US midterm elections 2026: Democrats win Senate control and edge toward House victory

Democrats have now won control of the US Senate, according to the Associated Press.

With historic wins in Texas, Iowa, Kansas and South Carolina, the party now has 51 seats – the magic number needed to win the upper chamber of Congress.

Democrats entered the midterm fight as the underdogs — with many lawmakers viewing 2028, not 2026, as their more realistic shot at flipping the Senate. But the party scored top-shelf recruits in key battleground states and was significantly boosted by an increasingly dismal political environment for Republicans, who struggled to distance themselves from Trump’s agenda.

Democrats needed a net pickup of four seats to win back the Senate. They secured that path through North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Kansas, Iowa and Ohio.

The battle for the House remains undecided, but Democrats appear on a glide path to taking back that majority, too. They've already made a net gain of seven House seats.

“It was unbelievably — how exciting, our candidates performed in this cycle. They stayed on message … and people are angry at President Trump,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), the Senate Democratic campaign chair, said in an interview Tuesday night.

It’s not yet clear how large Democrats’ majority will be, with other battleground states including Maine Alaska and Michigan not yet called.

The victory puts Democrats on the front foot as they race to craft a winning brand and resolve their infighting ahead of a critical presidential election. And it’s a major blow for Republicans, who saw territory once thought to be safe red falter in the final stretch of the campaign.

Democrats winning back the Senate gives them a perch to investigate the Trump administration, with multiple incoming committee chairs likely to focus broadly on the theme of “corruption.” And it gives Senate Democrats an effective veto over Trump’s nominees for the next two years.

The election outcome is expected to sweep Chuck Schumer, who has spent months publicly defending his strategies to the party base and privately fundraising for candidates, back into the Senate majority leader post when the caucus holds its closed-door elections early next month.