Democrats are on the brink of returning to the majority in the US Senate, after their candidates won historic victories across the United States in a sweeping repudiation of Donald Trump.
Democratic victories in Texas, Ohio, North Carolina and South Carolina, projected by the Associated Press, will give them control of the chamber, assuming they can hold on to all seats they currently hold. It was a stunning turnaround for the party, two years after voters put them into the minority in Congress’s upper chamber as they returned Trump to the White House.
James Talarico has become the first Democrat to win a Senate race in Texas since 1988, while Annie Andrews will be the next senator from deep-red South Carolina, which has not elected a Democrat since 1998. In swing state North Carolina, Roy Cooper became the first Democrats elected to Senate in 18 years, while former senator Sherrod Brown will return to the chamber, two years after losing re-election.
Cooper and Talarico had been leading in polls for weeks, while Andrews’s viability only became apparent in the closing days of the race, which had been upended by the sudden death of Lindsey Graham, South Carolina’s longtime Republican senator, in July.
The governor appointed his sister, Darline Graham, as his replacement, and she quickly announced her intention to run for a full term. Trump endorsed her, but Graham stumbled on the campaign trail, handing Andrews, a pediatrician who had not previously held elected office, an upset victory that seemed impossible just months prior.
Democrats needed to win a total of at least four seats in the chamber to return to the majority, while again winning seats where Democratic incumbents are retiring in Michigan, New Hampshire and Minnesota. The party’s nominee has won in New Hampshire, while ballot counting is ongoing in Michigan and Minnesota.
Races also have not been called in Maine, Kansas and Iowa, where Democrats are hoping to claim seats from the GOP.
Democrats began the night on an optimistic footing, with the AP quickly calling Georgia’s Senate race for the incumbent Democrat Jon Ossoff. His easy re-election came not two years after Trump won his state, raising concerns that the senator could be vulnerable.
In New Hampshire, the AP projected that Democrat Chris Pappas will succeed outgoing senator Jeanne Shaheen, defying Republicans’ hopes for an upset in a state known for its independent streak. Pappas is the first openly gay man elected to the US Senate.
Even where they have lost, signs emerged that Democrats had gained ground with voters in midterm elections that appear to have been defined by Trump’s substantial unpopularity.
In Florida, the AP projected that the incumbent senator Ashley Moody won against Democrat Angie Nixon. But Moody, who was appointed to the Senate last year after Marco Rubio became Trump’s secretary of state, had beaten Nixon by about three percentage points with 99% of ballots counted – a relatively narrow margin in a heavily Republican state.
She will finish the remainder of the six-year term Rubio won in 2022, when he was elected by a 17-percentage point margin.
Democrats have also won re-election in several blue states, including Virginia, Delaware, New Jersey, Illinois, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Colorado and New Mexico, according to the AP. The GOP has meanwhile held Senate seats in deep-red West Virginia, Oklahoma, Wyoming and Kentucky.
Control of the Senate offers potent leverage against Trump for the final two years of his presidency. Not only could Democrats block the president’s bills and issue subpoenas to investigate his administration, they could also reject his nominees to the federal judiciary – including the supreme court.
At the outset of his presidency, it appeared difficult to believe that the minority party would have a chance of regaining the majority in the midterms – most senators set to face re-election in 2026 represented solidly red or blue states, giving Democrats few offensive opportunities.
But Trump’s approval ratings have fallen sharply since his inauguration, fueled by dissatisfaction over his handling of the economy, and the all-important cost of living. His decision to attack Iran has also proven unpopular with voters, as has his hardline implementation of immigration law.
To flip the Senate, Democrats initially named as their best bets races in Maine – the only state that voted for Kamala Harris and had a Republican incumbent on the ballot – North Carolina, Ohio and Alaska.
They recruited candidates with records as strong challengers in red states, such as Brown and Alaska’s former US congresswoman Mary Peltola, both of whom were unseated in 2024. Trump’s refusal to tolerate dissent also played into Democrats’ hands – he pushed North Carolina’s Republican senator Thom Tillis into retirement after he refused to support his domestic policy bill, and elevated the former Republican National Committee chair Michael Whatley, who fell to Cooper by a wide margin.
And though several Republicans were vying to replace Lindsey Graham in the Senate, Trump endorsed his sister, even though she had never held elected office
As sentiment towards Trump worsened, Democrats saw opportunities for their candidates in Texas, Kansas, Iowa and South Carolina – all red states Trump won by double digits.
In a sign of Republican concern that a “blue wave” could sweep their Senate majority away just two years after it was won, Trump spent the final weeks before the elections campaigning in those states and others where his party usually romps to victory.
Republicans have their own targets, namely Democratic-held seats in states that had broken for Trump two years ago, or that Harris carried by slim margins. This group included Minnesota, New Hampshire, Michigan and Georgia, though Republican candidates have already lost in two of those races.
A poll by the New York Times and Siena University published Sunday found Democrats leading in five battleground states surveyed, and statistically tied in a sixth. But other surveys have found Republican candidates ahead, while some Democrats in key race have been dealing with drama and scandal in the closing days of the campaign.
Last week, the New York Times reported that Peltola’s campaign collaborated with Democratic operatives to recruit a candidate with nearly the same name as her opponent, the incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan. The state’s governor has ordered a criminal investigation into the allegation, while the US Department of Justice filed a suit to block the election’s certification if Sullivan loses, though a federal judge recently dismissed it.
In Michigan, tensions between Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed and congresswoman Haley Stevens, whom he defeated in the primary, erupted into open conflict after she endorsed his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers. Stevens said she objected to El-Sayed’s stance on an advertisement by an outside group that blamed the rising cost of living on US support for Israel, but Democrats accused the four-term congresswoman of “betrayal”.
