Five Things to Know After Election Night: Democrats Ride a Wave as Republicans Reckon With Losses

The dust was still settling on Wednesday after a momentous midterm election in which Democrats secured stunning victories up and down the ballot, as voters delivered a stark rebuke to President Donald Trump and his party. From control of Congress to governor's mansions and state election offices, the results reshaped the political landscape heading into the final two years of Trump's term.

One of the night's biggest surprises came on redistricting. Republicans redrew more than a dozen congressional districts in states such as Texas, Florida, Ohio and North Carolina ahead of the midterms in an aggressive bid to shore up their narrow House majority. Instead, Democrats may actually come out ahead in the 2026 redistricting war, or at least fight it to a draw, after overpowering the GOP maps with massive upsets in some of those same states. Democrats will hold at least 11 of the 15 seats Republicans redrew to benefit their own party, and more gains are possible as final votes are tallied.

The Democratic edge does not stop there. The party picked up a Utah seat that a court redrew to its benefit and is poised to net as many as five seats in California, where Democrats carried out a redraw of their own. Republicans, meanwhile, lost Texas' 15th District after making it more vulnerable in an ill-fated attempt to topple Democratic incumbents in South Texas, and they risk losing up to two more seats that GOP lawmakers similarly watered down elsewhere. All told, Democrats have so far gained a net of 34 flipped seats, giving them 242 seats to Republicans' 150, with 43 races still uncalled.

The results set up a historic reordering in the House. Democrats are on the cusp of elevating Hakeem Jeffries to become the first Black speaker of the House, while Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana told his staff the morning after the election that he will not stay on as Republican leader in the new Congress. When Democrats take control of both chambers in January, they will face a tricky balancing act: carrying out aggressive oversight of Trump and his administration while still needing his signature to advance just about any legislative goal.

Democrats could also grow their new Senate majority. The party has flipped seven Senate seats so far, bringing its total to 54 compared with 44 for Republicans, and two races remain uncalled. In Alaska, Democrat Mary Pelotola holds 48.2% support against Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan's 47.9% with about three-fourths of the expected vote counted. If no candidate tops a majority, the contest moves to a ranked choice tabulation that could take weeks, since mail ballots postmarked by Election Day can be counted up to 15 days later.

The margin is even tighter in Mississippi, where GOP Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith and Democrat Scot Colom are separated by fewer than 65 votes with more than 95% of the vote tallied. Mississippi law provides no mechanism for a recount, and both parties are signaling they are gearing up for a legal battle over the outcome.

Democratic gains extended well beyond Washington. The party clinched a majority of the nation's governorships for the first time in 16 years and secured trifectas, meaning control of the governorship and both legislative chambers, in five states, a level of power it has not held in some of those places in years. Democrats also swept the secretary of state contests on the ballot in key presidential battlegrounds and flipped the office in two red-leaning states.

Republicans wasted little time turning on one another after polls closed Tuesday night. Some in the party wondered whether the GOP would finally break from Trump, who had told voters to "pretend" he was on the ballot. Vice President JD Vance wrote on X that the "real reason" for the party's widespread losses was anger over the Iran war. Trump, in his first public appearance since the election, boasted about the White House ballroom under construction and largely skirted talk of his party's performance.