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House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) celebrates while finding out election night results in Washington, on Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026. Photo by: Kenny Holston / New York Times

By Reid J. Epstein and Kellen Browning, The New York Times Company

Published Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2026 | 6:20 p.m.

Democrats were poised to take control of Congress through a series of sweeping victories across the country, delivering a thorough rebuke to President Donald Trump by ousting his Republican allies in contests up and down the ballot.

Democrats won races on Tuesday in places long considered Republican strongholds, flipping Senate seats in North Carolina and even South Carolina, and captured other offices, like Georgia governor, that Republicans had held for decades. The results came in a midterm election that is the first national mandate on Trump’s second term. They showed what polls have indicated for months — that voters are supremely dissatisfied with Trump and Republicans who have backed his agenda.

The most significant Democratic victory so far came in South Carolina, where The New York Times projected that Annie Andrews, the Democrat running for Senate, would prevail over Sen. Darline Graham, the sister of late Sen. Lindsey Graham. Democrats also flipped the Senate seat in North Carolina and maintained control of seats in Georgia and New Hampshire, according to The Associated Press.

Senate races have yet to be called in Kansas and Texas, where Democrats fielded strong and well-funded candidates against Republicans considered their party’s weakest nominees. In each, the Democratic candidates are posting margins unthinkable for their party in counties that have reported the vast majorities of their votes.

Votes were still being counted in Senate races in Iowa, Michigan and Nebraska, among others.

Republicans’ redistricting effort appears to have failed to yield the sweeping victories in House races that they intended. Democrats have already won three districts in Florida that Republicans redrew to be favorable for themselves, and the North Carolina seat Democrats flipped was also part of the Republican redistricting effort.

In Georgia, Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former Atlanta mayor, became the first Black woman to be elected governor in the country’s history. She is the first Democrat elected to lead the state since 1998.

In Washington, Trump is watching the election results from the White House and posting criticism of the Fox News coverage on his social media site. He celebrated a Republican victory in Guam but has yet to speak at length about results in the 50 states.

Democrats flipped their first two House seats of the night, in western North Carolina and central New Jersey. In the New Jersey race, they ousted Rep. Tom Kean Jr., who lost to Rebecca Bennett. Kean was dogged by questions about his fitness for office after he was out of public view for nearly four months, an absence he linked to a long-term hospital stay for depression.

Democratic candidates have blamed Trump, and the war he started this year in Iran, for the economic hardships that have driven a current of frustration across the nation. Republicans have focused on portraying their Democratic opponents as extreme on social issues and the economy as they played defense in reliably red states.

Republicans fended off a significant challenge in a Senate race in Florida: Sen. Ashley Moody defeated Angie Nixon, a progressive Democrat, in a tight contest to complete the term of Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

The last polling places will not close until 1 a.m. Eastern on Wednesday, in Alaska. Full results may not be known for days, particularly if many of the races are close — but it was clear that voters were eager to have their say. Turnout appeared strong across the country, as millions of people cast votes that will deliver a verdict on an unpopular president who has implored the country to act as if he were on the ballot.

In each of the major Senate battlegrounds, early turnout eclipsed that of the last midterm cycle. In Texas, overall turnout could exceed 10 million votes, which would top the total from each of the last two midterms. In Georgia, Election Day turnout was on track to beat that of the 2024 presidential election, the Georgia secretary of state said.

— A complicated landscape: More than 400 New York Times reporters, editors, data analysts, video journalists and photographers are covering the midterms, seeking to understand a large country with voters who are complicated — and sometimes contradictory.

— The counting process: Control of the Senate will hinge on the outcomes in the battleground states of Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, Ohio, South Carolina and Texas.

— Minor disruptions: A technical problem with voting machines in Westchester County, New York, outside New York City, led officials there to collect ballots by hand in a competitive House race. In Florida, flooding forced more than 20 polling stations across eight counties to be relocated. In North Carolina, technical problems at several precincts caused minor delays; state election officials said they would delay the release of election results to at least 8:15 p.m. from 7:30 p.m.

— Election integrity: Many election officials and Democrats have said they fear that Trump’s attacks on the integrity of U.S. elections could lead to tensions during voting and baseless challenges to the outcome. The administration has sought to prove that many noncitizens have cast ballots, but few people have been charged with offenses related to voting fraud. Local and state officials say they are well prepared to run a secure election.

— Court rulings: A federal judge has turned down a request by Democratic lawmakers and party organizations to prohibit the Trump administration from coercing states into screening incoming ballots. And the Supreme Court issued what appeared to be an extraordinary rebuke to Trump, signaling that it was not interested in assisting his efforts to interfere with how states administer elections.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .

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