Key events
Closing summary
We’re wrapping up this live page now – it’s 1.10am in Washington DC – but we’ll be back soon with more in our continuing coverage of the US midterm election results and ramifications. Here are some of the day’s key developments.
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A number of closely watched contests are still to be called, including the final two US Senate races – in Mississippi and Alaska. Democratic candidates there are hoping to oust Republican incumbents to bolster the 106-seat majority Democrats now have in Congress as we await final results.
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Democrats flipped another eight House seats, strengthening their majority in the lower chamber. Democrats are now leading Republicans 253 to 157, with 25 races left to call, as a number of GOP representatives felt the weight of the blue wave that has swept their party out of power. Republicans held on to two House seats in the west as congressman Mike Kennedy won re-election in Utah and Amanda McKinney won in Washington.
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Nithya Raman was elected mayor of Los Angeles, eking out a narrow win over incumbent Karen Bass, in a local political shake-up that reflects growing dissatisfaction with the city’s direction. The progressive urban planner had served on LA’s city council since 2020.
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Harmeet Dhillon, a key Trump ally, resigned from her position leading the justice department’s civil rights division. Attorney general Todd Blanche said he accepted her notice. Dhillon is the first high-ranking justice department official to leave after the midterm elections. Democrats are expected to use their power in taking control of Congress to aggressively investigate executive agencies, including the justice department.
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Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic senator-elect in Michigan, said the new majority in the upper chamber needed “action” from their leader. On the campaign trail El-Sayed refused to back Senator Chuck Schumer, who currently serves as the minority leader. Speaking to CNN, El-Sayed reiterated that Senator Chris Van Hollen, the Maryland Democrat, would be an “amazing Senate majority leader”, but didn’t completely rule out supporting Schumer.
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Joining the chorus of Republicans who blasted their party’s midterms performance is Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who said the GOP was handed an “ass-kicking” in losing control of Congress. “It was not simply a bad 2006 midterm election, it was a Watergate-level repudiation,” he said on his podcast.
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The Nasdaq share index had its worst day in 19 months after slumping 5.5% on Thursday amid growing signs the artificial intelligence industry will face tougher regulation because of the midterm results.
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A federal judge temporarily blocked construction from starting on Donald Trump’s proposed huge triumphal arch in Washington late on Thursday, shortly after it won a key approval. US district judge Tanya Chutkan issued a 14-day restraining order shortly after the National Capital Planning Commission voted 8-4 to approve the project after hearing from about 100 opponents who questioned its purpose and legality.
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Trump signed a proclamation that preserves the Oval Office and Cabinet Room as national monuments in his first official action after the Republican wipeout.
Judge blocks work on Trump arch from starting
A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration from breaking ground on his towering memorial arch for 14 days.
The temporary restraining order by US district judge Tanya Chutkan halting the work represents a major setback for one of Donald Trump’s most prominent projects in his vision to remake Washington.
The decision early on Friday followed a series of steps taken earlier on Thursday by the government, including the final approval of the arch by the National Capital Planning Commission in an 8-4 vote after a nine-hour hearing where dozens of witnesses opposed the construction, the AP is reporting.
The administration said the work could begin as soon as the approval and the Interior Department issued a final decision authorizing construction and the proper notification was published by the National Park Service.
In issuing the delay, Chutkan granted the request of the latest plaintiffs in lawsuits challenging the construction of the arch.
A judge has blocked the start of construction on Donald Trump’s memorial arch just after a federal panel approved it, according to news reports.
We’ll bring you more as soon as we have it.
Federal panel approves Trump’s memorial arch
A federal panel has now given a final approval to Trump’s proposed memorial arch in Washington DC, clearing a key hurdle to breaking ground on the pet project.
The National Capital Planning Commission approved the 250-foot-high (76-meter) structure with a vote of eight to four on Thursday night, despite hearing from dozens of opponents who questioned its purpose and legality.
As mentioned earlier, the administration has said it could launch construction within a day of the vote. But the gilded arch still faces legal hurdles and a judge is set to rule soon on whether to block it.
Three lawsuits – including ones filed by the District of Columbia and Virginia last weekend – are now seeking to halt the project. The monument would rise on a patch of grass off the bridge that spans the Potomac River and connects the city with the Arlington national cemetery.
Earlier in the day, Trump signed a proclamation that preserves the Oval Office and Cabinet Room as national monuments – his first official action after the Republican wipeout in the midterms.
Since the vote, the president has seemingly turned his attention to the construction and renovation projects he has begun across the US capital, including the planned triumphal arch.
Trump said of the Oval Office:
It will not be allowed to be touched by anybody, destroyed, ripped down by stupid people, in order to build something in a slightly different shape. We like the Oval Office, and it’s a symbol, like the White House itself.
But the proclamation doesn’t prevent future presidents from restyling the room away from all the golden flourishes he has had installed.
Asked if one could take down the gold, Trump said:
He can do whatever he wants but very carefully. He’s got to be very careful.
A federal panel is expected to approve Donald Trump’s proposed memorial arch in Washington on Thursday at the end of an hours-long meeting that drew dozens of opponents to a key part of the president’s push to leave his imprint on the nation’s capital.
Approval by the National Capital Planning Commission would clear a hurdle to breaking ground on the project, and the administration has said it could launch construction within a day of the vote.
But the proposed 250-foot (76-meter) tall gilded arch still faces legal challenges, the AP reports.
The remote, call-in hearing drew witnesses who gave impassioned comments opposing an arch they said will destroy the solemnity of the nearby Arlington National Cemetery, where hundreds of thousands of fallen service members and military veterans are buried.
As of 8pm Eastern time – seven hours after the hearing began – there were still more than 60 people waiting to address the commission.
But the panel’s Trump-appointed chairman, Mark Paoletta, launched the meeting with a gushing appraisal of the monument and lauded Trump for wanting to build it.
US House could vote on motion to impeach Pete Hegseth next week – report
Republican congressman Thomas Massie told Politico on Thursday that he could introduce his resolution to impeach Pete Hegseth, the first step in possibly forcing the US defense secretary from office, as soon as Monday. If so, that could set up a House floor vote as soon as next week.
If Trump’s going to replace appointees like Hegseth, he should do it while he can still get the replacements confirmed in the Senate,” Massie observed on social media. “Also, my Hegseth impeachment resolution is a much gentler version of what’s coming when Dem’s control Congress. They’ll have hearings & trials.”
Faced with the prospect of impeachment and a trial in the Senate, where even many Republicans are critical of his leadership of the Pentagon, Hegseth and his family appeared to launch a coordinated social media campaign to burnish his reputation.
The defense secretary, a former Fox weekend host who is married to his former producer there, posted a combative video on social media on Thursday. His brother, Phil Hegseth, appointed last years as senior adviser to the secretary for the Department of Homeland Security and liaison officer to the defense department, posted a still photo of his brother in a helicopter with the caption: “Stand. Fight. Defend the Republic.”
Republicans hold House seats in Utah and Washington
Republicans held on two House seats in the West on Thursday, as congressman Mike Kennedy won re-election for a second term in Utah’s fourth congressional district, and Amanda McKinney won a seat representing Washington’s fourth congressional district, to replace retiring Republican Dan Newhouse.
The viral ads that propelled Scott Colom’s Senate campaign in Mississippi
As his narrow lead in the Mississippi Senate race expanded on Thursday, Democrat Scott Colom told NBC News that his party had all but abandoned the state before his campaign.
“First of all, let’s not give them too much credit; they haven’t been trying,” Colom said. I’ve been in Mississippi for 15 years, most of the time the Democrats conceded the state. And my frustration with that is, 38% of the population is African American; they’re very loyal Democrats. They vote 90-95% Democrat. There’s a lot of white rural Democrats across Mississippi.”
“That’s a shame, right, because morally, how could you not compete in a state where people are denying folks health care? How could you not compete in a state where folks are, you know, getting betrayed on tariffs? Farmers are getting betrayed, consumers, small businesses. How could you not compete in a state where voting rights are being attacked left and right?” he added. “When you say, ‘Listen, I can’t win those voters’, what you’re saying is ‘I don’t care enough about those voters’. And when you show voters you don’t care, they don’t show up. So what I did is I showed up, and turns out when you show up, people start to believe.”
Colom’s Senate campaign, which benefitted from very little help from the national party, was propelled, in part, by a series of viral ads that he thanked his campaign’s content creators for producing this week, as his lead in the vote count expanded.
One ad, released in mid-October, racked up more than 20 million views across social networks. It seized on a remark by the Republican incumbent, Cindy Hyde-Smith, who tried to dodge a question from a TV anchor about the high price of beef by saying: “You have so many proteins to choose from”.
The ad, which begins with that gaffe, then cuts to three Mississippi voters responding to the senator. “Pick another protein?” a man grilling burgers says. “Shit, I’d rather pick another senator instead.”
“Pick another protein?” a woman eating says next. “She done lost her damn mind. I’d rather pick another senator.”
“Pick another protein?” a woman in a grocery store says. “What the f-”.
According to Colom, the idea for the ad came from Patrick Gaspard, a former US ambassador to South Africa and adviser to president Barack Obama and it was directed and edited by Ryan Sayles. Sayles, Colom wrote this week, “should be considered the breakout-star of this cycle. He’s going to be a giant in the media consultant game. He did GAME CHANGING work with SO little.”
Another comedic ad, a Halloween parody of the film Sinners called Sinators, was written and directed by Colom’s twin brother, Andrew Colom, who also starred in it along with the candidate.
At the end of the campaign, Colom starred in a much more serious ad, showing the candidate at the Mississippi home where the civil rights activist Medgar Evers was murdered in 1963 for registering Black voters.
“I’ve been a prosecutor for 10 years and unfortunately I’ve stood in a lot of houses where something terrible happened,” Colom says in the ad. “This isn’t any house. This isn’t any tragedy. This is where Medger Evers died. He fought for this country and Normandy. He came home to Mississippi and they wouldn’t let him vote. So he organized, helping other people register.”
“He was killed for helping Mississippian vote,” Colom says at the end of the ad. “On Tuesday, use your vote and honor everyone who died for that right.”
Democrat Scott Colom expands lead in Mississippi Senate race as provisional ballots are counted
In Mississippi, Democrat Scott Colom’s lead in the race for US Senate expanded to 1,813 votes over incumbent Republican senator Cindy Hyde-Smith as a small number of provisional or affidavit ballots were counted on Thursday.
Up to up to 20,000 outstanding ballots remain to be counted in the state, including late-arriving mail ballots that are valid if they were postmarked by election day and arrive by 10 November, and an estimated 8,000 to 12,000 affidavit ballots, which are those set aside from the initial count due to technical errors, like a lack of photo ID or an incorrect home address, that voters have until next Tuesday to correct. Such errors on ballots can often be corrected through a process known as curing.
Colom told reporters earlier on Thursday that he is “very confident” that the remaining ballots will add to his lead. “Anybody out there who does an analysis of this knows where this is going. The affidavits always move in the Democrat’s favor in Mississippi.”
“I am overwhelmed by the outpouring of support for my campaign as we fight to make sure every lawful ballot is counted,” Colom wrote on social media. “My campaign, alongside the DSCC and Elias Law Group, Lisa Ross, and our great team of local attorneys, are leading the effort to ensure every eligible voter is heard and I am confident that when votes are counted, we will flip this seat.”
The Mississippi Republican Party chair, Mike Hurst, disagreed. “We believe if the laws are followed to a T and these 20,000 outstanding ballots are counted, that senator Cindy Hyde-Smith will be reelected,” Hurst said at a news conference.
When he was pressed to say whether that meant he would accept a Colom win, should the count go go in the Democrat’s favor, Hurst said: “Let me be clear: there is no election-denying going on here. If the laws are followed and the voters spoke, that is it and Mississippi Republicans will accept that.”
Sam Levin
Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, commuted the death sentences of more than 500 people on the state’s death row on Thursday, a move that ensures they can never be executed under future administrations.
The Democrat’s mass commutation at the end of his term has converted all of the state’s death sentences to life without the possibility of parole, the largest clearing of any US death row in modern history.
The move comes after the failed execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee sparked global outrage and renewed calls for a nationwide pause on capital punishment.
His decision affects 529 men and 19 women who were sentenced to death in the state, making up the largest death row in the western hemisphere, the governor said in a letter announcing his decision.
“I take this action because I firmly believe that state-sanctioned killing is incompatible with California’s values, undermines the foundations of our legal system, and diminishes each of us,” he wrote. “I know we cannot execute people in our imperfect legal system and remain true to our core values, first among them justice and human decency.”
Newsom, considered a probable candidate for president in 2028, has long opposed the death penalty and issued a moratorium on executions in 2019. He also dismantled the state’s physical death row chamber in the infamous San Quentin prison, transferring people with death sentences to other facilities where they had more freedom of movement and access to programs – for some, a dramatic change after decades isolated in solitary cells.
