Even the red strongholds fell: the midterm rout of Trump's second term

Democrats have taken control of the Senate and are on course for a House win that matches the 2018 wave. All night, Republicans failed to take a single Senate seat, a single governorship or a single called House seat from the Democrats. States the party considered safe, from Texas to South Carolina, changed hands too.

As of 08:50 Istanbul time (00:50 ET). Counting continues. Figures are based on results called by AP and AP data published by the NYT. The House seat-flip tallies are Oesnada's own.

The night in numbers

Before the election the Senate stood at 53 Republicans and 47 Democrats. The two independents caucus with the Democrats and are counted in the 47. With a Republican vice president, Republicans needed only 50 seats, while Democrats needed a net gain of four.

By morning, Democrats have 53 seats locked in. According to AP calls, Democrats flipped seven Republican seats: North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Texas and South Carolina. Republicans flipped none in return. In Alaska the count has barely begun, but Mary Peltola leads. In Michigan, a Democratic-held seat, Abdul El-Sayed leads by 3 points with 60 percent of the vote counted. If both hold, Democrats will reach 55 seats.

In the House, the pre-election split was 218 Republicans to 214 Democrats, with a few vacancies. Democrats have 196 seats called and lead in 61 more races. If most of those leads hold, the total will pass 250. A majority takes 218. In races AP has called, Democrats have flipped 18 Republican seats and lost none. Among the 36 races not yet called, the Democrat also leads in one more Republican-held seat.

In governor's races, Democrats flipped four states: Georgia, Iowa, Ohio and Texas. Here too, Republicans did not take a single state from the Democrats.

In the total House vote counted so far, Democrats have 55.6 percent and Republicans 44.2 percent. That figure rests on an incomplete count and uncontested races, so it should not be read as a final national result. Still, it points to a picture above the pre-election polling average (D+8.7).

The gap between expectation and result

A Democratic House win is no surprise. On the eve of the election, betting markets gave Democrats a 94 percent chance. Fox News's final assessment had Democrats reaching as many as 240 seats. The surprise is that the result is running above even that range.

The Senate is a different story. Markets priced the chance of a Democratic takeover at 74 percent. Outlets such as the Cook Political Report and Fox saw the race as a toss-up. Nearly every path to a Democratic majority relied on winning four of Ohio, Maine, Alaska, Iowa, Texas and Kansas. Democrats won five of them outright and lead in Alaska. On top of that, they took South Carolina, where markets gave them only a 31 percent chance.

In short, everyone read the direction right. Nobody read the size.

What the map says: the strongholds are falling

What sets this election apart from an ordinary midterm defeat is the geography of the losses.

Texas. James Talarico leads Ken Paxton by about 12 points in the Senate race. Paxton won the nomination by beating incumbent Senator John Cornyn in the primary. In the same state, Greg Abbott is losing the governor's race to Gina Hinojosa by 7 points. Texas has not elected a Democrat statewide in more than thirty years. Tonight it handed both top races to Democrats.

South Carolina. Annie Andrews beat Darline Graham by 4 points. Graham was the incumbent senator, appointed to replace Lindsey Graham. The race was rated "Lean Republican", and this was the least expected result of the night.

Kansas and Iowa. In Kansas, incumbent Senator Roger Marshall lost to Adam Hamilton by 5 points. In Iowa, the Senate seat, the governorship and the three House seats AP has called all went to Democrats. Since 2016, Iowa's statewide results had been seen as one of the Republicans' most solid territories.

Ohio. Sherrod Brown returns to the Senate he lost two years ago, via a special election. Vivek Ramaswamy lost the governor's race to Amy Acton.

The races that really show the strength of the wave are the ones Republicans won, but only just. In Louisiana, Julia Letlow won the Senate race by 1.8 points. In Mississippi, Cindy Hyde-Smith leads by 1.2 points with 95 percent of the vote counted. In the Alabama governor's race, Tommy Tuberville is only 5.6 points ahead of Doug Jones. In the Tennessee governor's race, Marsha Blackburn leads with 45 percent. None of these states would normally be competitive under any scenario.

The clearest sign of the shift in voter behaviour is Kentucky's 6th district. Trump won it by 15 points in 2024. Tonight the Democratic candidate, Dembo, won it by 9. That is a swing of about 24 points in two years.

The gerrymander backfired

In 2025 and 2026, Republicans redrew district lines mid-decade in a series of states: Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Alabama and Louisiana. By most estimates these maps would give Republicans a structural edge of around nine net seats. The Democratic map in California offset part of that.

These maps were drawn for an ordinary year, not for a year in which Democrats lead the national vote by more than 10 points. The result was what American politics calls a "dummymander": voters thinly spread to protect a party's seats put all of those seats at risk at once when the wave arrived.

• Texas: in the 15th district, Republican incumbent Monica De La Cruz lost by 23 points. Democrats also lead in the 35th, 23rd and 9th, which the new map was expected to hand to Republicans.
• North Carolina: under the new map, Democrats lead by around 2 points in the 5th, 6th, 9th, 13th and 14th districts, with nearly all votes counted. The 11th flipped to Democrats by 16 points.
• Florida: the 22nd district flipped to Democrats.
• Ohio: the 15th district was lost. Democrats also lead in the 7th and 10th.

A strategy meant to lock in the party's House majority became one of the factors that deepened the loss.

What it means for Trump

In American politics, midterms are always read as a report card on the sitting president, and the president's party almost always loses seats. Losing seats on its own says little. What says something is the scale and the spread.

There are two points of comparison. In 2006, midway through George W. Bush's second term, Democrats gained 6 Senate seats. Tonight they have already gained 7. In 2018, midway through Trump's first term, Democrats gained 41 House seats. Tonight they are heading toward that level too. But in 2018 Republicans gained Senate seats. Tonight they lost there as well.

Looking at where Republicans held on sharpens the picture. In Florida, Ashley Moody won the Senate race by 3 points and Byron Donalds the governor's race by 1.3 points. In New Hampshire Kelly Ayotte, and in Vermont Phil Scott, kept the governorship. These are either incumbents with their own strong base or the party's most solid states. The list of losers, meanwhile, is led by names like Ken Paxton and Vivek Ramaswamy, who built their campaigns on the national agenda and the Trump line. Only exit polls and detailed results will show whether that divide was really decisive.

The practical outcome is clear. Trump will spend the last two years of his second term with a Congress in which the opposition controls both chambers:

• Appointments: cabinet and federal judicial nominees must pass a Democratic Senate. His capacity to make lasting appointments to the courts has narrowed sharply.
• Budget: because spending bills cannot take effect without passing both chambers, the risk of a government shutdown will be on the table every budget cycle.
• Oversight: House committees will be able to investigate the administration's decisions with subpoena power.
• Limits: Democrats do not have the two-thirds majority in either chamber needed to override a presidential veto. Nor do they have the 67 Senate votes needed to convict in an impeachment. Trump's executive power is narrowing, but it is not going away.

Hard truths for Democrats

This result should not be read as an endorsement of the Democratic Party's own programme. Waves are made largely of votes cast against those in power, and holding the same voters in the next election is a different job.

There are three warning signs:

1. Michigan: even in a wave this size, the Michigan Senate race is running at a 3-point margin. A margin this narrow in one of the party's own seats is not reassuring.
2. Virginia's 1st district: by 2024 results, this was the median of the 435 districts. Despite a national margin above 10 points, the gap here is 1.2 points. In other words, the structural tilt of the map favours Republicans, and in a more ordinary year these seats could easily swing back.
3. 2028: presidential elections draw a different electorate, and midterm turnout tends to amplify voters angry at those in power. Two years after the 2018 wave, Democrats lost House seats.

And one more thing: Democrats are no longer just the opposition. As the party running both chambers, they will now share the blame for shutdown crises and stalled bills.

Still to be decided

• Alaska: Peltola leads for Senate, Kreiss-Tomkins for governor. Only 22 percent of the vote is counted. Ballots from overseas are accepted up to 15 days after the election, so the final result may take until mid-November.
• Michigan: Democrats lead in both the Senate and governor's races, with about 60 percent counted.
• Maine: Troy Jackson's win over Susan Collins has been called. The state moves to a ranked-choice count only if no candidate wins an outright majority.
• Nevada governor: no votes counted yet. Mailed ballots are accepted until 7 November.
• Kansas governor: the margin is under 1 point, with 94 percent of the vote counted.
• Nebraska and Montana: the Republican leads in both races, but independents are close behind. In Nebraska Dan Osborn trails by 3.2 points, in Montana Seth Bodnar by 6.5.
• House: counting in California, Arizona and Nevada can take days, and in some places weeks. The Democrats' final seat count will become clear at the end of that process.

Oesnada's live results page will keep updating until the count is complete: oesnada.com/election