WASHINGTON: Democrats have swept seven Republican-held Senate seats, two dozen House districts, five governorships and as many as 12 state legislative chambers in a historic midterm landslide, with results still being counted, while Republicans failed to capture a single Democratic-held office at any of those levels despite months of aggressive redistricting efforts aimed at preserving their grip on power.
The Democratic wave shattered decades of GOP dominance in reliably Republican states, including Texas and Kansas, while handing Democrats a majority of the nation's governorships for the first time since 2010.
President Donald Trump said he can work with Democratic majorities in the next Congress on "many more things than people understand." In a brief call with CNBC's Eamon Javers, the president projected confidence about the last two years of his presidency after Democrats scored a seismic victory in the midterm elections, flipping both chambers of Congress from Republican control.
Trump on Wednesday morning, in his first on-camera remarks after the GOP's resounding defeat, focused on construction projects he has made a priority, including the partially built White House ballroom and a new helipad on the South Lawn. He did not mention or acknowledge the election drubbing until reporters asked for his thoughts.
The Democratic victories spanning a surprising number of House districts and Senate seats mean the party will be able to launch congressional investigations with subpoena power.
Democrats were projected to win at least 250 House seats, with Republicans winning a minimum of 165 seats, according to the CNBC Election Desk. A number of Democratic candidates won in House districts that were redesigned by Republican-controlled state legislatures with the intention of easing the way for GOP candidates to win.
Democrats were on track to hold at least 54 seats in the Senate, with Republicans likely to hold at least 42 seats.
Among the big Democratic winners Tuesday night was James Talarico in the Texas Senate election. He overcame an unprecedented flurry of $224 million in spending by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to boost the candidacy of Republican nominee Ken Paxton, the state's scandal-plagued attorney general.
By Wednesday afternoon, Democrats' historic midterm rout had reached seven Senate seats, at least 24 House districts, five governorships and 12 state legislative chambers. Republicans had yet to flip a single Democratic-held congressional seat, governorship or state legislative chamber, according to Associated Press data. Their remaining opportunities for congressional pickups were largely confined to two newly gerrymandered House districts that weren't even supposed to be competitive in the first place.
The lopsided results underscored the breadth of the GOP's shellacking, with Democrats breaking decades of Republican dominance in reliably red states and reshaping the balance of power from Washington to state capitols.
As of late Wednesday, nine House seats remained uncalled by the AP along with two Senate seats and two governors races. The one seat Republicans may have a chance of flipping that hasn't been redistricted ahead of this election is Maine's 2nd District, FiftyPlusOne head of research Mary Radcliffe said by email.
In Kansas, voters elected their first Democratic U.S. senator since 1932, ending a 94-year losing streak for the party. In Texas, Democrats toppled three-term Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and captured a Senate seat that had eluded the party since 1988. Republican-held Senate seats also fell in Iowa, South Carolina and Ohio, along with seats in Maine and North Carolina.
The same wave swept through governors' mansions. Democrats scored upsets in Georgia, Iowa, Ohio and Nevada, all states Trump won in 2024, giving the party a majority of the nation's governorships for the first time since 2010.
Upheaval even reached state capitols, where Republican legislative majorities that had endured for decades fell like dominoes.
Democrats seized control of the Texas House for the first time in more than two decades, flipped both chambers of the Wisconsin Legislature and wrested the North Carolina House from Republicans after 16 years in the minority.
In Pennsylvania, Democrats captured the state Senate for the first time since before 1994, giving the party complete control of state government. They also reclaimed lower chambers in Michigan and Minnesota, restoring full Democratic control in both states. In Arizona, unofficial results pointed toward Democrats taking both legislative chambers for the first time in roughly 60 years.
Even where Republicans held on to legislative majorities, Democrats stripped away veto-proof supermajorities in Florida, Indiana, Kansas and Missouri. Not since the aftermath of Watergate in 1974 had the GOP faced a statehouse reckoning of this magnitude, according to the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.
The scale of the losses is all the more remarkable given how aggressively Republicans had tried to protect their power. At Trump's urging, GOP lawmakers spent months pursuing an extraordinary mid-decade redistricting campaign, redrawing congressional boundaries in Texas, Florida and North Carolina to tilt the electoral map in their favor.
Yet the gerrymandering push did little to blunt the Democratic wave. And the damage might not be over: Republicans were still fighting to hold Senate seats in Alaska and Mississippi, with several House contests also yet to be called Wednesday.
