Democrats win both houses of Congress, networks project

Democrats will control both the House and the Senate from January, CBS News and NBC News projected late on Tuesday. In the Senate, Democrats flipped at least six Republican-held seats: Roy Cooper won in North Carolina, Annie Andrews beat Senator Darline Graham in South Carolina, James Talarico beat Ken Paxton in Texas, Sherrod Brown beat Senator Jon Husted in Ohio, Adam Hamilton beat Senator Roger Marshall in Kansas, and Josh Turek beat Representative Ashley Hinson for Iowa’s open seat. Kansas had not elected a Democratic senator in nearly a century. Democrats also took four governorships from Republicans: Gina Hinojosa unseated Governor Greg Abbott in Texas, Amy Acton beat Vivek Ramaswamy in Ohio, and Keisha Lance Bottoms and Rob Sand won in Georgia and Iowa.

President Trump wrote on Truth Social that he “wasn’t on the Ballot” and that if he had been, Republicans “would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!” He also told reporters “We’ll work with the Democrats,” blamed Abbott’s defeat on Abbott becoming a “RINO,” and declined to fully back House Speaker Mike Johnson, saying Johnson “is going to have to make that decision” about his future. The races in Maine, between Senator Susan Collins and Troy Jackson, and Michigan, between Mike Rogers and Abdul El-Sayed, were still uncalled overnight, so the size of the new Senate majority is not yet known. The House projections rest on partial counts, and the final seat totals will take days.

Why it matters

This is today’s highest-impact story because it ends unified Republican control of Washington for the last two years of Trump’s presidency. A Democratic Congress controls federal spending, can open investigations and, with the Senate, can block nominees, which gives it leverage over everything from the budget to the war with Iran. It is also a sharp verdict on Trump, delivered in states such as Texas, Kansas and Iowa that Republicans had long counted on. Still uncertain: the final margins in both chambers, the Maine and Michigan results, and whether Johnson stays as the Republicans’ leader in the House.

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