President Donald Trump repeatedly encouraged voters to pretend he was on the midterm ballot. They did. And it's hard to imagine a worse outcome for the Republican president and his party.
Voters absolutely punished Trump’s allies almost everywhere. Democrats won in swing states like Georgia, New Hampshire and North Carolina and in Republican strongholds of Iowa, Kansas, Texas and even South Carolina. Trump’s controversial mid-decade redistricting plan appeared to backfire. And Republican losses allowed Democrats to make history in Georgia, where Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms became the first Black woman elected governor in US history, while in Texas, Democrat Gina Hinojosa will become its first Latina governor.
Voters nationwide were in the mood for change, according to The AP Voter Poll, which found that roughly three-quarters of voters feel “angry” or “dissatisfied” with the direction of the country.
Among those who had Trump in mind when they cast their vote, about twice as many wanted to express opposition to the Republican president as those who wanted to support him. Most also blamed the Trump administration for high costs: about six in 10 say higher than usual prices are “more because of Trump’s policies".
Votes cast for all 435 members of the House of Representatives and 35 seats in the Senates. (Source: 1News)
Trump’s coalition was also fraying: Young voters dramatically shifted away from the GOP after warming to Trump in 2024, while the GOP also lost ground among Hispanics.
With undeniable momentum, Democrats won control of the House and Senate, which will likely curb Trump’s power after he’s faced few limits from a compliant Republican-controlled Congress.
Beyond control of Congress, the extent of these losses could reshape both parties for the next two years at least, as the political world rushes into a new presidential election.
Here are some takeaways from Tuesday's midterms:
End of the Trump era may be beginning
Tuesday's electoral beating appeared to be a direct repudiation of Trump, who demanded loyalty across his party and brought Republicans to the midterms saddled by his dismal approval ratings, an unpopular war with Iran and surging costs for millions of frustrated Americans.
Indeed, Trump's political strength is hitting a new low roughly two years before his final term ends.
The AP Voter Poll confirms that voters are deeply unhappy with the Republican president, with roughly six in 10 saying they disapprove of his job performance. About 70% of voters want Congress to provide more checks and balances on the presidency. And roughly six in 10 voters said Trump places a higher priority on his personal interests than the country’s interests.
Trump was betting that his base of white working-class voters — and an increased share of young people and voters of colour — which fueled his presidential victory in 2024 could save his Republican allies if they show up in great numbers.
He was wrong.
The AP Voter Poll indicates a substantial shift in young people and Hispanics moving away from Republicans compared to Trump's victory just two years ago.
Voters under 30 were about evenly split between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024. But in this election, about seven in 10 voters in that same age group nationally say they supported the Democratic House candidate in their area.
Meanwhile, only about one-third of Hispanic voters say they backed the Republican in their local U.S. House race, while roughly four in 10 voted for Trump two years ago. About six in 10 Hispanic voters nationally say they voted for the Democratic candidate in their local House race. That's as about seven in 10 Hispanic voters say Trump’s policies have worsened economic conditions in the US.
Such shifts will echo into the 2028 presidential contest, which unofficially begins Wednesday.
Democrats winning everywhere and on brink of controlling Congress
Since World War II, the House and Senate have flipped from one party to the other in the same midterm just three times: 1946, 1994 and 2006.
Democrats did it again in 2026.
They are winning virtually everywhere in a truly historic sweep. Democrats won Senate and governor's races in Georgia, Iowa, Ohio and Texas — the latter two states Trump carried by 11 and 14 percentage points, respectively.
In North Carolina, Democratic former Gov. Roy Cooper won the Senate race. Senator Jon Ossoff easily won reelection in Georgia, while Lance Bottoms won the Georgia governorship. New Hampshire Democrat Chris Pappas won his Senate race, making him the first openly gay senator. In Ohio, former Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown flipped a GOP-held Senate seat, while former state health official Amy Acton beat close Trump ally Vivek Ramaswamy in the governor's race.
The Democratic romp continued in Kansas, where voters picked Democrat Adam Hamilton, a first-time candidate who leads the largest United Methodist church in the country, over incumbent Republican Senator Roger Marshall — the first time a Democrat has won a Senate seat in Kansas in nearly a century. And in Texas, long an object of desire for Democrats, 37-year-old state lawmaker James Talarico was elected to the Senate, while Hinojosa defeated three-term Governor Greg Abbott.
The most painful blow for Trump may have come in South Carolina, where his handpicked candidate to replace the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, his sister Darline Graham, was defeated by Democrat Annie Andrews, a paediatrician making her first run for the Senate. Andrews ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2022.
Candidate quality matters — and Trump picked flawed candidates
Trump loves to tout his record in picking winners in primary elections. He will not love talking about how those Republican primary winners, many of them deeply flawed, failed in the general election.
Trump-backed Texas Republican Ken Paxton wasn’t able to shake his years of scandals. About two-thirds of Texas voters said Paxton did not have the right personal character to serve as a US senator, according to The AP Voter Poll.
In South Carolina, Trump was a staunch supporter of Graham, who infamously flubbed a foreign policy question on the debate stage. Voters took note. About two-thirds of South Carolina voters said Graham did not have the right experience, The AP Voter Poll found. About 7 in 10 of the voters who doubted Graham’s experience voted for Andrews.
Georgia’s Trump-backed Senate candidate Mike Collins tried to convince voters that Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff was too liberal for the Deep South. Voters decided the Republican congressman was, in fact, the extremist in the race after he was linked to multiple white supremacists. About half of Georgia Senate voters thought Mike Collins’ views were “too extreme,” compared to about one-third who said the same about Ossoff.
In North Carolina, Trump’s handpicked Republican candidate Michael Whatley lost to Cooper. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump elevated Whatley from his state party chairmanship to the Republican National Committee chairmanship, hailing him as “one of the most capable executives in our country.”
Days before the election in Kansas, Republican Sen. Roger Marshall was still explaining his decision as a physician to sue patients for outstanding bills — sometimes relatively paltry amounts. A slim majority of Kansas voters said Marshall did not have the right personal character to serve in the U.S. Senate, The AP Voter Poll found.
These Republicans ultimately couldn’t outrun their own issues — even as they spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to define their Democratic opponents as the extremists.
The Democratic brand still needs work
While Trump’s standing has cratered in 2026, Democrats’ brand as a whole isn’t much to brag about. That leaves the party’s major factions — the progressive left flank and the liberal-to-moderate establishment — parsing Tuesday’s outcomes to claim any advantage in Democrats’ tug-of-war over party identity.
The party’s moderate wing was having a good night early on as high-profile leaders like Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and Maryland Governor Wes Moore won reelection. Both are considered 2028 presidential prospects.
At the same time, Florida Democrat Angie Nixon, the only self-identified democratic socialist on a Senate ballot, was defeated, despite a much stronger-than-expected showing.
Still, the progressive movement would have a feather in its cap if Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed defeats Republican Mike Rogers. El-Sayed is progressives’ highest-profile candidate, though he is not a DSA member or backed by the organisation.
It’s one thing for New Yorkers to elect Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, as mayor. It’s quite another for an unabashed progressive like El-Sayed to carry a perennial battleground state that helped elect Trump twice.
The Democratic brand needs help no matter how well the party does on Election Day.
The AP Voter Poll shows that about half of voters have a “very” or “somewhat” unfavourable opinion of the Democratic Party, while about six in 10 view the GOP negatively.
Trump’s gerrymandering backfires
Trump set off a tempest in Texas last year when he pushed the most populous Republican-run state to redraw congressional boundaries. California Gov. Gavin Newsom answered by persuading his state’s voters to respond in kind. Democratic and Republican states followed. Along the way, the US Supreme Court gutted part of the Voting Rights Act, allowing several Southern states to redraw districts that had been majority- or near-majority-Black.
However, the Trump-backed gerrymandering push is not going as planned for Republicans. On paper, the results suggest a net shift of nine seats to Republicans. But the gerrymandering meant spreading conservative supporters across more districts.
That’s bad news for Republicans in other districts in Florida and potentially in Texas — states where the Republican plan counted on getting votes from Latino voters and other nonwhites who backed Trump in 2024. Early results show that has not happened.
In Florida, Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz won the state's 25th District; Democrat Pia Dandiya, a first-time candidate, won the 22nd District and Representative Kathy Castor won reelection in the 14th District. Republicans had redrawn all three districts this spring with the intent of ensuring GOP victories this fall.
In Texas, Democrats won three redrawn, heavily Latino districts that touch the US-Mexico border. Two Democratic incumbents, Representatives Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, withstood GOP challenges. In another, Democratic challenger Bobby Pulido ousted Republican Representative Monica de la Cruz.
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