Interim summary: Democratic lead grows in Mississippi Senate race as Republican blame game begins
After Democrats secured historic wins in last night’s midterm elections, Republicans are beginning the blame game:
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Donald Trump claimed Republicans fared poorly because he was not on the ballot – after repeatedly urging voters to pretend he was on the ballot.
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JD Vance pointed to Trump’s ongoing war in Iran as the “obvious” culprit for the loss.
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Pete Hegseth’s role leading the unpopular war could lead to him taking the fall – despite Trump publicly backing him. Republicans including Trump foe Thomas Massie have criticized the defense secretary.
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Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, said the “close to an extinction-level event for Republicans” was caused in part by his party failing to target their ad spending on issues that would motivate voters.
We’re still awaiting results in a few key races:
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Currently, Democrat Scott Colom is leading his Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith by just 1,138 votes with 96% of the vote counted – in what could be a historic upset in Mississippi.
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In Alaksa, Democrat Mary Peltola is leading Republican Dan S. Sullivan by just 626 votes. If neither candidate receives 50% of the vote, the Alaska Senate race will move to rank-choice voting.
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Meanwhile, in the Los Angeles mayoral race, the battle between the Democratic incumbent, Karen Bass, and her progressive challenger Nithya Raman, a city council member, is also still too close to call. Only 63% of the vote has been counted so far, and Raman has a narrow lead.
Key events
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Iran unveils ‘We will kill Trump’ banner – but US president may now be tempted to resume bombing
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Interim summary: Democratic lead grows in Mississippi Senate race as Republican blame game begins
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Democrat Scott Colom secures growing lead in Mississippi Senate race
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Democrats win full control of the Texas state house after historic governor and US Senate victories
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Hakeem Jeffries officially announces candidacy for House speaker
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Trump’s wealth dented after Democrats trounce Republicans in midterms
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What the downfall of near three-decade senator Susan Collins says about Republican unpopularity
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Democrat Leticia Gutierrez wins gerrymandered Texas House seat
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Viewers stayed away from Fox News on a disappointing election night for Republicans
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What will Democrats do with the blue tsunami? – podcast
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Progressive environmental organizer Will Lawrence flips swing Michigan House district
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Republican David Valadao loses California House seat to progressive challenger
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The midterms were a thumping rebuke of the US-Israel relationship – analysis
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Scalise and Jordan launch minority leader runs, pledging to lead GOP on path back to majority after midterms rebuke
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Democrats’ triumph deals devastating blow to Trump – podcast
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Major races we’re still waiting on, and when we might know the result
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Donald Trump says that Vance’s comment about Iran war kneecapping Republicans in catastrophic midterms is ‘largely true’
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Top House Democrat says party will hold hearings and pass regulations on AI, datacenters
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Trump avoids speaking about stunning Republican losses in first public event post-midterms
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Democrat Christina Bertrand Hines flips red Michigan House district
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Hakeem Jeffries: Democrats have been handed a mandate ‘to make life more affordable’
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Mississippi US Senate race still on knife’s edge with 96% of votes counted
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Schumer says Democrats’ priorities are reducing costs and ending corruption after taking control of Congress
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JD Vance says it’s ‘obvious to almost everyone’ that war on Iran is ‘the reason we lost’ midterms
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‘We want our taxes spent here’: 12 Democrats weigh in after sweeping the US midterm elections
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‘The people of America have spoken’: world leaders react to US midterm elections
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Midterms: how the blue wave took Congress in three minutes – video
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Jim Jordan, Steve Scalise among Republicans looking to replace Johnson as top House Republican, reports say
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Mike Johnson not to seek minority leadership role, reports say
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‘PSA: Trump is still your president,’ White House posts on Instagram
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Wall Street opens higher after Democrats secure Congress
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Mike Johnson won’t seek minority leadership, as Jim Jordan eyes the role: media reports
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A blue tsunami wipes out Republicans – podcast
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‘A win the size of Texas’: Democrats celebrate shrinking Republican dominance in a big state
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In GOP midterm defeat, British prime minister sees ‘opportunity’ to work together to address Iran war, cost of living
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Mark Teixeira, Former Yankees all-star and World Series champion, wins House race in Texas
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Trump ally Lauren Boebert at risk of losing Congress seat in Colorado’s 4th District to Democrat challenger
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Democrats secure majority in the House as voters punish Republican Party
As we reported earlier, votes for Scott Colom in Mississippi are starting to outpace those for his Republican opponent in what has been an otherwise neck-and-neck race for the state’s Senate seat.
According to the most recent tabulation from the Associated Press, Colom leads Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith by 1,138 votes with almost 96% of the vote counted – still a small margin, but increasingly significant after a lead of just 28 votes yesterday.
Strong support in majority-Black counties has helped make the seat in Mississippi unexpectedly competitive for Democrats. As of noon Wednesday, Colom had received about 73% of the vote in those counties while running neck-and-neck with Hyde-Smith statewide.
Republican Senator Ashley Moody, who won her reelection in Florida on Tuesday by a closer margin than many polls suggested, has told Fox News her party really needs to “drill down on affordability.”
Moody has joined a chorus of voices from across her party who have admitted that Donald Trump and his party failed to make the case to voters that they were focused on bringing down the cost of living.
We thought we were delivering historic tax cuts and a housing bill … but the people want more, they want us really focused on that. I think you’ll see us get back to Washington and really drill down and be accountable to what folks want.”
Iran unveils ‘We will kill Trump’ banner – but US president may now be tempted to resume bombing
Patrick Wintour
Iran this week unveiled a huge billboard and banners over Enqelab Square in central Tehran. The billboard pledged in English: “We will kill Trump” – elevating the degree of personal animus with which Donald Trump is viewed in official Iranian circles.
The poster depicts the US president behind bars with his head bowed. And in a sense, given the US midterm election results on Tuesday, Iran has indeed killed Trump, or at least the second term of his presidency. Trump’s reverse is all the more piquant because it comes on the day Iran’s leadership celebrates the anniversary of the seizure of the US embassy in Tehran in 1979, an event that ensnared Jimmy Carter, and a reminder of how Iran has ruined the prospects of more than one US president.
Not surprisingly, the keenly followed election results have led to a good degree of triumphalism inside Iran.
Ehsan Movaheidian, an international relations scholar, claimed: “The Islamic Republic of Iran has succeeded in regime change in America. The same will soon happen in Europe as well. Bow down before the power of Iran.”
Meisam Zohurian, a conservative member of parliament, said: “The joy over the outcome of the US elections has nothing to do with the arrival of this party or the departure of that party. The issue is the aggressor was smeared in the dirt and Iran had an impact on the result.”
Ali Nikzad, the first deputy speaker of the parliament, said: “These electoral defeats are the aftershocks of Trump’s defeat by the Iranian people.”
Iran’s supreme leader said anyone expecting a shift in US policy was “seriously mistaken”, however. “Those who still harbour even the slightest hope that the behaviour of the hegemonic system might change through partisan or factional shifts, or who imagine that making concessions to the United States can dissuade it from hostility towards the Iranian nation, are seriously mistaken,” Mojtaba Khamenei wrote.
But the big question now is whether either side will regard these seismic results as a moment to review their diplomatic strategy. Iran’s chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, was quick to call on Trump to accept the wisdom of the American people. On social media he urged Trump to bow to the verdict of America: “Whether driven by conscience or the cost of living, America said no to war and we endorse this message.”
Many congressional members of the House Black Caucus survived the mid-decade redistricting push that was designed to dilute their districts. Experts suggested that the resilience in their vote reflects an unusual turnout surge, but warn the maps behind the push remain in place.
After the supreme court redistricting ruling this year, caucus chair Yvette Clarke warned that up to 19 seats were at risk from Republican-led efforts to redraw districts, and not all of those seats were on the ballot on Tuesday.
Many caucus members held on with convincing wins – including Texas’ Christian Menefee and Missouri’s Emanuel Cleaver – while some had more narrow victories, like Alabama’s Shomari Figures and North Carolina’s Don Davis.
But law experts cautioned against interpreting the midterms as a permanent fix to the altered electoral maps.
“This kind of turnout can’t be a once-in-an-election-cycle kind of phenomenon,” said Melissa Murray, an NYU law professor.
In Tennessee’s 9th district, one of the congressional districts redrawn to favor Republicans earlier this year, the Democratic candidate has conceded defeat.
The Memphis-area congressional district that was one of several southern districts represented by Black Democrats that were redrawn in the wake of the US supreme court decision weakening the Voting Rights Act.
Democrat Justin Pearson said Wednesday that he came close to victory in the gerrymandered district and noted that “Tennessee politics will never be the same.”
I accept the results of this election for Congress. But, I will not concede to rigged maps, attacks on democracy in Tennessee, or to billionaire control of our political system.”
As Republican leaders from across the country continue to mull over their historic midterms loss, the White House continues to insist it’s business as usual.
In a post on X, the White House account writes “We aren’t going anywhere”, adding:
Lock in, patriots. We’ve only just begun.”
In a news release earlier on Wednesday, the White House laid out what it believes is the “promises” made and kept to the American people, as Trump’s allies scrambled to respond to Republicans’ stunning electoral defeat.
Every time the Radical Left, the Fake News, and the professional panic class have written President Trump’s obituary, they have been wrong. They will be wrong again.”
It comes after Trump and many of his allies have acknowledged the Iran war’s effect on his party’s inability to maintain control of Congress, suggesting voters were frustrated by surging gas prices that have been a byproduct of the conflict.
Elon Musk set a record for election spending this year – contributing at least $446m to Republican-aligned Super Pacs and groups – in the US midterm elections. It turned out to be a poor investment.
Democrats won every one of the five Senate races where Musk’s America Pac spent the most money backing Republican candidates. In Texas, where Musk’s empire is based, Republicans lost the Senate race, governor’s office and are expected to relinquish control of the state house.
My colleague Nick Robins-Early has the full story:
Democrat Teresa Benitez-Thompson has won her race for the House of Representatives in Nevada’s 2nd district, flipping a Republican stronghold.
Benitez-Thompson defeated her Republican opponent David Flippo and will fill the seat of retiring congressman Mark Amodei, who’s represented the district for more than a decade.
Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s progressive mayor, said the midterm election results “speak to the crises in working class Americans’ lives” in an interview with CNN.
“I think last night what we saw was a reflection of the fact that working class Americans are tired of being told that their needs are unrealistic by politicians who have been bought by the wealthiest people across the country,” he said.
Democrat’s wins are “a mandate to drive down costs, a mandate to deliver change working-class Americans can feel in their wallet, and a mandate to fulfill the trust that those same Americans have put into Democrats,” Mamdani added.
Progressive candidates, like Mamdani, who is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, have experienced record wins in the past year. According to a DSA candidate tracker, the organization is poised to see at least 135 candidates win their races this year.
Voters rejected datacenters, the facilities full of semiconductor chips that power artificial intelligence and a host of other online products, in elections across the country last night.
Proposals regarding datacenters were on the ballot in elections in at least 40 jurisdictions across 10 states. Voters approved nearly every datacenter moratorium that was on the ballot, dozens in total, with one notable exception: Hardwood, North Dakota.
My colleague Johana Bhuiyan has the full story:
Democrat Dave Min has won his bid for re-election to the House of Representatives in California’s 47th district. Min defeated his Republican challenger Jenny Rae Le Roux.
Democrat Marni von Wilpert has won her race for the House of Representatives in California’s 48th district, flipping a seat long held by a Republican.
von Wilpert, a member of the San Diego city council, defeated Republican Jim Desmond in a contest to fill Republican congressman Darrell Issa’s seat after the 13-term congressman announced his retirement.
Former Republican House speaker Newt Gingrich said “the scale of the Republican defeat” in the midterms “is so great that it makes the race for the GOP presidential nomination wide open.”
In a social media post, Gingrich wrote that while JD Vance might have previously been the obvious frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 2028, yesterday’s election results open the door to a number of new candidates.
“The number of people who want to draft Secretary of State Marco Rubio is staggering,” he wrote. “In addition, Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, Ron DeSantis, Pete Hegseth, Glenn Youngkin, and a surprising number of people may decide this is their chance to take advantage of the chaos of the shocking defeat and seek to be the champion who can rescue the party and the country.”
The White House has scheduled a hearing into allegations of mortgage fraud by Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook for 14 December, the New York Times reports, citing an unnamed White House official. Donald Trump has been working to fire Cook for more than a year, in an effort that would mark the first time a president has ever removed a member of the Fed.
Here’s our latest reporting on the effort to fire Cook:
Texas senator Ted Cruz, a Republican, posted a lengthy analysis on social media of his state’s staggering shift blue in yesterday’s midterm elections, calling the results “an ass kicking” and “Watergate-level repudiation.”
“Our voters, Republicans, Libertarians, Independents, showed up and voted, and rejected our candidates, voting Democrat instead,” Cruz wrote, adding “Nowhere are the consequences of this election greater than Texas.”
Cruz blamed Republicans from failing to address issues of affordability, writing, “The top issue, cost of living, is very real. Too many in politics dismissed it.”
“We will rebuild as a true blue-collar party, not by embracing socialism, but by being real free-market conservatives,” he said.”
