November 4: The Blue Wave Arrives

Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress in a night that redrew the political map, including states they hadn’t won in generations.

Voters reshaped Washington on Tuesday. Democrats won majorities in both the House and the Senate, according to projections from the Associated Press, NBC News, CBS News, and CNN, ending two years of full Republican control of Congress. The results, which many outlets described as a sweeping rebuke of President Donald Trump, will give Democrats the power to shape legislation and lead congressional investigations for the final two years of his term.

A Wave Across the Map

In the Senate, Democrats flipped seven Republican-held seats: Iowa, Kansas, Maine, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, and Texas. Some of the wins were historic. James Talarico became the first Democrat to win a Senate race in Texas since 1988, and Adam Hamilton the first in Kansas since 1932. In Maine, Democrat Troy Jackson defeated five-term Republican Sen. Susan Collins, and in Ohio, former Sen. Sherrod Brown unseated Republican Sen. Jon Husted. Democrats also held Michigan’s open seat, where Abdul El-Sayed defeated Republican Mike Rogers and will become the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Senate. As of Wednesday morning, Democrats had won 54 Senate seats to Republicans’ 44, with races in Alaska and Mississippi still uncalled.

The House results were just as striking. NBC News projects that Democrats will win about 258 seats, the most the party has held since 1993, well above the 218 needed for a majority. Democrats flipped seats in battlegrounds across the country, including three of Iowa’s four House districts. With the majority, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York is in line to become Speaker, which would make him the first Black Speaker in the chamber’s history. Exit polls pointed to the economy: 89% of voters told CBS News that the cost of living was a major factor in their vote, and the president’s approval rating among voters stood at 38%.

The U.S. Capitol dome at dawn under a soft blue sky, with light breaking over Washington

When the new Congress is sworn in this January, the balance of power in Washington will look very different.

Republicans struck a defiant tone. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who will lose that title in January, said he was proud of what Senate Republicans had accomplished and added, “thankfully, we still have President Trump in the White House,” pledging to work with the president to block the Democratic agenda. That sets up a divided government, with a Republican president holding the veto pen. Midterm elections have long punished the party in the White House. Republicans gained 54 House seats in their 1994 “Republican Revolution,” and 63 more in 2010, while Democrats gained 41 in 2018. Wednesday’s results now belong on that list, and both parties will spend the next two years arguing over what voters were trying to say.