Democrats won control of both chambers of the United States Congress in the midterm elections held on Tuesday, November 3, 2026, flipping seven Republican-held Senate seats and ending a Republican majority that had stood at 53 to 47.
The party needed a net gain of four seats in the 100-member Senate. It got seven. As of Wednesday morning, NBC News projected 54 Democratic seats against 44 Republican, with two races uncalled. CBS News called the Democratic Senate majority shortly after 11:30 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday; it had called the House more than an hour earlier, at 10:15 p.m.
The seven seats that changed hands
The clearest single loss for Republicans was in Maine, where Democrat Troy Jackson defeated Senator Susan Collins, who conceded. Collins had served in the Senate since 1997 and was the last Republican holding statewide office in New England.
The other six flips:
- North Carolina — former governor Roy Cooper defeated Michael Whatley.
- Ohio — Sherrod Brown defeated the incumbent, Jon Husted, returning to a seat he lost in 2024.
- Texas — state legislator James Talarico defeated Attorney General Ken Paxton.
- Kansas — Adam Hamilton, a megachurch pastor, defeated the incumbent, Roger Marshall. According to the Associated Press, it is the first Democratic Senate win in Kansas since 1932.
- Iowa — Josh Turek defeated Ashley Hinson.
- South Carolina — Annie Andrews, a pediatrician, defeated Darline Graham. Al Jazeera reported that the last Democratic Senate victory in the state was in 1998.
Democrats also held every seat they were defending in the chamber's competitive map: Michigan, where Abdul El-Sayed beat Mike Rogers in a race called around 2:30 a.m., along with Georgia, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Virginia. Republicans held Florida and Nebraska, where Pete Ricketts turned back the independent Dan Osborn.
In his victory speech, Hamilton told supporters he had heard the same thing from voters of both parties — that "what's happening in Washington is not OK" — and opened by asking the question his own result raised: "How did this happen?"
Two races, and one of them by 43 votes
The arithmetic of control is settled, but two seats are not.
In Mississippi, Democrat Scott Colom led Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith by 43 votes with more than 95% of the count reported. In Alaska, Senator Dan Sullivan led Democrat Mary Peltola by 1,677 votes with roughly 80,000 ballots still to be counted — a margin that is wide in votes and narrow in proportion to what is left.
Neither outcome changes who runs the Senate. Both decide whether the new majority sits at 54, 55 or 56.
The House, and a net gain of 28
In the House, NBC News projected 258 Democratic seats to 177 Republican, a net Democratic gain of 28. Hakeem Jeffries is expected to become Speaker.
The flips were concentrated in the industrial Midwest and in suburban districts: three of Iowa's four seats, Pennsylvania's 1st, Texas's 15th, North Carolina's 11th and Ohio's 7th, with additional Democratic pickups in Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio and Utah.
Governors, and the biggest result in Texas
The night's governor races went the same direction. In Texas, Democrat Gina Hinojosa defeated Greg Abbott, who had held the office since 2015 — the first Democrat to win the Texas governorship in more than three decades. In Ohio, Amy Acton, the state's former health director, defeated Vivek Ramaswamy. Democrats also won Iowa, where Rob Sand beat Zach Lahn, and Georgia, where Keisha Lance Bottoms beat Rick Jackson. Republicans held Florida, where Byron Donalds defeated David Jolly.
What the president said
President Donald Trump told The New York Times he was "absolutely willing" to accept the results. Asked what had driven them, he pointed abroad rather than at his domestic record: he told Fox News, "I think a part of it was Iran," and told The Wall Street Journal that "Iran was a piece of it."
A midterm loss of this size is not unusual in a president's second term, and the party holding the White House has lost House seats in all but three midterms since 1934. What is unusual is the combination: both chambers, a Senate map that favored Republicans, and the governorship of Texas in the same night.
Reporting from CBS News, NBC News, Al Jazeera, the Associated Press and The New York Times.
