

State	Winner	Defeated	Why it matters
Iowa	Josh Turek (D)	Rep. Ashley Hinson (R)	First Democratic senator from Iowa since Tom Harkin; open seat after Sen. Joni Ernst retired
Kansas	Adam Hamilton (D)	Sen. Roger Marshall (R)	First Democrat Kansas has elected to the Senate since 1932
Maine	Troy Jackson (D)	Sen. Susan Collins (R)	Ends Collins's nearly 30-year tenure; Collins conceded Wednesday
North Carolina	Roy Cooper (D)	Michael Whatley (R)	The night's first Senate flip, for an open seat
Ohio	Sherrod Brown (D)	Sen. Jon Husted (R)	Brown returns two years after losing his seat in 2024
South Carolina	Annie Andrews (D)	Sen. Darline Graham (R)	First Democrat elected from South Carolina since 1998
Texas	James Talarico (D)	Ken Paxton (R)	First Democratic Senate win in Texas since 1988

Democrats also held their most vulnerable seats. Sen. Jon Ossoff won reelection in Georgia over Rep. Mike Collins. Rep. Chris Pappas kept New Hampshire's open seat blue against former Sen. John Sununu, and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan won Minnesota's open seat.

Republicans held their ground in a handful of places. Sen. Pete Ricketts claimed victory in Nebraska, and the Florida race went to the Republican after Democrat Angie Nixon came up narrowly short.

Battleground spotlight

Texas. State Rep. James Talarico defeated Attorney General Ken Paxton for the seat held by outgoing Sen. John Cornyn. He is the first Democrat to win a U.S. Senate race in Texas since Lloyd Bentsen in 1988, and he won despite heavy spending on Paxton's behalf by Elon Musk in a state Trump carried by nearly 14 points two years ago. Democrats also won the governor's race, where state Rep. Gina Hinojosa unseated three-term Gov. Greg Abbott to become the first Democrat elected governor in 36 years and the state's first Hispanic governor, and flipped House seats in the state.

Michigan. Abdul El-Sayed defeated former Rep. Mike Rogers, holding an open seat for Democrats after one of the cycle's most contentious contests. He will be the nation's first Muslim senator.

South Carolina. Dr. Annie Andrews, a pediatrician, defeated Sen. Darline Graham, who was appointed to the seat after the death of her brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham, in July. Andrews is the first Democrat elected to the Senate from South Carolina since Fritz Hollings in 1998, and the first woman the state has ever elected to the Senate.

Mississippi. The closest race in the country remains uncalled. At 3 a.m. Wednesday, with about 96 percent of the vote counted, District Attorney Scott Colom led Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith by 43 votes out of more than 925,000 cast. The Mississippi Free Press later put his lead at 28 votes. If his lead holds through the final count and any recount, Colom would be Mississippi's first Black senator since Reconstruction. A race that every major forecaster rated safely Republican is now a coin flip.

The House: the largest Democratic majority in nearly two decades

Democrats went into Election Day holding 214 seats and needing a net gain of three. By Wednesday morning, NBC News counted 231 seats for Democrats and 144 for Republicans, with about 60 races still uncalled. CBS News estimates suggested the final Democratic total could reach the 250s, which would rival the majority Democrats won in 2008.

Hakeem Jeffries is now in line to become Speaker when the new Congress convenes. He called the projected majority stunning and urged his caucus to keep its focus on affordability.

The flips came from every region of the map:

• Iowa's 2nd District: Democrat Lindsay James defeated Republican Joe Mitchell for the seat Rep. Ashley Hinson gave up to run for Senate.

• California's 1st District: State Sen. Mike McGuire unseated Rep. James Gallagher in a newly redrawn district.

• Nebraska's 2nd District: Denise Powell flipped the Omaha-based seat.

• New Jersey: Rep. Tom Kean Jr. lost his seat in one of the night's marquee House races.

• Wisconsin: Democrats flipped two Republican-held seats.

• Pennsylvania and Texas: Democrats picked up battleground seats in both states.

Democrats also won competitive districts in North Carolina, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Kentucky, and Colorado, and protected incumbents such as Rep. Greg Landsman in Ohio's 1st District and three Nevada members Republicans had targeted.

Redistricting shaped the battlefield. Nine states redrew their maps between the 2024 and 2026 elections, and Ballotpedia estimates Democrats will net about 15 seats across those states if current leads hold.

Governors and statehouses

Democrats flipped five governorships, every one in a state Trump won in 2024, and now hold 28 of 50 governor's offices with Alaska and Kansas still uncalled.

State	Winner	Defeated	Milestone
Georgia	Keisha Lance Bottoms (D)	Jackson (R)	First Black woman elected governor in U.S. history; first Democratic governor of Georgia since 2002
Iowa	Rob Sand (D)	Lahn (R)	First Democratic governor of Iowa in more than a decade
Nevada	Aaron Ford (D)	Gov. Joe Lombardo (R)	Nevada's first Black governor
Ohio	Amy Acton (D)	Vivek Ramaswamy (R)	Ohio's first elected female governor
Texas	Gina Hinojosa (D)	Gov. Greg Abbott (R)	First Democrat elected in 36 years; first Hispanic governor

Democrats also held the governor's offices in Arizona (Katie Hobbs), Michigan (Jocelyn Benson), Minnesota (Amy Klobuchar), Maine (Hannah Pingree), Pennsylvania (Josh Shapiro), and Wisconsin (David Crowley). Republicans held Florida with Rep. Byron Donalds, who becomes the nation's first Black Republican governor, along with Alabama (Tommy Tuberville), Tennessee (Marsha Blackburn), and Oklahoma (Mike Mazzei).

The wave carried down the ballot. Democrats flipped both chambers of the Wisconsin Legislature for the first time since 2010, along with the Pennsylvania Senate, the North Carolina House, and the Minnesota House. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin become new Democratic trifectas, while Republican trifectas in Georgia, Iowa, Ohio, and Texas are broken.

What drove the wave

The common thread was the economy. In CBS News exit polling, 89 percent of voters said the cost of living was a major or crucial factor in their vote, and President Trump's approval rating stood at 38 percent, historically low for a president at midterm time.

Several forces compounded that frustration:

• Prices at the pump and the war in Iran. Rising gas prices and the conflict overseas weighed on voters nationally and showed up sharply in farm states. In Iowa, the AP reported high fuel costs and a weak agricultural economy helped turn a reliably red state back into a battleground.

• A backlash against data centers and Big Tech. Democrats spent more than $100 million on broadcast ads tying Republican opponents to tech companies and data center projects, and they won many of the races where they ran that message hardest, including Ohio, Kansas, and Iowa.

• Strong candidates in unlikely places. Democrats recruited figures with local roots and crossover appeal: a former governor in North Carolina, a logger and former state senate president in Maine, a Paralympic gold medalist in Iowa, and a pediatrician in South Carolina.

• Open seats. Retirements in Iowa, North Carolina, and elsewhere took popular incumbents off the ballot and gave Democrats openings they had not seen in years.

The President struck a defiant note. He said he did not view the results as a judgment on him, while publicly blaming Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for the losses there.

Still undecided

Several contests could take days or weeks to resolve, and each could push the Democratic margins higher.

• Mississippi Senate: Colom and Hyde-Smith are separated by a few dozen votes. Both candidates told supporters they expected to be the state's senator within days. With an independent candidate also on the ballot, a recount or a December runoff remains possible.

• Alaska Senate: Polls closed at 1 a.m. Eastern, and the race between former Rep. Mary Peltola and Sen. Dan Sullivan was still rated a toss-up Wednesday morning.

• Alaska and Kansas governor: Both races were uncalled as of Wednesday morning.

• The House: About 60 seats remain uncalled, many in California and other states that count mail ballots for days after the election.

• State legislatures: Control of dozens of chambers had not yet been determined.

What a Democratic Congress can and cannot do

Two weeks before the election, a National Affairs analysis titled Congress Indispensable laid out what Democratic control of Congress would mean for the final two years of the Trump administration. It assumed a narrow outcome, a working House majority and a 51-seat Senate. The real margins are wider, but its central argument holds: a Democratic Congress is a powerful brake on the administration, not a tool for undoing what it has done. The forecasts below are that analysis's, drawn from historical precedent and from what the President and his party have said publicly, and they should be read as predictions rather than settled outcomes.

The lame duck may matter most. The new Congress is sworn in on January 3, 2027. Until then, the outgoing Congress keeps its Republican majorities, with a stopgap spending bill expiring December 11. The analysis expects several major decisions in this window:

• A high-profile departure. Presidents who lose Congress have tended to remove the official most associated with the loss almost immediately. Donald Rumsfeld resigned the day after the 2006 midterms, and Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions the day after the 2018 midterms. The analysis names Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as the likeliest candidate this time, noting that Rep. Thomas Massie has filed articles of impeachment against him over the Iran war.

• A possible Supreme Court vacancy. Justice Samuel Alito, 76, told CBS in October that retirement is something he considers every term. If he steps down now, the outgoing Republican Senate could confirm a successor before January 3. Justice Ginsburg's seat was filled in 38 days in 2020, and the analysis rates a confirmed successor by Christmas as better than even.

• Decisions on Iran. The President has said on several occasions that a resolution of the war would come after the election. Whether it ends or escalates, the incoming Congress inherits the outcome along with a $67.1 billion supplemental funding request.

• Pardons. Following the 2020 precedent, the analysis considers a round of lame-duck pardons likely.

What the new majority gains. The analysis ranks a congressional majority's tools by strength: the power of the purse, the subpoena, the confirmation vote, and control of the floor.

• The purse. Funding is the lever that does not require the President's signature. In 1973, a Democratic Congress ended U.S. military operations in Indochina through the Case-Church funding cutoff. After losing the House in 2018, Trump forced a 35-day shutdown over border wall money and ultimately signed spending bills without it. The analysis expects a similar showdown over Iran war funding by spring.

• Oversight. Democratic committee chairs will have a long list of investigations ready on day one. The analysis expects nearly every major subpoena to be challenged in court, under the framework the Supreme Court set in Trump v. Mazars in 2020, and predicts that the most revealing testimony will come from officials who have already left the administration.

• Cabinet impeachments. When House Republicans impeached Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in 2024, they set a precedent that a cabinet officer can be impeached over how a department is run. A Democratic Senate would hold a full trial with witnesses rather than dismiss the charges, though conviction would still require 67 votes. The analysis expects at least one cabinet trial by summer.

• Presidential impeachment. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in September that Democrats have not ruled anything out, or in. The analysis puts a third impeachment of the President at less than even odds.

• Confirmations. The Senate majority can block judicial and executive nominees it opposes, and the analysis expects the administration to lean heavily on acting officials as a result.

Where its power runs out. Most legislation still needs 60 votes to clear a Senate filibuster, and overriding a veto requires two-thirds of both chambers. A Democratic Congress cannot repeal tariffs, rebuild dismantled agencies, or remove the President on its own. The analysis frames the next two years as "a contest between the purse and the pen." The larger-than-expected Senate majority does change one thing: Democrats will need fewer Republican votes to pass funding limits, though still far more than they have to override a veto.

How the President and his party may respond. For Republicans, it points to 1986 and 2006, when a second-term president's midterm loss turned the party's attention toward the succession. Publicly, elected Republicans are likely to stay loyal. Privately, the 2028 race begins now, and the first signs of a shift may show up in donor spending next spring, with names such as Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the center of it. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis went further on election night, predicting Democrats could hold the Senate for six years.

Starzyk & Associates will be meeting with incoming members and committee staff in the coming weeks and briefing clients on what the new Congress means for their priorities. If you would like to talk through the results, please reach out.