Pete Hegseth is increasingly looking like he may take the fall for Republicans’ midterm losses, despite Donald Trump’s vocal support for his defense secretary.
The war in Iran, which voters and Trump have named as a key reason for Republicans’ midterm losses “has been primarily a Department of War-led effort because you chose to take military action to resolve a foreign policy matter,” a former senior Pentagon official told CNN.
“If the president is serious about anyone taking responsibility for it, it’s Pete Hegseth,” one Republican close to the White House added in an interview with CNN. “Pete has been either dishonest or incorrect – neither of which are acceptable – about timelines, goals and objectives since the beginning.”
Congressman Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, has already filed eight impeachment accusations against Hegseth, and plans to soon force a House vote on the impeachment.
Trump has repeatedly defended Hegseth, and Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said “The entire Department is unified behind the Secretary’s vision and will continue working to put our warfighters and America first,” in a statement today to USA Today.
Democrat Scott Colom secures growing lead in Mississippi Senate race
Votes for Colom are starting to outpace those for his Republican opponent in what has been an otherwise neck-and-neck race.
According to the most recent tabulation from the Associated Press, Colom leads Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith by 1,138 votes with 96% of the vote counted – still a small margin, but increasingly significant after a lead of just 28 votes yesterday.
Democrats haven’t won a US Senate seat in Mississippi since 1982, and Trump carried the state by 22 points in 2024. It’s been much longer – not since 1875 – that the state elected a Black person to that office.
Colom is a seventh-generation Mississippian, whose father was a longtime Republican who campaigned for Ronald Reagan and was friends with Thad Cochran, a longtime state politician. In 2015, he unseated a nearly 30-year incumbent when he was elected the first Black district attorney for the 16th circuit. As district attorney, he had a 94% success rate for convictions.
Although a race this close would automatically trigger a recount in many states, Mississippi has no law on the books for initiating a recount.
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Haley Stevens, a Democrat who went up against Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan’s primary before ultimately endorsing Republican Mike Rogers, said she stood by her endorsement in a lengthy post on social media today.
Stevens, who originally endorsed El-Sayed after her primary loss, wrote: “As co-chair of the House caucus on antisemitism, endorsing a man who stood with Hasan Piker and his antisemitic bile was always a tough fit for me. But I’ve been taught my whole political life that at the end of an election, you come together and support the winner, and I hoped I could help him moderate. Instead, he got worse.”
She added that “The endorsement was the outlier act. Rescinding it was not,” and said “I was elected as a Democrat, and I still believe our party should be big enough for more than one viewpoint.”
In comments to the Associated Press today, El-Sayed, who will be the first Muslim senator in the United States, said voters had rejected “a hateful, spiteful campaign” after months of attacks on his identity. “Michiganders rejected that. Every single county, every single one, pushed against that,” he said.
“Morale is as low as it can get” inside the White House, a senior official told the Associated Press today. The official added that senior aides were bracing for staff departures, Cabinet changes and Democratic investigations.
“It absolutely sucks to be here right now,” the unnamed official said.
Despite internal polling six weeks ago that warned Republicans could expect losses in both chambers of Congress, the official said, Donald Trump refused to change his policy on Iran.
“Ultimately, he just didn’t care,” the official said. “He refused to listen to anyone.”
Mississippi is facing a shockingly close race for its open Senate seat – with no law on the books for initiating a recount.
Currently, Democrat Scott Colom is leading Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith by just 65 votes, with 95% of votes counted.
In many states, that close of a race would automatically trigger a recount, but Mississippi has no recount law. Derek Muller, an election law expert at the University of Notre Dame, tells the New York Times that a losing candidate may be able to challenge the inclusion of certain ballots.
The Republican senator Thom Tillis blamed Republican losses last night on the party’s “well intentioned, poorly executed policies” and certain members of the Trump administration, including Kristi Noem and Pete Hegseth.
In an interview with CNN, Tillis said: “We’ve got to regroup and be ready for 2028, and we won’t be ready for 2028 if we try and re-execute what I think were well intentioned, poorly executed policies over the last 18 months.”
He added criticism of former homeland security secretary Noem, saying: “What, a $220m ad campaign with her riding on a horse, people dead in Minneapolis because she put untrained people in a horrible situation. Give me a break. That’s the sort of tone deafness that will cause ’28 to look like ’08.”
Tillis also said the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, is “just not the right guy for the job”, particularly in leading the war in Iran. “Nothing personal. The guy’s just demonstrated, like Noem, that they’re not up to the task of running these large, complex organizations,” he said.
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The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said he hopes Democratic wins in the United States generate more support for Ukraine.
“I am also grateful to the Republicans, but the Democrats speak very clearly about supporting Ukraine and providing assistance to Ukraine,” Zelenskiy said in comments provided in German by German television station ZDF.
“They speak about renewing the connection between the United States and Europe … Therefore, there is hope that a balance of power will emerge and that we will receive more support.“
Zelenskyy has navigated a turbulent relationship with Donald Trump, particularly in recent weeks as the Ukrainian president said he felt personally betrayed by the United States pausing its sharing of military intelligence and waiving some sanctions on Russia to buy its diesel.
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Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, called Democratic wins in the midterms “close to an extinction-level event for Republicans” in remarks today.
He added that Republican losses in Texas “could reverberate for the next decade or more” and that if “the Republican party doesn’t have Texas as an anchor, then we’re not going to be viable nationally going forward”.
DeSantis added that he thought Republicans failed to target their ad spending on issues that would motivate voters, saying that ads on transgender Americans didn’t drive voters to the polls.
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Donald Trump said there are “many things, many more things than people understand” that he will consider working on with Democrats, during an interview with CNBC today.
During a phone call with CNBC’s Eamon Javers, Trump said he would work on financial items – though Javers described the president as “a little bit cagey here about exactly what those ideas are, at least at this early stage.”
Javers added, “But this is a president who is signaling to markets and signaling to Washington that he’s ready to deal”.
Democrats win full control of the Texas state house after historic governor and US Senate victories
Democrats in Texas took control of the state house after historic wins for governor and US Senate, the Associated Press has called, amid a series of sweeping gains nationwide in Tuesday’s elections that have shifted the balance of power across several battleground and Republican-leaning states.
It will be the first time that Democrats control the house in Texas since Republicans took over after the 2002 election. Republicans are keeping control of the senate in the state.
It comes as Texas elected Democrat James Talarico to the US Senate, breaking a 38-year drought for his party in the Republican stronghold and delivering a stunning blow to Donald Trump, and Gina Hinojosa as its first Latina governor in a stunning upset. She defeated the incumbent Greg Abbott, a titan of Texas politics who was running for a record fourth term.
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Hakeem Jeffries officially announces candidacy for House speaker
Democratic congressman Hakeem Jeffries, the current minority leader in the US House, has officially announced his candidacy for speaker.
As of now, Democrats have secured 237 seats in the House, completely routing Republicans by flipping several districts and overcoming a mid-decade GOP redistricting push.
With an overwhelming majority in the lower chamber, Jeffries is poised to become the first Black speaker of the House of Representatives in US history. In January, Once the new Congress is sworn in, it will vote on Jeffries’ candidacy, and on those of any other Democratic members who run for the position.
“Against all odds, House Democrats were consistently successful in the minority. We must now deliver the dramatic change the American people are demanding in the majority,” he said in a statement, while outlining the caucus’s plans in the new year.
Related: What can Democrats actually do now they have won Congress?
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Trump’s wealth dented after Democrats trounce Republicans in midterms
Donald Trump’s wealth is falling along with his political fortunes.
Tradeable investment assets that helped make the president more than $2bn during his first year in office are collapsing in value the day after the Democrats trounced the Republicans in the midterm elections. Trump Media and Technology Group stock, which trades on the Nasdaq exchange, was priced at just over $5 this morning – its lowest mark ever, and down from an all-time high of $101. It lost 11% overnight, dropping from $5.90 once the election returns started coming in. Trump has reported he owns 114m shares of DJT.
Trump owns over 40% of the stock through a trust. He has still grown his wealth dramatically during his presidency; Forbes estimated in a September analysis that he is $2.7bn wealthier than when he won the White House in 2024.
Another major asset for Trump and his family are World Liberty Financial digital tokens. The digital coins are trading at less than 5 cents after the election. At their height, in 2025, they were valued at six times that, at 31 cents. The WLFI coin, the governance token of World Liberty financial, began sliding in late October as the election drew near, and as a hack of Binance rattled crypto markets. It experienced a steep decline around 7pm ET on Tuesday as polls in some states closed.
Trump already made more than $500m in profit selling crypto assets last year, according to his personal financial disclosures, though he still owns 15bn tokens.
World Liberty is a venture created by the Trump family and the family of Steven Witkoff. Trump appointed Witkoff, a personal friend and real estate developer, to negotiate diplomatic arrangements about Gaza, Iran and Ukraine.
The value of both WLIF and DJT has always been pegged to the way Trump is perceived, said Jim Angel, an associate professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. He added:
People think they’re investing in Trump. They really aren’t. They’re really betting on his popularity. That’s what they’re betting on.
Right now his popularity is at record lows, and so we see the price of DJT and World Liberty at record lows.
Separate digital novelty coins called Trump$, which made the president $636m in sales in 2025, have also collapsed in value. They are priced at about $1.40 and seem to have lost about 10% of their value overnight as election results came in. They launched shortly before his inauguration and briefly traded as high as $45 in January 2025.
Related: Trump’s wealth dented after Democrats trounce Republicans in midterms
My colleagues compiled a visual analysis of key Republican losses this cycle, mapping called-race returns to show how Democratic victory margins in GOP strongholds compare to past elections.
Related: Where Trump and Republicans lost the midterms – a visual analysis of the key states
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What the downfall of near three-decade senator Susan Collins says about Republican unpopularity
in Portland, Maine
The political demise of Susan Collins – a fixture of Maine and Washington politics for three decades – recalls the famous line in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises about how one of the novel’s characters experienced bankruptcy: gradually, then suddenly.
In the run up to Tuesday’s stunning Democrat “blue wave” election triumph, it seemed obvious that Collins’ 30-year tenure as Maine’s Republican senator was vulnerable to the challenge of Troy Jackson, the Democrats’ explicitly working-class candidate, as voters prepared to unleash pent-up anger with Donald Trump’s presidency.
Rather like the Berlin Wall in the days before it finally fell in 1989, however, no one seemed to believe it could really happen until it did.
Collins, after all, had survived seemingly credible electoral challenges before and appeared primed – despite opinion polls showing a close race – to win a sixth Senate term, having once pledged to serve only two. She had become something of a state institution, with her assertions that Washington connections brought federal funds and contracts to Maine carrying weight with many constituents.
Jackson, meanwhile, seemed a less-than-polished prospect for a state that had previously sent such august figures as Ed Muskie, George Mitchell and Bill Cohen to the US Senate before they went on to become international statesmen.
The realization that this elemental political force was about to sweep away Collins came late in the evening, when – with about 60% of the ballots counted – returns showed Jackson with a convincing lead. Within minutes, MS Now reported that Collins had called to concede; wild cheers and chants of “Troy, Troy” filled the ballroom at Portland’s Holiday Inn.
Amid the euphoria, it was left to Jackson to deliver a message of humble, down-to-earth populism that emphasized his trade union background and underlined that his unlikely triumph had been driven by grassroots discontent.
“You understood what it would mean to send one of your own to the United States Senate,” he told the crowd. “Donald Trump and the billionaires need to understand one thing very clear – something about your new senator. I don’t owe them a damn thing.
“When they threaten your healthcare, your livelihood, or your freedoms, I am going to stand up to them. You know where I’ll stand. You know how I’ll vote. And when you’ve got a question about it, you’ll be able to ask me yourself. I’m not acting like I’m the best thing that ever happened to the US Senate or anything like that.”
It was a promise of accessibility that critics say Collins never provided – despite her claims of independent-mindedness and protestations of frequently voting against Trump, who failed to carry Maine in any of his three presidential campaigns.
You can read Robert’s full analysis here:
Related: 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
Democrat Leticia Gutierrez has won the race for Texas’ ninth congressional district, a seat that was gerrymandered in 2025 to benefit Republicans. It’s another example of how the GOP’s mid-decade redistricting push ultimately backfired this cycle.
Gutierrez beat her Republican challenger Alex Mealer for control of the district, which includes the greater Houston area.
Related: Democrats claim staggering victories in districts gerrymandered to favor Republicans across the US
Viewers stayed away from Fox News on a disappointing election night for Republicans
On a midterm election night that was a huge disappointment for Republicans, with Democrats taking control of the US House and Senate, the country’s most prominent conservative television network felt the brunt of viewer disillusionment with Donald Trump and his party, according to preliminary audience numbers.
The Fox News Channel, which often leads in viewership on election night, appears to have come out far behind the competition. According to preliminary “Fast Nationals” ratings dating from the Nielsen firm, the network averaged 3.882 million total viewers between 8 and 11pm, far behind broadcast networks NBC (6.519 million viewers) and ABC (4.906 million viewers), and even trailing fellow cable networks CNN (3.927 million viewers) and MS Now (3.922 million viewers). Fox News did, however, defeat CBS News, which attracted just 2.629 million viewers.
The numbers are preliminary, and are likely to be revised upwards when final audience data is released tomorrow.
Overall, the big six television networks averaged 25.784 million total viewers during prime-time election coverage, up from 22.215 million total viewers in 2022. During those 2022 elections, Fox News averaged 7.422 million viewers.
With Trump reaching historic levels of unpopularity, Fox News has seen viewers tune out in recent months. Last month, the network’s viewership was down 27% compared with the same month last year in total day viewers, though it still handily defeated CNN and MS Now. Lachlan Murdoch, the chief executive of parent company Fox Corp, acknowledged “viewer fatigue” in an earnings call on Monday.
Trump, who criticized Fox throughout election night and blamed the network for his party’s losses, poked fun at the network’s October figures in a Truth Social post, chalking up the decline to the channel’s industry-standard practice of booking Democratic candidates for interviews.
“FoxNews Ratings are way down (27%!) because they’re spending too much time covering the Trump Deranged Dumocrats!” he wrote on Tuesday evening. “All of those people who used to watch Fox, and no longer do, get it. It’s them, not me – My numbers are better than they have ever been.”
Related: Viewers stayed away from Fox News on a disappointing election night for Republicans
What will Democrats do with the blue tsunami? – podcast
The historic Democratic victories in the 2026 midterm elections were more than just a rebuke of Donald Trump and his Maga movement – they are a five-alarm fire for the Republican party itself, which may be on the verge of collapse. The sweeping wins in GOP strongholds like Texas, Iowa and Kansas reveal an electorate that is fed up and eager for change. But that anger could turn on Democrats – quick. Now that they run Congress, what can the fractured Democratic coalition achieve? And will they do enough to keep voters on their side in 2028?
In this edition of our Stateside podcast, Kai Wright and Carter Sherman break down what we know about this once-in-a-lifetime election and how this new Congress has the potential to be the most consequential since Reconstruction.
Progressive environmental organizer Will Lawrence flips swing Michigan House district
Democrat Will Lawrence, the progressive environmental organizer, has flipped Michigan’s seventh congressional district.
Lawrence, the co-founder of the youth-led climate justice organization the Sunrise Movement, beat Republican incumbent Tom Barrett – a moderate who has bucked his party while in Congress. Barrett, a first-term House member, flipped the seat red in 2024.
Former Republican Senator and 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney took to social media to lament the state of his party after its disastrous defeat in the midterms:
“Bad policy, bad character make bad politics: erratic tariffs, impulsive Iran war, blanket pardons, apparent corruption, weaponized justice, ICE brutality, mountainous deficits, hiding Epstein, abandoning allies and coddling enemies. Hoping for a course correction, for the country and for my party.”
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Republican David Valadao loses California House seat to progressive challenger
Republican David Valadao lost his seat in California’s 22nd congressional district to progressive challenger Randy Villegas.
It’s another loss for a moderate Republican incumbent in a competitive, majority-Hispanic district. Valadao was the last GOP representative who voted to impeach Donald Trump.
Related: California progressive Randy Villegas wins redrawn House seat for Democrats
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The midterms were a thumping rebuke of the US-Israel relationship - analysis
On the eve of a midterm election that ended in an unequivocal rejection of his brand of politics, even Donald Trump seemed to recognize that the US-Israel relationship has become a political liability.
Trump’s 11th-hour suggestion, on election morning, that he would cut military aid to Israel at the end of the year because, as he put it, “they don’t need it”, was condemned across the board – with pro-Palestinian advocates dismissing it as “desperate” and pro-Israel ones as “unserious”.
Trump’s suggestion that he would replace nearly $4bn in annual military aid with arms sales signaled little would change in practice – the funding would continue and it would be harder to track. But it was still a notable recognition by the president of just how much support for Israel has tanked against the backdrop of the latest war in Gaza, which has killed more than 70,000 Palestinian, been widely been described as a genocide, and reshaped US politics in ways unthinkable just three years ago.
Indeed, come January, the US House will include an army doctor who went on a medical mission in Gaza, a lawyer who was fired by her firm over a blogpost criticizing Israel’s war, a Jewish lawmaker who was recently detained by Israeli forces while helping Palestinians harvest olives in the occupied West Bank, and a community organizer who participated in a pro-Palestine student encampment and scored one of the primary season’s most stunning upsets under the banner “babies, not bombs”.
Pro-Palestinian candidates – including Palestinian-American ones – have won downballot races. And in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed became the first Muslim to be elected to the US Senate, following a campaign that saw more than $40m spent by Aipac in an effort to defeat him, last-minute drama, and unprecedented levels of Islamophobic rhetoric and bigotry.
“The old bipartisan consensus on Israel is over,” Beth Miller, political director of Jewish Voice for Peace Action, said. Without that consensus in place, the next Congress could push a number of measures, from an arms embargo on Israel to sanctions against violent settlers and officials – though Trump would retain veto power to block them.
Read the full analysis here:
Related: The midterms were a thumping rebuke of the US-Israel relationship
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Scalise and Jordan launch minority leader runs, pledging to lead GOP on path back to majority after midterms rebuke
Louisiana representative Steve Scalise, the No. 2 House Republican, has announced that he will run to be the minority leader, following earlier reports that House speaker Mike Johnson is not planning to run for a leadership position in the next Congress.
Scalise, who has been in House GOP leadership for over a decade, emphasized his experience in a letter to his colleagues. He called for “substantive changes to the way our conference operates, including clear expectation-setting with meaningful accountability.” He also stressed that the party needed unity and a “clear vision and agenda” to win back the trust of voters in 2028.
Indeed, whomever wins the position will play a pivotal role in leading the Republican party as it enters the minority for the first time in four years after its brutal midterms losses. “I am ready to lead on day one and chart our path back to the majority,” Scalise wrote.
His announcement will pit him once again against Ohio representative Jim Jordan, the hard-line conservative who chairs the judiciary committee, who also announced his bid today. Both men unsuccessfully vied for the position of speaker in 2023.
“As we look to the future, we must learn from these results,” Jordan said in his own letter to colleagues.
“In these next two years, our job cannot be merely to spotlight how radical this new Democrat party is — offense, not defense, wins elections,” he wrote, pledging to “prioritize making Americans’ neighborhoods safer, keeping more money in their pockets, and protecting enduring American values and freedoms.”
“To restore our majority, we must restore voters’ faith in our ability to deliver on these principles,” he added.
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Democrats’ triumph deals devastating blow to Trump – podcast
For some reflection on what Democrats’ historic wins in several Republican strongholds (like Texas, South Carolina and Kansas) tell us about the party’s strategy this midterm cycle, our Washington editor Ankita Rao joined the Guardian’s Today in Focus – The Latest.
Voters have sent a strong message of frustration to the Trump administration over the economy, the cost of living and rising gas prices – leaving Trump a lame-duck president for his final two years in office.
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House Democrats will convene starting 18 November to vote on the caucus’s leadership under the new Democratic majority, according to a memo circulated by Democratic House caucus chair Pete Aguilar and and Ted Lieu.
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Major races we're still waiting on, and when we might know the result
There are a few key races that we’re still waiting on for the final result, including the final two Senate contests.
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In Mississippi, 96% of the vote has been counted in the nail-biting US Senate race between Democrat Scott Colom and Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith. As of now Colom is leading by just 65 votes. We could get the final call any minute, in what could be an historic flip. Democrats haven’t won a US Senate seat in Mississippi since 1982, and Trump carried the state by 22 points in 2024.
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In Alaska, the fierce competition for US Senate is still under way and too close to call. As of now, 74% of the vote has been counted and Democrat Peltola is leading the GOP incumbent Dan Sullivan by less than a point. A reminder, Alaska uses ranked choice voting to determine a winner. This means that the winner needs to receive 50% of first choice votes. If that doesn’t happen, the candidate with the fewest “first preference” votes is eliminated, and their supporters’ votes are reassigned to their second choice. That process will continue until one candidate wins a majority. As a result, the final result could take longer than any other race.
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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 one to watch. Only 63% of the vote has been counted so far, and Raman has a narrow lead.
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Across the board this midterm cycle there were shifts in favor for Democrats in every category, according to exit poll data compiled by the Associated Press.
Here’s a breakdown, thanks to my colleagues on the data team.
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Trump also said that he was not considering replacing Pete Hegseth as defense secretary. “I think he’s doing a very good job,” the president said.
This comes after reports circulated that Marsha Blackburn could appoint Hegseth to finish out the remainder of her US Senate seat in Tennessee, after she won her contest for governor.
“I actually think he’d be very popular if he did that. But I haven’t heard that at all,” the president added.
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Donald Trump didn’t give a clear answer about whether he knew JD Vance was going to post about the Iran war costing Republicans control of Congress.
“I know how he feels about it. I think it was. I think it was fine. I thought it was good,” Trump said, while remaining belligerent about his decision to start the conflict. “I can tell you that as far as that war is concerned, I would have done nothing different.”
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Donald Trump says that Vance's comment about Iran war kneecapping Republicans in catastrophic midterms is 'largely true'
Donald Trump responded to JD Vance’s comments today that the war in Iran was ultimately the reason behind the catastrophic Republican losses in the House and Senate in this year’s midterms.
“I think it’s largely true because it drove the gasoline up a little bit short term,” Trump said. “But at the same time … I’d have to do it again because long term, it’s the only answer.”
The president said that he felt the decision to begin the conflict was unavoidable. “I thought the oil would go up a lot more,” Trump said. “You have no choice. You have to do it. You can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon.”
Trump once again insisted that if he were on the ballot Republicans would have won their races, which in many cases they lost to Democrats in historic landslides.
“They just couldn’t transfer that love,” Trump said. “There was such love at those rallies. It was incredible. We weren’t able to transfer the love to candidates.”
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in Miami
Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, moved quickly today to position himself among the leading pack of 2028 Republican presidential hopefuls by attacking party colleagues who lost seats in the midterms bloodbath.
Bucking the national trend, but just barely, Florida voters elected Republicans to the US Senate and governor’s mansion yesterday, achievements DeSantis boasted were because of his eight-year term as governor that ends in January.
“People can look at Florida and show how you can deliver big results and how you can build a durable coalition,” he told a press conference in Tallahassee.
“Why did Florida hold up? Why were we able to hold the line? The answer is we’ve built up a record of achievement. We’ve earned trust from our voters that even in the worst situation that you can imagine politically, we were able to prevent the worst from happening here,” he said.
DeSantis had harsh words for Republicans in Washington who he said failed to deliver campaign promises, including releasing the Epstein files and cleaning up corruption.
“We ran as Republicans on saying we need to do that, and then you actually have people in the Congress voting against release when the attorney general said she had all this horrific stuff on her desk and that people were going to be held accountable,” he said. “It’s untenable when you have people trading stock. Why don’t they ban congressional stock trading? It would be a breath of fresh air.”
DeSantis’s run for the 2024 presidential nomination, won by Donald Trump, ended in humiliation when he dropped out early. Speaking to reporters today, he said he would “talk about anything we’re doing” in terms of the 2028 contest after he is termed out of office on 5 January.
Analysts see DeSantis as all but certain to run again. In a blistering podcast interview yesterday, he attacked Trump’s handling of the Iran war, the economy and the president’s second-term immigration crackdown.
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Top House Democrat says party will hold hearings and pass regulations on AI, datacenters
Ted Lieu, a California representative and vice-chair of the House Democratic caucus, said that Republicans had made a mistake by failing to regulate AI while they controlled Congress – and that Democrats would step in to change that.
“Two things will change next term,” Lieu said. “We will hold public hearings on AI. We will pass legislation, reasonable guardrails, on AI.”
Democrats, Lieu said, would specifically take a closer look at guardrails around the building of new datacenters, after the breakneck pace of construction for those facilities drew the bipartisan ire of communities around the country.
That pledge sets Democrats up for a potential showdown with Donald Trump, who has vowed to veto any Democrat legislation and who has harshly criticized the idea of reining in AI development.
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Trump avoids speaking about stunning Republican losses in first public event post-midterms
Donald Trump is addressing members of the press for the first time since Republicans lost control of Congress in a stunning midterm defeat.
The president has yet to mention Democrats flipping seven Senate seats and securing 229 seats in the US house, with more victories expected.
Instead, Trump has focused on speaking about his East Room ballroom project, the new helipad on the White House lawn and his various “beautification” projects around Washington DC.
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Pressed on whether the Democratic House caucus would pursue the impeachment of Donald Trump upon assuming a majority in the chamber, Hakeem Jeffries seemed to downplay the possibility
“I haven’t had a single member of the House Democratic caucus talk to me about impeachment,” Jeffries said to a group of reporters. “We’ve been relentlessly focused on affordability and accountability.”
Still, Jeffries did assert that a Democratic-controlled House of Representatives would assert its authority to rein in the Trump administration.
“The days of the House of Representatives functioning like a wholly owned subsidiary of the Trump administration are over. House Democrats are going to lead a Congress that does serve as a check and balance on an out of control executive branch.”
Asked separately whether he would consider investigating or impeaching Pete Hegseth, Trump’s Defense Secretary, Jeffries responded dismissively – “Is Pete Hegseth still around?” – before moving on to the next question.
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Hakeem Jeffries said that neither he nor Chuck Schumer has spoken with Donald Trump since Republicans’ brutal defeat in the 2026 midterm elections.
“I have not heard from President Trump,” Jeffries told a group of reporters. “It is my understanding that leader Schumer has not heard from President Trump.”
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Democrat Christina Bertrand Hines flips red Michigan House district
Democrat Christina Bertrand Hines has flipped the solidly Republican 10th congressional district in Michigan, which is now held by John James – who lost his governor’s race to Democrat Jocelyn Benson.
Bertrand Hines beat her Republican challenger, Michael Bouchard, for control of the district, which a GOP representative has held for more than a decade.
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Hakeem Jeffries: Democrats have been handed a mandate 'to make life more affordable'
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, the House minority leader and soon-to-be speaker of the House, Hakeem Jeffries, characterized the midterm election results as a “stunning rebuke of Maga extremism.”
“Mike Johnson was correct,” Jeffries continued, referencing the now-outgoing Republican House speaker. “The polls were wrong. It wasn’t simply a blue wave, it was an American tsunami.”
In his remarks, Jeffries highlighted what he said would the party’s main priority now that it has control of legislative branch. The American people, Jeffries said, had tasked House Democrats with “a relentless effort to make life more affordable”.
That included, Jeffries said, reversing cuts to Medicaid, extending Affordable Care Act tax credits, undoing Trump’s tariff regime and ending Trump’s “reckless and costly war of choice” with Iran.
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Mississippi US Senate race still on knife's edge with 96% of votes counted
The US Senate race in Mississippi is still on a knife’s edge, with Democrat Scott Colom leading Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith by just 43 votes, with 96% of the final votes counted.
If he’s successful, Colom would be the first Democratic senator that Mississippi has sent to Washington since 1982.
We’ll be keeping an eye on the final result, which would be the eighth Senate flip for Democrats in this astonishing midterm election, and in a state which Donald Trump carried by 22 points in 2024.
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Schumer says Democrats' priorities are reducing costs and ending corruption after taking control of Congress
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer has called the stunning midterm results that saw Democrats take control of Congress against “overwhelming odds”, a feat he described as “a generational re-make of the Senate map that has huge consequences for history”.
Voters have given the Democratic party the opportunity to prove itself worthy of their trust, most importantly by “doing things to make your lives better”, the New York Democrat told reporters.
The GOP won that opportunity two years ago “and squandered it”, he added. If they “continue to embrace Trump, they’re going to be following him right over the cliff, as this election has shown,” he said.
“First, Americans want Washington to bring down the cost of living,” Schumer stressed. “Second, Americans want us to clean up corruption in government … and third they want us to check on Trump’s chaos at home and abroad.”
He highlighted the deaths of Americans on our streets and overseas, adding that “the American people don’t know what the heck we’re fighting for in Iran.” The war must end, Schumer stressed, later adding: “We are going to end the war.”
Democrats will pursue investigations, court challenges and legislative action against the administration, he said, adding: “The days of Trump’s supplicant Senate are over.”
But he stressed that the party is “not going to take our eye off the ball”. He said the number one priority is reducing costs, then tackling corruption.
Ending his remarks, Schumer told reporters:
We are going to work hard to drive costs down, with the president or without him, period.
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Democrats have taken control of Congress in a sweeping blue wave, flipping seats in Texas, South Carolina, Iowa and more. It was a dire night for Republicans as Americans delivered a stunning rebuke to Donald Trump.
We’ll be hosting a live Q&A on Friday 6 November at noon ET breaking down the results. The Guardian’s political reporters will take questions on everything from how key races shook out, surprising results, what power Democrats will have and what this all means for Trump.
If you have questions about the midterm results, what they mean and what’s next, we’d like to hear from you. Be sure to tune in live on our site for the Q&A, where reporters may answer your question.
You can share your response using the form when you click through using the link below.
Related: Send us your questions about the US midterms results and Democrats’ ‘blue wave’
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JD Vance says it's 'obvious to almost everyone' that war on Iran is 'the reason we lost' midterms
JD Vance has said that the war against Iran doomed the Republican party in the midterm elections, which are widely seen as a referendum on Trump’s presidency.
It’s an interesting intervention as the vice-president, once the face of the Trump administration’s deal-making efforts with Tehran, seeks to distance himself from the unpopular conflict ahead of a possible 2028 White House run.
“The real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone … The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night,” Vance said in a lengthy post on X. “If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that’s at least honest.
“Everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there,” added Vance, who had reportedly been sceptical about the unresolved war, which Trump launched in February alongside Israel.
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Speaking in Italian, Pope Leo XIV told hundreds of the faithful gathered in St Peter’s Square today that “the political community exists for the sake of the common good”.
“The exercise of political authority must always be directed towards the common good, which must be structured and operate according to local and historical circumstances, but always with the good of the entire human family at heart,” said Leo, the first pontiff known to have cast a ballot in any political election at any time in history.
Leo, who has clashed with Donald Trump over several issues, became the first American leader of the Catholic church last year after the death of Pope Francis.
Leo and Trump have clashed over the US president’s harsh immigration polices, with the pontiff describing them as “inhuman”. And earlier this year, Trump lashed out in response to Leo’s criticisms of the US-Israeli war on Iran, calling the pontiff “weak on crime” and “terrible on foreign policy”.
In his first key address to the US on the eve of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Leo praised the country’s history of welcoming migrants, while urging Americans to live up to the ideals put forward in the declaration, in what was seen a further rebuke to Trump.
In an interview with the US broadcaster in late July, Leo expressed “great love” for his home country and its core principles of freedom, opportunity and welcoming immigrants but qualified that he just “happens to be American”.
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‘We want our taxes spent here’: 12 Democrats weigh in after sweeping the US midterm elections
The broad repudiation of Donald Trump, his policies and the Republican party, focused on Trump’s personal unpopularity, high costs of living and the Iran war, offer Democrats an opportunity to reset the US domestic agenda. But what will they do with it?
Here, Democratic leaders and seat-flipping victors from Tuesday’s “blue tsunami” offer their post-election comments.
Read the full comments from Hakeem Jeffries, Chuck Schumer, Barack Obama and others here:
Related: ‘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
World leaders have been reacting to the seismic results of the US midterm elections, with British prime minister Andy Burnham earlier saying he hopes the results will give the world an “opportunity” to focus on ending the Iran war and easing cost of living pressures. (More from his interview with the BBC here, via my colleague Andrew Sparrow.)
In London, Mayor Sadiq Khan, who Trump has frequently insulted over the years, said on X: “Congratulations to Democrats on a huge victory last night. With a focus on hope, unity and supporting families with the cost of living – their campaign was a true rejection of the damaging and divisive politics of Donald Trump.”
In Iran, powerful parliament speaker and top negotiator Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf attributed Republican losses to Trump’s unresolved war against Tehran, which broke his campaign promise to not start new wars, sparked a global energy crisis and exacerbated the cost of living.
He wrote on X:
Conscience or the cost of living, Americans said NO TO WAR, and we endorse this message. If the US govt betrays their public will to serve international paymasters and blackmailers, it will learn our NO comes with a Nightmare.
In Israel, incumbent prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who lost his majority last week, has not publicly commented on the midterms. Neither have his rightwing allies.
But Israeli opposition leaders have, with Yair Golan saying the results reveal “just how toxic Netanyahu is among both Democrats and Republicans” and warned that his coalition risks driving Israel further into “global isolation” and confrontation with Washington, its most important ally. Opposition leader Yair Lapid said the results “effectively rule out any possibility of a unity government led by Netanyahu”.
In South Africa, where diplomatic relations with Washington are at an all-time low after Trump has repeatedly – and falsely – accused the government of persecuting its white minority (and offered refugee status), President Cyril Ramaphosa said:
The people of America have spoken.
Ramaphosa added: “I do think that this is going to introduce a new era in world relations. We’re hoping that on a bilateral basis there will be a coming together of minds.”
My colleague Jakub Krupa has noted some reactions from the European continent, including Spain’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez – who has been Donald Trump’s most vociferous European critic – celebrating the results and hailing them as proof of a progressive fightback and of the “crumbling” of what he called the “ultra wave”.
“Yesterday, American society voted against the policies that only impoverish,” Sánchez posted on X. “Against hate. Against sexism. Against climate denialism and against the privileges of the elites.”
Sánchez, who faces an uphill battle to secure another term in office in Spain’s general election at the end of the month, added: “It happened in Brazil. It just happened in the US. And it will happen soon in Spain.”
Meanwhile, Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, declared:
Today, democracy won in America.
“Democracy is amazing; I love democracy, it’s a beautiful thing,” he continued, absolutely beaming. He then added:
I hope that the result will stabilise the situation also in our region, but then Trump is still the president … My advice would be not to overuse the veto … as a sort of method of governing.
This was an apparent domestic swipe at Poland’s opposition president and Trump ally, Karol Nawrocki, with whom Tusk is locked in a bitter dispute over the country’s constitutional court.
Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, who also clashed with Trump in recent months, wasn’t in the mood to offer any reaction to the US elections this morning, as she told reporters: “We’ll talk about America some other time. Right now, it’s Armed Forces Day, 4 November.”
Norwegian PM Jonas Gahr Støre told Reuters:
This is a powerful political signal about a change of course among American voters.
Voices are now emerging in American politics that are closer to us than the president and the administration have stood for, for example on climate and environment, and in foreign policy and development aid policy.
German defence minister Boris Pistorius congratulated the US Democeats “from the bottom of his heart” on their “historic victory” last night, Dlf reported. Foreign minister Johann Wadephul said the results will mean some “continuity” in Germany’s relations with the Trump administration, but also a “change” in ties with the US Democrats as he hoped to see some breakthrough on Ukraine.
French finance minister Roland Lescure also responded to the result, discussing what Trump’s next steps could be. Here are his comments, via Reuters:
Either he decides to rise above the fray – acknowledging that changes are necessary, particularly regarding gasoline prices, which directly affect people – and, I might add, he tones down his international involvement; or he does not.
Frankly, this is something we will need to keep an eye on in the coming days.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said that “US voters have made their choice clear”.
She said she hoped the US Congress would continue to support Ukraine and put more pressure on Russia.
“I hope that the new Congress ... will continue supporting Ukraine and also putting more pressure on Russia,” Kallas said, adding that Europe and the United States “are much stronger together” in pushing Moscow to end its war.
The Kremlin, meanwhile, said that it hopes that the results of the US midterm elections will not impact what it said were Trump’s “peacemaking efforts” on Ukraine, Reuters reported.
In comments broadcast by Russian state media, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said:
We are sincerely counting on [Trump] continuing his peacemaking efforts.
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Midterms: how the blue wave took Congress in three minutes – video
Donald Trump and his Republican party have been dealt a devastating blow in the midterm elections with Democrats taking control of the House and Senate. Republicans are shell-shocked, with the future of the party deeply uncertain and some sounding the death knell for a decade of Trump-dominated GOP politics.
Watch how the blue wave took Congress in three minutes here:
Jim Jordan, Steve Scalise among Republicans looking to replace Johnson as top House Republican, reports say
According to media reports, another Republican in addition to Jim Jordan has already set heir eyes set on the minority leader position Mike Johnson has reportedly opted not to pursue.
Multiple outlets, including Punchbowl News and Fox News, reported that Louisiana representative Steve Scalise, Republicans’ majority leader, was a candidate for the minority leader job. Like Jordan, Scalise vied for the speaker of the House position after it was vacated by Kevin McCarthy in 2023.
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Mike Johnson not to seek minority leadership role, reports say
Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House, has said he is not planning to pursue the role of minority leader once his party loses its majority in the chamber, according to the Associated Press.
Coming in light of Republicans’ disastrous midterm defeat, Johnson’s decision effectively yields the position of highest-ranking Republican in the House to whichever member of his party can claim it.
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'PSA: Trump is still your president,' White House posts on Instagram
In the first post to its official Instagram account since a disastrous midterm election for Republicans, the White House posted a menacing image of President Trump, accompanied by a message that seemed dismissive of the results.
“PSA: TRUMP IS STILL YOUR PRESIDENT,” the post read, the text underlining an image of Trump glowering across the Resolute Desk.
The message come as Trump has tried to deflect blame for the results of the 2026 midterm election, attributing stunning Republican losses to his absence from the ballot, and as he has vowed to stonewall all Democrat legislative efforts by becoming “Mr. Veto.”
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Wall Street opens higher after Democrats secure Congress
Wall Street surged at the open, after Democrats scored historic victories in midterm elections and secured control of US Congress.
The Dow Jones rose 2%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq and the benchmark S&P 500 both gained more than 1%. That’s quite a reversal: Overnight, stock futures fell sharply as investors worried about the prospect of tougher regulation of the AI sector and the impact on economic growth.
Mike Johnson won't seek minority leadership, as Jim Jordan eyes the role: media reports
The dust hadn’t yet settled on a cataclysmic midterm election for House Republicans before early indication arrived of a possible shakeup to the party’s leadership in the chamber, the Associated Press reported.
According to Fox News, at least one Republican already had their eyes set on the minority leader position Johnson has reportedly opted not to pursue.
The outlet, citing two people familiar with the matter, reported that Ohio Republican Jim Jordan, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, is planning an effort to oust outgoing Speaker of the House Mike Johnson to take the position of minority leader.
It’s wouldn’t be the first time that Jordan has gunned for the House Republicans’ top job. Jordan previously sought to claim the title after Kevin McCarthy, the previous Republican speaker of the House, lost the job in 2023, but failed to net enough votes from members of the chamber.
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A blue tsunami wipes out Republicans - podcast
In this edition of our Politics Weekly America podcast, Jonathan Freedland and Shrai Popat run through the results of the US midterms, on a historic night for Democrats and a night to forget for Republicans.
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‘A win the size of Texas’: Democrats celebrate shrinking Republican dominance in a big state
Reporting from Austin, Texas.
“This is amazing,” exclaimed Tiffany Dunsmore, 44, the owner of Austin Scavenger Hunt, as the city skyline gleamed in the distance on a balmy night. “I cannot believe Texas went blue!”
For 32 long years, turning Texas blue had been an elusive prize for Democrats in the US’s second biggest state. There were false dawns and broken dreams. But on Tuesday the party’s agony finally came to an end.
James Talarico was elected the youngest member of the US Senate, and Gina Hinojosa the state’s first Latina governor. The pair delivered the party’s first statewide win since 1994 and the jewel in the crown of Donald Trump’s midterm humiliation.
The plaza of the Long Center for the Performing Arts in Austin buzzed like a political festival, packed with taco trucks, craft stalls selling handmade ceramics and vendors stitching bandanas on demand. Expectations had mounted as a giant TV screens showed Democrats storming Republican strongholds across the nation.
Then came a great roar of jubilation when, at 10pm local time, it was confirmed that Democrats had claimed the ultimate prize: the Lone Star State. Supporters wearing Talarico T-shirts punched the air and hugged one another. Nearby cars honked their horns. The weight of three decades had finally been lifted.
The last Democratic senator elected in Texas was Lloyd Bentsen in 1988, the year before Talarico was born, while the state’s last Democratic governor was Ann Richards, elected in 1990. Talarico’s breakthrough, defeating the scandal-plagued, Trump-endorsed Republican, Ken Paxton, helped power Democrats to retake control of the US Senate. Hinojosa, meanwhile, beat the incumbent governor, Greg Abbott, a titan of Texas politics who was running for a record-fourth term.
Read the full election night coverage from The Guardian’s David Smith:
Related: ‘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
British prime minister Andy Burnham believes the midterm results show that US voters want to “see the world coming together and focusing on the things that matter,” such as ending the war in Iran and bringing down the cost of living.
“President Trump has accepted the results, and I feel the world has an opportunity now to unite around the issue that is affecting us all, and that’s the cost of living,” he said.
“That has been the issue that I have put front and center in my first three months in Downing Street, and we’ve made moves. But I can’t get people’s cost of living pressures down until the conflict in the Middle East is resolved. The conflict in Ukraine started by Russia.
“These are the things we have to focus on now, and I hope the world has a moment to do that. And certainly, in my calls with leaders, that is what I will be asking everybody to do.”
Asked whether he was worried there might be an escalation in the Middle East following the results, he said: “Well, I’ll be working for de-escalation to make it very clear. You know, we want to see a resolution, the strait of Hormuz fully opened again.
“That’s what we will be working towards.”
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Mark Teixeira, Former Yankees all-star and World Series champion, wins House race in Texas
Former World Series champion turned Republican politician Mark Teixeira will represent Texas’s 21st Congressional District in Washington after defeating Democrat Kristin Hook in Tuesday’s midterm elections.
On Wednesday morning, Teixeira was leading with 54.5% of the votes after 99% of the ballots had been counted.
“Tonight’s victory belongs to the people of Texas’s 21st District. I’m not going to Washington for myself, but rather to be a strong, responsive voice for every family in this district,” wrote on X. “Together, we can build a better future for our families, our neighbors, and every community across Texas 21. I’m excited to get to work. I will be praying for all of you and for the future of this great nation. God bless Texas, and God bless America.”
Teixeira’s victory was expected. The seat has been in Republican hands since 1979. It was previously held by Chip Roy, who didn’t run for reelection. The district includes deeply conservative parts of Texas in the Austin and San Antonio areas.
Donald Trump and Texas’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, endorsed Teixeira’s campaign. Abbott lost his reelection campaign against Democrat Gina Hinojosa, and the Republicans suffered sweeping losses across the US in a repudiation of Trump’s second term in power.
According to Teixeira’s campaign website he aims to “end radical woke indoctrination, defend parental rights, kill DEI, restore patriotic education rooted in American and Texas values … and fight against Cultural Marxism.”
Teixeira, 46, was born and raised in Maryland, and he attended Georgia Tech. A first-round draft pick by the Rangers in 2001, he played for Texas from 2003-07 before stints with the Atlanta Braves (2007-08), Los Angeles Angels (2008) and New York Yankees (2009-16). Teixeira was selected an All-Star in 2005, 2009 and 2015, and he helped the Yankees win the 2009 World Series.
Related: World Series champion Teixeira wins US House seat as former NFL reporter Tafoya’s Senate bid fails
Cindy Hyde Smith, Mississippi’s Republican Senator who is at risk of losing her seat in a seismic upset, may be paying the price for a particularly damaging remark she made to a local news outlet.
Questioned on a regional television network about how Mississippians should cope with the rising price of beef under the Trump administration, Hyde Smith responded by musing: “you know, you have so many proteins to choose from.”
Hyde Smith’s challenger, Democrat Scott Colom, seized on the comment in a campaign ad, which landed just as affordability was taking center stage as an issue in the 2026 midterms. Instead of picking another protein, the ad insisted, Mississippi voters should “pick another Senator.”
It remains to be seen whether Mississippi voters will take Colom up on the offer. But they’ve already come far closer to doing so than anybody expected going into Tuesday’s election.
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Trump ally Lauren Boebert at risk of losing Congress seat in Colorado's 4th District to Democrat challenger
Lauren Boebert, the hard-right Colorado congresswoman who has been one of Donald Trump’s most outspoken allies in the House of Representatives, is at risk of losing her seat in a close race with her Democratic challenger.
With more than 80 percent of the vote in, Boebert trails by one-and-a-half percent in the race for Colorado’s 4th District to Eileen Laubacher, a onetime Navy rear admiral and former Republican who switched parties.
Amid a slate of devastating losses for President Trump’s, Boebert’s ouster would nonetheless represent the rebuke of a congresswoman who was emblematic of the kind of lawmaker Trump sought to cultivate: hard-right, provocative, and fiercely loyal to the Trump brand.
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The results of a closely-fought California ballot proposal to impose a one-time tax on billionaires remain too close to call as of Wednesday morning, the Associated Press reported.
If it passes, the measure would hit the state’s ultra-wealthy with a one-time 5% tax. It prompted something of an internecine war among California Democrats, winning support from top progressives, but getting blowback from some party leaders including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who fear its passage would force an exodus of the state’s ultra-wealthy.
Those same ultra-wealthy have also spent lavishly to campaign against the proposal.
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Democrats secure majority in the House as voters punish Republican Party
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
In case you fell asleep early, yesterday evening resonated as an extinction level-event for Donald Trump’s Republican Party, a worst-case scenario for the GOP that even the starkest polls might’ve underestimated.
Democrats defended a crucial Senate seat in Michigan and won the likely pickups in Maine and North Carolina. They then proceeded to flip five more seats in states that would normally be considered unquestionably red: Ohio, Iowa, Kansas, South Carolina, and — the biggest prize of them all — Texas.
As of Wednesday morning, Democrats have secured 54 seats in the Senate. A closely-watched race in Alaska is yet to be called. And the Senate contest in ruby red Mississippi is down to the wire, with Democrat Scott Colom leading by just a few dozen votes as the final ballots roll in.
The Democrats have already secured 228 seats in the House, ten more than needed for a majority, and could realistically run up the score to 240 seats or more. They’ve also flipped governor’s offices in Texas, Georgia, Iowa, Ohio, and Nevada.
Republicans, needless to say, are shell-shocked, with the future of the party deeply uncertain, and some sounding the death-knell for a decade of Trump-dominated GOP politics.
Here are some other developments you may have missed last night:
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Trump, uncharacteristically gracious, accepted his party’s resounding defeat, congratulated Democrats, and told The New York Times that he was “absolutely willing to accept” the election results. That was very much in doubt after the Trump administration spent months seeking to exert greater influence over the elections process through executive orders and the courts.
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Deb Haaland, running in New Mexico, became the first Native American woman elected as governor. Keisha Lanca Bottoms became the first Black woman ever elected governor. Abdul El-Sayed, the victorious Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan, became the first Muslim voted into the upper chamber.
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Several key congressional races, including contests in Colorado, Michigan, Maine, New York, California, and North Carolina, remain to be called.
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