Updated November 4, 2026 at 2:50 AM EST
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• Republicans lost several congressional seats they redrew
• Here's how some key demographic groups voted in the midterms
• How voting has gone so far
Democrats have flipped control of the House and the Senate in a resounding rebuke to President Trump and the GOP.
Thus far, Democrats have picked up seven Senate seats - including in Texas, which Democrats have long sought to turn blue, and the red states of Kansas and South Carolina - as well as several governorships, and have even won multiple House seats that had been redrawn to favor Republicans.
In the runup to the midterms, the president had attempted to shore up Republican support with a blitz of rallies intended to energize the GOP race. At those rallies, he had one key instruction for his supporters: "Pretend I'm on the ballot."
If that's what voters did in this year's elections, the results show that Americans have largely turned against Trump and the party he has reshaped over more than a decade.
The Trump factor
Throughout his second term, Trump has often made unilateral decisions, with a Republican-controlled Congress providing little pushback.
This has meant nearly two years marked by sweeping tariffs resulting in trade wars, ICE and other federal agents mobilizing in U.S. cities, and a war in Iran.
But roughly two-thirds of Americans said that Trump was to blame for higher-than-usual prices, according to a September AP-NORC poll. And throughout his second term, his approval rating has slid steadily, with many polls now putting it below 40%.
In a pre-election attempt to energize GOP turnout, Trump undertook a blitz of rallies through swing states and some red states. Republicans hoped he could convince voters who came out in 2024 to support him to also come out in the lower-turnout midterms to juice GOP numbers.
However, the president insisted late Tuesday night that Republicans lost not because of him but in spite of him. As results rolled in, he posted on social media, "I wasn't on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE! Thank you for your attention to this matter."
And in a phone interview with Fox News just after midnight, Trump said he doesn't see the result as being a referendum on him.
"I don't view it as a hit on me," he said. "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."
Come January, Trump will face a Democratic Congress emboldened to take him on.
In a Tuesday night press release, Colorado Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia noted that, as incoming chairman of the House Oversight Committee, he has "vowed to take on the Trump Crime Family, corporate corruption, DHS and ICE abuses, and the cover-up of the Epstein files." He added that he had a statement on Democrats' new control of the House: "Lawyer up."
A growing tally of Democratic wins
Democrats' Senate pickups came across diverse states, including battlegrounds in North Carolina and Maine, as well as some red states such as Iowa, Ohio, Texas, Kansas and South Carolina.
In some states the wins represent the end of an era – in deep-red South Carolina, Democrat Annie Andrews ousted incumbent Republican Sen. Darline Graham, who this year took over the seat after the death of her brother, longtime Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham.
And in Maine, Democrat Troy Jackson's win will end the nearly 30-year Senate career of one of the only remaining Senate Republicans willing to separate herself from the MAGA brand.
In Ohio, meanwhile, Democrat Sherrod Brown's win over Republican Jon Husted will reinstate him as senator after a two-year absence. Brown served as a senator until he lost reelection in 2024 to Republican Bernie Moreno.
Democrats also flipped more than a dozen Republican House seats, including multiple that Republicans drew to be more favorable to their own party. That number will likely grow, as dozens of races have yet to be called.
Democrats need a net gain of three seats to gain control of the House, but with many race results outstanding, it's not yet possible to definitively say Democrats will control the House.
There were also four gubernatorial flips for Democrats, in Iowa, Texas, Georgia and Ohio. Those included multiple firsts: In Texas, Democrat Gina Hinojosa will be the state's first Latina governor. Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms will become the nation's first Black female governor after her win in Georgia. And in Ohio, Democrat Amy Acton, Ohio's former health director, will be the state's first female governor.
Republicans, meanwhile, have held onto the Florida governor's mansion, with Rep. Byron Donalds now set to be Florida's first Black governor.
Candidate quality
While Trump loomed over the election, it's not possible to attribute Republicans' losses entirely to him.
In Texas, for example, Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton had an array of scandals to his name, including federal indictment for securities fraud and impeachment in the Republican-led state House for misusing his office to benefit a donor.
And an ad from Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign gained massive negative attention in the weeks leading up to the election. That ad featured Democratic candidate Amy Acton's estranged mother, accusing her daughter of being a liar. Acton has long claimed that her stepfather sexually abused her and criticized her mother for staying with him after his arrest. Acton's mother said in the ad that her daughter's accusations were lies.
Even some high-profile Republicans, including Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, criticized the ad. Ramaswamy eventually took it down.
Ballots to be counted
While it may become clear tonight which party will soon control the House or even the Senate, it may still be days and weeks until all races are called. In Alaska in 2024, it took 15 days to call a statewide House race.
Alaska's tight Senate race is already in the national spotlight after Trump's Justice Department filed a lawsuit to block the certification of results there if the Republican incumbent loses, saying voters could be confused by two Dan Sullivans on the ranked-choice ballot (one is the incumbent, and one is not affiliated with a party). A federal judge threw out that lawsuit last week, though the DOJ has said it plans to appeal.
Trump has been sowing election distrust for months, including with an extraordinary July primetime address where he alleged – without providing any new evidence – that American elections were vulnerable to being "rigged and stolen." In addition, he has continued to repeat the lie that he won the 2020 presidential election and to insist in his speeches that Democrats "cheat."
However, he said Tuesday night, in an interview with the New York Times, that he is "absolutely willing" to accept the midterm results.
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—Domenico Montanaro and Miles Parks contributed to this report.
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