Democrats projected to retake both chambers of Congress, flipping four governorships

Television networks projected overnight that Democrats have won majorities in both the House and the Senate for the first time since 2022, as a string of Republican-held Senate seats and four Republican governorships fell to Democratic challengers in Tuesday's midterm elections. The projections, made by NBC News, CBS News and other networks between roughly 10:15 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. Eastern time, came faster than many analysts had expected on a night both parties had described for months as a referendum on President Trump's second term.

Full, certified results were not yet available early Wednesday, and several contests, including two Senate races in New England and the Midwest, remained uncalled. But the broad shape of the outcome was clear: Democrats dislodged Republican senators in Iowa, Ohio, North Carolina, South Carolina and Kansas, and flipped an open Texas seat, while also winning governorships in Texas, Ohio, Georgia and Iowa. Republicans held the Senate seat in Florida and the open Florida governorship.

A Senate majority built seat by seat

Democrats entered the night needing a net gain of four seats to erase a 53-47 Republican Senate majority. By midnight they had well exceeded that mark. Networks called Ohio for former Senator Sherrod Brown over appointed incumbent Jon Husted, and Iowa for state Representative Josh Turek, a two-time Paralympic gold medalist, over Representative Ashley Hinson. In Kansas, Democrat Adam Hamilton defeated Senator Roger Marshall, and in North Carolina, former Governor Roy Cooper defeated Michael Whatley.

The night's most closely watched flip came in Texas, where state Representative James Talarico, whose campaign website describes him as a former public-school teacher from the Austin area, defeated Attorney General Ken Paxton for the Senate seat being vacated by retiring Senator John Cornyn. Paxton had ousted Cornyn in a bruising May primary runoff with President Trump's backing. Talarico's win, called by multiple networks shortly before midnight, makes him the first Democrat to win a Texas Senate seat since Lloyd Bentsen's re-election in 1988.

Democratic incumbents Jon Ossoff in Georgia and Mark Warner in Virginia were projected to hold their seats earlier in the evening, as was Chris Pappas in New Hampshire. Republicans held onto Florida, where Senator Ashley Moody won re-election. Two races remained unresolved as of early Wednesday:

• In Michigan, Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers were locked in an uncalled race for the seat long held by retiring Senator Gary Peters.
• In Maine, Senator Susan Collins faced Democratic state Senate President Troy Jackson in a contest that had not been called by early Wednesday, a race that could take additional time to resolve under the state's ranked-choice voting system if no candidate cleared 50 percent outright.

House gains stack up quickly

The House call came even faster than the Senate's. Democrats needed a net gain of seven seats to erase Republicans' narrow 218-212 majority, and networks projected a Democratic House within roughly an hour of East Coast polls closing. Preliminary tallies reported by television networks early Wednesday put the incoming Democratic majority well above 230 seats, though exact final counts, as always on election night, remained unsettled pending certified results from state election offices in the coming weeks.

Individual district results reported overnight pointed to gains spread well beyond the marquee statewide races. Networks projected Democratic pickups in Ohio's 7th District, Pennsylvania's 1st District, two Iowa seats, Wisconsin's 3rd District, Virginia's 1st District, Nebraska's 2nd District and North Carolina's 9th District, where Richard Ojeda was projected to defeat Representative Richard Hudson. In South Texas, Democrat Bobby Pulido was projected to win the 15th District, while incumbent Democrats Henry Cuellar in Texas's 28th District and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez in Washington's 3rd District, both representing competitive, Trump-won territory, were projected to win re-election.

Four governorships change hands

The governors' races, held in 36 states, produced an even more lopsided swing. Democrats flipped Texas, Ohio, Georgia and Iowa, all states Republicans had controlled heading into the election.

In Texas, partial returns published by Houston's Click2Houston showed Austin state Representative Gina Hinojosa, whose official campaign site frames her as a challenger to Abbott's backers, leading two-term incumbent Greg Abbott by roughly seven points with more than four-fifths of precincts counted, a margin networks treated as sufficient to call the race for Hinojosa. In Ohio, Dr. Amy Acton, the state's former health director during the early coronavirus pandemic, defeated Trump-backed businessman Vivek Ramaswamy; Acton's campaign site had centered her bid on medical-debt forgiveness and a plan to use Medicaid's purchasing power to lower prescription prices. In Georgia, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms defeated Republican businessman Rick Jackson, and in Iowa, State Auditor Rob Sand, whose campaign had pitched a new direction for the state, defeated businessman Zach Lahn.

Not every open governorship went to Democrats. In Florida, Representative Byron Donalds was projected to win the race to succeed term-limited Governor Ron DeSantis, a result that multiple networks noted would make him the first Black Republican elected governor in American history. Republicans also held governorships in Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Vermont. Contests in Nevada and Kansas were among a smaller number of governor's races still being tabulated early Wednesday.

What the numbers mean for Washington

Heading into Tuesday, Republicans controlled the House 218-212 and the Senate 53-47, giving President Trump unified control of Congress for the first two years of his term. A Democratic-controlled House would put the chamber in the hands of Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York. A Democratic Senate majority would return Senator Chuck Schumer of New York to the majority leader's post, giving Democrats control of the chamber's committee gavels and its power over confirmation of judicial and executive-branch nominees for the remainder of Trump's term.

Divided government of this kind would reshape the final two years of the administration in concrete ways. Senate confirmation of federal judges and Cabinet-level nominees would require Democratic cooperation. House committees under Democratic chairs would gain subpoena power over the administration. And any further changes to tax, health care or immigration law would need to clear a chamber no longer under unified Republican control, a sharp reversal from the governing environment Trump has had since January 2025.

Exit polling cited across several networks' broadcasts suggested the president's job approval among midterm voters was unusually low for a sitting president, a factor Democratic campaign committees and candidates in states like Ohio and Iowa leaned on heavily down the stretch, pairing national dissatisfaction with affordability-focused messaging on health care costs, housing and groceries. The NBC News live results page and a parallel CBS News tally both tracked the same broad pattern through the night: Democratic strength concentrated in governor's races and Senate seats in states Trump had carried in 2024, alongside continued Republican hold states in the Deep South and Plains.

Certification still weeks away

Network projections are not the same as official results, and the numbers reported overnight will continue to move as counties finish counting mail, provisional and overseas ballots in the coming days. Texas's own Secretary of State's office lists November 3 as general election day, with the formal statewide canvass and certification process to follow in the weeks after, as is standard practice; other states follow similar timelines before results become official, typically over the following two to four weeks.

Narrow margins in several contests make a recount possible before certification is complete, and the unresolved Senate races in Maine and Michigan could still shift the final partisan math, though neither was expected to change which party holds the majority in either chamber. Congressional leadership elections inside each party's caucus are expected within weeks, ahead of the new Congress convening on January 3, 2027. Final, certified tallies from state election offices, rather than overnight network projections, will determine the precise seat counts in both the House and the Senate.