• Momentous sweep: Democrats flipped control of both the House and Senate in a resounding victory. They capitalized on President Donald Trump’s historic unpopularity to win significant power to check his final two years in office.
• The administration’s response: The president said he didn’t see the GOP losses “as a hit on me.” He said he’ll work with the Democratic-controlled Congress and not spend the next two years “vetoing everything.” Vice President JD Vance pinned the losses squarely on the war with Iran.
• What we’re still watching: Two Senate races — in Alaska and Mississippi — are still too early to call. The Mississippi candidates are separated by just 43 votes. And several dozen House races have not yet been projected.
• Johnson stepping aside: House Speaker Mike Johnson told staff this morning he’s not running for House Republican leader, sources told CNN.
Updates
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As Democrats are projected to win control of both the House and Senate, a number of candidates are making history across race, gender and sexuality.
Learn more about these historic firsts in the video below:
That didn’t take long.
Vice President JD Vance posted an extraordinary election post-mortem on X on Wednesday that came across as a transparent attempt to separate himself from Trump and to save his hopes of becoming the Republican nominee in 2028.
He savaged the GOP’s campaign tactics and its economic messaging and argued that the party was out of touch with the nation’s suffering as costs spiked. All of these strategic calls were made by the president.
And most bluntly, he wrote: “The reason we lost is the war” – taking aim at the most consequential decision of President Donald Trump’s second term.
The Vice President came up with four points he said would bring Republican voters back into the fold.
“1) End the war
2) Focus on cost of living/inflation
3) Put America First
4) Change our relationship to Israel.”
His critique was clearly not only meant to imply he was all along against the war — which sparked high gas prices that ruined GOP hopes. It was a clear attempt to reach out to the isolationist, Tucker Carlson-wing of what’s left of the MAGA coalition that was attracted by Trump’s ‘no more foreign’ wars mantra in the first place.
The question after Tuesday’s GOP debacle, however, is whether anyone associated with the unpopular Iran war in any way — and this includes Secretary of State Marco Rubio — would be able to explain it away on the 2028 campaign trail. And will Vance, who, to put it charitably, is prone to political reinvention, be able to pull it off again?
People were joking yesterday that the 2028 presidential campaign would start Wednesday morning. JD Vance just made it a reality.
Vice President JD Vance is blaming Republicans’ abysmal midterm performance directly on the Iran war.
“The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night,” Vance said in a lengthy X post Tuesday morning that distanced himself from President Donald Trump and his agenda.
“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,” he said.
“But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there,” Vance added.
The vice president said that voters in Trump’s coalition did show up — they just didn’t vote Republican.
“Undoubtedly there were places we could have done better on turnout. But the main problem is not turnout. The main problem is that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026,” Vance said.
“There will be a lot of infighting and arguing over what happened and why that is. One of the pollsters I really respect told me that our economic messaging wasn’t sharp enough down the stretch. I’m sure that’s true,” he added.
“But the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone,” Vance said
The vice president, citing another pollster, pointed to four things he said could bring those Trump voters back into the fold: end the Iran war, address the high cost of living, put “America First” and change the US relationship to Israel.
Vance also acknowledged he’d had a bad feeling about Tuesday night. “I felt negative going into Tuesday, but even I was shocked by this,” he said.
Trump has suggested the war played a role but has continued to defend the conflict he started. “I think a part of it was Iran, but at the same time, people understood the importance of what I’ve done with Iran,” he told Fox News in a phone call last night.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters Wednesday that she was “very pleased” with election victories of two prominent Mexican Americans in governors’ in Texas and California.
“I would like to highlight the victory of two people of Mexican origin: California’s governor-elect (Xavier Becerra) and the governor-elect of Texas (Gina Hinojosa),” Sheinbaum said. “They clearly have ties to their states and their platforms, but also a connection with Mexican men and women.”
Both victories were historic firsts; Hinojosa is the first Latina to be elected governor in Texas history, and the first Democrat to win its highest executive office in decades. Becerra, a Democrat, is the first Latino elected governor of California.
“We are very pleased that Mexican Americans there have this participation and recognition,” Sheinbaum added.
Republican Sen. John Cornyn spoke by phone on Tuesday night with Democratic Sen.-elect James Talarico, a Cornyn aide told CNN.
The call came as Talarico was poised to win the race to replace Cornyn in the Senate and end Democrats’ losing streak in Texas. Talarico defeated Republican Ken Paxton, who unseated Cornyn in the GOP primary.
Cornyn, who declined to campaign for Paxton, congratulated Talarico on X as the election results were coming in. He said he looked forward to meeting Talarico and helping with the transition.
Talarico’s campaign confirmed that the two spoke on Tuesday night.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan announced his run to lead House Republicans in the minority in a letter to his colleagues obtained by CNN.
“This is a staggering day for our conference. We are losing colleagues and friends who’ve been valuable members of our conference and leaders in our party,” Jordan wrote.
“When Americans get knocked down, they pick themselves up and get back to work. Now our Conference must do the same,” Jordan added.
Jordan argued that Republicans need to go on offense against Democrats over the next two years to win back the majority.
“For too long, we have operated without a clear plan to survive the hour or the day in front of,” Jordan wrote, making a veiled dig at House Speaker Mike Johnson without naming him.
Jordan touted his time leading the Judiciary panel as making him uniquely qualified to handle the onslaught of Democratic investigations, referring to himself as “battle-tested.”
People in Texas cheered outside on streets and honked car horns to celebrate the wins of Democrats James Talarico and Gina Hinojosa.
Texas Sen.-elect James Talarico said Democrats should not be focused on “political retribution” when they assume their Senate majority in January, saying the party has “one last chance” to improve the lives of the American people.
On a crisp sunny morning in Austin, less than 12 hours after accepting victory in his double-digit win over Ken Paxton, Talarico said he had yet to hear directly from his Republican rival. But he said he was pleased to see Paxton’s concession, declaring: “I’m glad that he’s acknowledged the results of the election.”
When he arrives in Washington, Talarico will become the youngest sitting US senator of the new Congress. He said he intended to work with Democrats across the political spectrum — and Republicans, too — in hopes of making progress on comprehensive immigration reform and more.
When asked directly about whether Trump should be impeached, Talarico said he would perform his role as a juror, should the House choose to send articles of impeachment to the Senate, just as he did as a member of the Texas House of Representatives when Paxton was impeached.
“I reviewed every shred of evidence. I listened to every expert and I did my duty accordingly,” Talarico said. “And that’s exactly what I would do in the US Senate.”
While it is now clear that Democrats have won control of Congress, some ballots have yet to be counted.
Senate races in Alaska and Mississippi are still too early to call, while 71 House races have also not yet been projected. It could take weeks for the official results of the election to be known.
According to the Campaign Legal Center, there are several legal and administrative steps to be taken following an election, namely the canvass, certification, and seating.
During the canvass, local election officials count all the votes cast in their jurisdiction, including those cast during the early voting period, by mail and on Election Day. Each state then sends a list of its election winners to Congress.
Before a new Congress convenes in January, elected candidates typically travel to Washington, DC, to take part in new member orientation, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Following the election, the newly formed Congress will convene in early January, according to the Constitution.
A new speaker of the House will be elected by the other members-elect on the first day of Congress, according to the Campaign Legal Center. To be elected speaker, a candidate must win a majority of votes out of all votes cast. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries is expected to be the next House speaker.
After a speaker is chosen, newly elected senators and all House members are sworn into office and then begin their terms.
According to the Congressional Research Service, on the first day of Congress, the House also “often adopts resolutions assigning some or many of its Members to committees. This process regularly continues over several more weeks.”
The majority and minority leaders of the Senate, as well as other party floor officers, are elected “privately by their respective caucuses and not ratified on the floor,” according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Democrats swept races across the country in a colossal midterm victory, delivering a stunning rebuke to President Donald Trump and his policies.
Democrats were able to capitalize on the president’s historic unpopularity to win significant power to check him for the rest of his term.
Voters expressed concern over the economy and corruption in polls released ahead of the elections — issues Democrats have vowed to take on.
Once the new Congress is sworn in, here’s what Democrats’ control of both chambers could mean:
Supercharged oversight: Incoming Democratic committee chairs in both chambers will be able to begin putting people and organizations on notice this month. Their power to issue subpoenas begins once the new Congress is seated in January.
The Senate has much more clearly defined legal power to sue in court to force compliance with its probes. A law passed in 1978 explicitly gives federal courts the authority to order compliance with subpoenas issued by the Senate that meet certain conditions.
Squire Patton Boggs, a law firm with a prominent Washington lobbying practice, recently gave its clients a list of what may be investigated.
Those topics include:
Trump’s construction projects
Allegations of improper enrichment by Trump and his family members
The war in Iran
Immigration enforcement
The effect of DOGE-prompted cutbacks in 2025 on the federal civil service
Artificial intelligence
Affordability
Trump nominees: The Senate confirms presidential nominees, including Cabinet officials, federal judges and Supreme Court justices. Trump could face an uphill battle getting his nominees confirmed with Democrats holding a majority in the chamber.
Veto override: Congress can override a president’s veto with a two-thirds vote in both chambers. While Democrats have picked up enough seats to hold solid majorities, they remain far short of the two-thirds threshold.
Trump told Politico on election night that although he has the right to veto legislation from a Democratic-controlled Congress, he doesn’t “want to be just sitting there for two years vetoing everything.” Trump has previously suggested the opposite, even saying he would become “Mr. Veto.”
CNN’s Molly English contributed to this report.
Congressman Jim Jordan, a fierce Trump ally, is planning to run for House GOP leader now that Speaker Mike Johnson officially cleared the way, two people familiar with the matter tell CNN.
Jordan was a key Republican leader in the two impeachment proceedings during Trump’s first term, something his allies think will help him in the fight to replace Johnson.
This sets up a fight for the top GOP leadership spot with Rep. Steve Scalise expected to announce today that he is also running to be the next House Republican leader.
Rep. August Pfluger will run against Rep. Tom Emmer for the No. 2 leadership spot in the minority – the role of GOP whip — according to a source familiar.
Rep. Steve Scalise will be announcing his run for Republican leader for the next Congress today, according to a source familiar.
The source said that his number one goal will be to lead the conference back into the majority.
The anticipated announcement sets up what is expected to be a fight for the top House GOP leadership spot after Speaker Mike Johnson told staffers earlier today he will not run again for the post after Republicans lost the House in the midterm elections.
We’re starting to see a flurry of international reaction to the midterm elections swing, as world leaders wake up to the news the Democrats have flipped control of both the House and Senate.
Here are some of the latest comments:
Spain: The country’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said the US has voted “against the policies that only impoverish. Against hate. Against machismo. Against climate denialism and against the privileges of the elites.”
Iran: Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliamentary speaker, posted on X that Americans used the elections to say, “NO TO WAR, and we endorse this message.”
Russia: Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said US President Donald Trump “continues to hold office, and we sincerely hope that he will also continue his peace-making efforts.” Meanwhile, Russian parliamentarian Leonid Slutsky told CNN, “We’ll check the situation. It’s now maybe early for a final conclusion, but it’s not necessary for conclusion. Now Trump is absolutely in (a) negative situation.”
United Kingdom: UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the results give the world “an opportunity now to unite” around the issue of the cost of living. He said he will be calling on fellow world leaders to focus on resolving Russia’s war on Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East.
Germany: Defense Minister Boris Pistorius congratulated the Democrats on a “truly remarkable election victory,” noting the Trump administration remains Germany’s point of contact in the US, alongside future talks with Democratic leaders in Congress.
Norway: Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre told the Reuters news agency the election results were a “powerful political signal about a change of course among American voters.”
South Africa: President Cyril Ramaphosa said the results will “introduce a new era in world relations,” Reuters reported. “We have seen that the Democrats have taken control of the Senate and of the House, and the people of America have spoken.”
Poland: Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said, “democracy won in America” and echoed Trump’s praise for the Democrats, according to the Reuters news agency. Speaking at a news conference alongside Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis, Tusk also suggested Trump pre-Election Day pledge to “veto everything” would be an unwise move.
Czech Republic: Babis said he hoped Trump would now focus on ending the war in Ukraine and resolving the conflict in the Strait of Hormuz, but that he expected the election would be unlikely to change the course of either.
CNN’s Vasco Cotovio, Fred Pleitgen and Anna Chernova contributed reporting.
The biggest upset of the night for House Republicans? The defeat of their own campaign chief, Rep. Richard Hudson in North Carolina.
Hudson was defeated by Democratic challenger Richard Ojeda in North Carolina’s 9th District, a contest that was barely on either party’s radar until the final days of the race.
President Donald Trump won the seat by almost 16 points two years ago but Ojeda flipped it with almost no outside spending on his behalf. (National Democrats went up with a late buy to help boost Ojeda last week, as CNN first reported.)
Ojeda, an Army veteran who served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, had most recently served as a state legislator in West Virginia. But he moved back to North Carolina in recent years to the same district as the Army base Ft. Bragg, where Ojeda spent part of his own military career.
Hudson, a close Trump ally, had spent years climbing the ranks of the House GOP since coming to Congress in 2013. As chairman of the National Republican Campaign Committee, Hudson closely tied his party to Trump, hoping to drum up the GOP base.
For weeks, GOP leaders had brushed off concerns about Hudson’s fate even as a growing number of lawmakers and operatives warned that there was serious voter discontentment in North Carolina.
House Speaker Mike Johnson told staff this morning he’s not running for House GOP leader, two sources told CNN, after his party faced devastating losses in Tuesday night’s election.
One source said Johnson had talked to President Donald Trump about his decision.
Attention will now shift to a possible matchup between House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan for the GOP leader spot. Other candidates could emerge.
Scalise has not yet announced whether he will run for minority leader in next week’s caucus-wide vote. But one person familiar with his thinking said he would have “broad support from the conference” and that members have been reaching out to encourage him to run.
The secret-ballot leadership elections are expected next week.
Democrat Scott Colom could pull off the most shocking upset of the 2026 battle in his race against GOP Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith. And if he does pull it off, it would be quite the narrative arc.
He would be defeating the senator, after all, who tanked his nomination to a federal judgeship.
The story began in October 2022, when then-President Joe Biden nominated Colom, a local district attorney, to be a US district judge for the Northern District of Mississippi.
The way things work in the Senate is that the two senators from a state where a judge is being nominated have effective veto power over those nominations, through what’s known as a “blue slip.” And in Mississippi, that’s a pair of Republicans.
GOP Sen. Roger Wicker declined to block Colom and even supported his nomination, calling him, citing “mainstream Mississippi Republicans who tell me they think he’s been a strong law-and-order prosecutor.”
But Hyde-Smith blocked his nomination. She cited the idea that he was supported by liberal donor George Soros and his positions on transgender issues – saying she was “concerned about Scott Colom’s opposition to legislation to protect female athletes.”
Even at the time, though, Hyde-Smith conceded that Colom was “smart and well-liked in his district.”
That looks like it might have been a significant political miscalculation. Colom announced his Senate campaign in September 2025, and now Hyde-Smith’s “smart and well-liked” opponent leads her by fewer than 50 votes.
Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said he doesn’t think Texas is a “ruby red” state anymore, after Democrats won the state’s Senate and governor’s races.
“This is a critical core of the Republican base. Texas was, and they just lost it, and they lost it big last night,” Martin said on CNN.
James Talarico and Gina Hinojosa won the Senate and governor’s races, respectively, the first time Democrats have won statewide office in Texas in 32 years.
“The idea that Texas is a ruby red state, you can’t say that anymore,” Martin said. “Texas is a purple-to-leaning-blue state, and this will have huge implications as we move into ’28 and beyond.”
Texas Democrats have long hoped to turn the state blue. In recent years, some candidates raised the party’s hopes but came up short. In 2018, Democratic Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke came close to unseating GOP Sen. Ted Cruz but lost by less than 3 percentage points.
Georgia Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock urged his party to invest in Southern races, saying the region is key to building a sustainable majority for the future.
Speaking about the razor-thin Senate race in Mississippi, Warnock told CNN’s Erin Burnett: “I have been telling my party now for a long time that it needs to invest in the South. The road to a sustainable Democratic majority in the Congress goes right through the South.”
Warnock recalled how, when he asked donors more than a year ago, “have you thought about Mississippi?”, they echoed back in disbelief: “Mississippi?”
He added, “We’re seeing that what we need to do is invest long term.”
“But regardless of the outcome in Mississippi, we need to be in Mississippi today investing in the long term. It is a blue state that just needs to be organized,” he said.
Asked whether Georgia and Texas are now effectively blue following resounding victories across both states, Warnock said: “These races are hard fought, and every cycle is different.”
“They are won every November. And so, I’ll tell you (as) somebody who will be up (for reelection) soon. I’m not taking anything for granted,” he added. “You have to earn people’s votes.”
It was a big night for Democrats: A historic blue wave swept the party into power in both chambers of Congress and in statehouses across the country.
Front pages captured the moment for Americans waking up this morning. Here’s a look at how some newspapers covered Election Day and the results:
House Speaker Mike Johnson is holding an all-staff call this morning after his party endured deep losses Tuesday night, as Republicans await his decision on whether to run for House minority leader, according to two sources.
If Johnson steps aside, as many on Capitol Hill expect, attention will shift to a possible matchup between House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan for the GOP leader spot. Other candidates could emerge.
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer is expected to run for the No. 2 position.
The secret-ballot leadership elections are expected next week.
• Momentous sweep: Democrats flipped control of both the House and Senate in a resounding victory. They capitalized on President Donald Trump’s historic unpopularity to win significant power to check his final two years in office.
• The administration’s response: The president said he didn’t see the GOP losses “as a hit on me.” He said he’ll work with the Democratic-controlled Congress and not spend the next two years “vetoing everything.” Vice President JD Vance pinned the losses squarely on the war with Iran.
• What we’re still watching: Two Senate races — in Alaska and Mississippi — are still too early to call. The Mississippi candidates are separated by just 43 votes. And several dozen House races have not yet been projected.
• Johnson stepping aside: House Speaker Mike Johnson told staff this morning he’s not running for House Republican leader, sources told CNN.
As Democrats are projected to win control of both the House and Senate, a number of candidates are making history across race, gender and sexuality.
Learn more about these historic firsts in the video below:
That didn’t take long.
Vice President JD Vance posted an extraordinary election post-mortem on X on Wednesday that came across as a transparent attempt to separate himself from Trump and to save his hopes of becoming the Republican nominee in 2028.
He savaged the GOP’s campaign tactics and its economic messaging and argued that the party was out of touch with the nation’s suffering as costs spiked. All of these strategic calls were made by the president.
And most bluntly, he wrote: “The reason we lost is the war” – taking aim at the most consequential decision of President Donald Trump’s second term.
The Vice President came up with four points he said would bring Republican voters back into the fold.
“1) End the war
2) Focus on cost of living/inflation
3) Put America First
4) Change our relationship to Israel.”
His critique was clearly not only meant to imply he was all along against the war — which sparked high gas prices that ruined GOP hopes. It was a clear attempt to reach out to the isolationist, Tucker Carlson-wing of what’s left of the MAGA coalition that was attracted by Trump’s ‘no more foreign’ wars mantra in the first place.
The question after Tuesday’s GOP debacle, however, is whether anyone associated with the unpopular Iran war in any way — and this includes Secretary of State Marco Rubio — would be able to explain it away on the 2028 campaign trail. And will Vance, who, to put it charitably, is prone to political reinvention, be able to pull it off again?
People were joking yesterday that the 2028 presidential campaign would start Wednesday morning. JD Vance just made it a reality.
Vice President JD Vance is blaming Republicans’ abysmal midterm performance directly on the Iran war.
“The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night,” Vance said in a lengthy X post Tuesday morning that distanced himself from President Donald Trump and his agenda.
“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,” he said.
“But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there,” Vance added.
The vice president said that voters in Trump’s coalition did show up — they just didn’t vote Republican.
“Undoubtedly there were places we could have done better on turnout. But the main problem is not turnout. The main problem is that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026,” Vance said.
“There will be a lot of infighting and arguing over what happened and why that is. One of the pollsters I really respect told me that our economic messaging wasn’t sharp enough down the stretch. I’m sure that’s true,” he added.
“But the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone,” Vance said
The vice president, citing another pollster, pointed to four things he said could bring those Trump voters back into the fold: end the Iran war, address the high cost of living, put “America First” and change the US relationship to Israel.
Vance also acknowledged he’d had a bad feeling about Tuesday night. “I felt negative going into Tuesday, but even I was shocked by this,” he said.
Trump has suggested the war played a role but has continued to defend the conflict he started. “I think a part of it was Iran, but at the same time, people understood the importance of what I’ve done with Iran,” he told Fox News in a phone call last night.
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters Wednesday that she was “very pleased” with election victories of two prominent Mexican Americans in governors’ in Texas and California.
“I would like to highlight the victory of two people of Mexican origin: California’s governor-elect (Xavier Becerra) and the governor-elect of Texas (Gina Hinojosa),” Sheinbaum said. “They clearly have ties to their states and their platforms, but also a connection with Mexican men and women.”
Both victories were historic firsts; Hinojosa is the first Latina to be elected governor in Texas history, and the first Democrat to win its highest executive office in decades. Becerra, a Democrat, is the first Latino elected governor of California.
“We are very pleased that Mexican Americans there have this participation and recognition,” Sheinbaum added.
Republican Sen. John Cornyn spoke by phone on Tuesday night with Democratic Sen.-elect James Talarico, a Cornyn aide told CNN.
The call came as Talarico was poised to win the race to replace Cornyn in the Senate and end Democrats’ losing streak in Texas. Talarico defeated Republican Ken Paxton, who unseated Cornyn in the GOP primary.
Cornyn, who declined to campaign for Paxton, congratulated Talarico on X as the election results were coming in. He said he looked forward to meeting Talarico and helping with the transition.
Talarico’s campaign confirmed that the two spoke on Tuesday night.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan announced his run to lead House Republicans in the minority in a letter to his colleagues obtained by CNN.
“This is a staggering day for our conference. We are losing colleagues and friends who’ve been valuable members of our conference and leaders in our party,” Jordan wrote.
“When Americans get knocked down, they pick themselves up and get back to work. Now our Conference must do the same,” Jordan added.
Jordan argued that Republicans need to go on offense against Democrats over the next two years to win back the majority.
“For too long, we have operated without a clear plan to survive the hour or the day in front of,” Jordan wrote, making a veiled dig at House Speaker Mike Johnson without naming him.
Jordan touted his time leading the Judiciary panel as making him uniquely qualified to handle the onslaught of Democratic investigations, referring to himself as “battle-tested.”
People in Texas cheered outside on streets and honked car horns to celebrate the wins of Democrats James Talarico and Gina Hinojosa.
Texas Sen.-elect James Talarico said Democrats should not be focused on “political retribution” when they assume their Senate majority in January, saying the party has “one last chance” to improve the lives of the American people.
On a crisp sunny morning in Austin, less than 12 hours after accepting victory in his double-digit win over Ken Paxton, Talarico said he had yet to hear directly from his Republican rival. But he said he was pleased to see Paxton’s concession, declaring: “I’m glad that he’s acknowledged the results of the election.”
When he arrives in Washington, Talarico will become the youngest sitting US senator of the new Congress. He said he intended to work with Democrats across the political spectrum — and Republicans, too — in hopes of making progress on comprehensive immigration reform and more.
When asked directly about whether Trump should be impeached, Talarico said he would perform his role as a juror, should the House choose to send articles of impeachment to the Senate, just as he did as a member of the Texas House of Representatives when Paxton was impeached.
“I reviewed every shred of evidence. I listened to every expert and I did my duty accordingly,” Talarico said. “And that’s exactly what I would do in the US Senate.”
While it is now clear that Democrats have won control of Congress, some ballots have yet to be counted.
Senate races in Alaska and Mississippi are still too early to call, while 71 House races have also not yet been projected. It could take weeks for the official results of the election to be known.
According to the Campaign Legal Center, there are several legal and administrative steps to be taken following an election, namely the canvass, certification, and seating.
During the canvass, local election officials count all the votes cast in their jurisdiction, including those cast during the early voting period, by mail and on Election Day. Each state then sends a list of its election winners to Congress.
Before a new Congress convenes in January, elected candidates typically travel to Washington, DC, to take part in new member orientation, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Following the election, the newly formed Congress will convene in early January, according to the Constitution.
A new speaker of the House will be elected by the other members-elect on the first day of Congress, according to the Campaign Legal Center. To be elected speaker, a candidate must win a majority of votes out of all votes cast. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries is expected to be the next House speaker.
After a speaker is chosen, newly elected senators and all House members are sworn into office and then begin their terms.
According to the Congressional Research Service, on the first day of Congress, the House also “often adopts resolutions assigning some or many of its Members to committees. This process regularly continues over several more weeks.”
The majority and minority leaders of the Senate, as well as other party floor officers, are elected “privately by their respective caucuses and not ratified on the floor,” according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Democrats swept races across the country in a colossal midterm victory, delivering a stunning rebuke to President Donald Trump and his policies.
Democrats were able to capitalize on the president’s historic unpopularity to win significant power to check him for the rest of his term.
Voters expressed concern over the economy and corruption in polls released ahead of the elections — issues Democrats have vowed to take on.
Once the new Congress is sworn in, here’s what Democrats’ control of both chambers could mean:
Supercharged oversight: Incoming Democratic committee chairs in both chambers will be able to begin putting people and organizations on notice this month. Their power to issue subpoenas begins once the new Congress is seated in January.
The Senate has much more clearly defined legal power to sue in court to force compliance with its probes. A law passed in 1978 explicitly gives federal courts the authority to order compliance with subpoenas issued by the Senate that meet certain conditions.
Squire Patton Boggs, a law firm with a prominent Washington lobbying practice, recently gave its clients a list of what may be investigated.
Those topics include:
Trump’s construction projects
Allegations of improper enrichment by Trump and his family members
The war in Iran
Immigration enforcement
The effect of DOGE-prompted cutbacks in 2025 on the federal civil service
Artificial intelligence
Affordability
Trump nominees: The Senate confirms presidential nominees, including Cabinet officials, federal judges and Supreme Court justices. Trump could face an uphill battle getting his nominees confirmed with Democrats holding a majority in the chamber.
Veto override: Congress can override a president’s veto with a two-thirds vote in both chambers. While Democrats have picked up enough seats to hold solid majorities, they remain far short of the two-thirds threshold.
Trump told Politico on election night that although he has the right to veto legislation from a Democratic-controlled Congress, he doesn’t “want to be just sitting there for two years vetoing everything.” Trump has previously suggested the opposite, even saying he would become “Mr. Veto.”
CNN’s Molly English contributed to this report.
Congressman Jim Jordan, a fierce Trump ally, is planning to run for House GOP leader now that Speaker Mike Johnson officially cleared the way, two people familiar with the matter tell CNN.
Jordan was a key Republican leader in the two impeachment proceedings during Trump’s first term, something his allies think will help him in the fight to replace Johnson.
This sets up a fight for the top GOP leadership spot with Rep. Steve Scalise expected to announce today that he is also running to be the next House Republican leader.
Rep. August Pfluger will run against Rep. Tom Emmer for the No. 2 leadership spot in the minority – the role of GOP whip — according to a source familiar.
Rep. Steve Scalise will be announcing his run for Republican leader for the next Congress today, according to a source familiar.
The source said that his number one goal will be to lead the conference back into the majority.
The anticipated announcement sets up what is expected to be a fight for the top House GOP leadership spot after Speaker Mike Johnson told staffers earlier today he will not run again for the post after Republicans lost the House in the midterm elections.
We’re starting to see a flurry of international reaction to the midterm elections swing, as world leaders wake up to the news the Democrats have flipped control of both the House and Senate.
Here are some of the latest comments:
Spain: The country’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said the US has voted “against the policies that only impoverish. Against hate. Against machismo. Against climate denialism and against the privileges of the elites.”
Iran: Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s parliamentary speaker, posted on X that Americans used the elections to say, “NO TO WAR, and we endorse this message.”
Russia: Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said US President Donald Trump “continues to hold office, and we sincerely hope that he will also continue his peace-making efforts.” Meanwhile, Russian parliamentarian Leonid Slutsky told CNN, “We’ll check the situation. It’s now maybe early for a final conclusion, but it’s not necessary for conclusion. Now Trump is absolutely in (a) negative situation.”
United Kingdom: UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the results give the world “an opportunity now to unite” around the issue of the cost of living. He said he will be calling on fellow world leaders to focus on resolving Russia’s war on Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East.
Germany: Defense Minister Boris Pistorius congratulated the Democrats on a “truly remarkable election victory,” noting the Trump administration remains Germany’s point of contact in the US, alongside future talks with Democratic leaders in Congress.
Norway: Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre told the Reuters news agency the election results were a “powerful political signal about a change of course among American voters.”
South Africa: President Cyril Ramaphosa said the results will “introduce a new era in world relations,” Reuters reported. “We have seen that the Democrats have taken control of the Senate and of the House, and the people of America have spoken.”
Poland: Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said, “democracy won in America” and echoed Trump’s praise for the Democrats, according to the Reuters news agency. Speaking at a news conference alongside Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis, Tusk also suggested Trump pre-Election Day pledge to “veto everything” would be an unwise move.
Czech Republic: Babis said he hoped Trump would now focus on ending the war in Ukraine and resolving the conflict in the Strait of Hormuz, but that he expected the election would be unlikely to change the course of either.
CNN’s Vasco Cotovio, Fred Pleitgen and Anna Chernova contributed reporting.
The biggest upset of the night for House Republicans? The defeat of their own campaign chief, Rep. Richard Hudson in North Carolina.
Hudson was defeated by Democratic challenger Richard Ojeda in North Carolina’s 9th District, a contest that was barely on either party’s radar until the final days of the race.
President Donald Trump won the seat by almost 16 points two years ago but Ojeda flipped it with almost no outside spending on his behalf. (National Democrats went up with a late buy to help boost Ojeda last week, as CNN first reported.)
Ojeda, an Army veteran who served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, had most recently served as a state legislator in West Virginia. But he moved back to North Carolina in recent years to the same district as the Army base Ft. Bragg, where Ojeda spent part of his own military career.
Hudson, a close Trump ally, had spent years climbing the ranks of the House GOP since coming to Congress in 2013. As chairman of the National Republican Campaign Committee, Hudson closely tied his party to Trump, hoping to drum up the GOP base.
For weeks, GOP leaders had brushed off concerns about Hudson’s fate even as a growing number of lawmakers and operatives warned that there was serious voter discontentment in North Carolina.
House Speaker Mike Johnson told staff this morning he’s not running for House GOP leader, two sources told CNN, after his party faced devastating losses in Tuesday night’s election.
One source said Johnson had talked to President Donald Trump about his decision.
Attention will now shift to a possible matchup between House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan for the GOP leader spot. Other candidates could emerge.
Scalise has not yet announced whether he will run for minority leader in next week’s caucus-wide vote. But one person familiar with his thinking said he would have “broad support from the conference” and that members have been reaching out to encourage him to run.
The secret-ballot leadership elections are expected next week.
Democrat Scott Colom could pull off the most shocking upset of the 2026 battle in his race against GOP Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith. And if he does pull it off, it would be quite the narrative arc.
He would be defeating the senator, after all, who tanked his nomination to a federal judgeship.
The story began in October 2022, when then-President Joe Biden nominated Colom, a local district attorney, to be a US district judge for the Northern District of Mississippi.
The way things work in the Senate is that the two senators from a state where a judge is being nominated have effective veto power over those nominations, through what’s known as a “blue slip.” And in Mississippi, that’s a pair of Republicans.
GOP Sen. Roger Wicker declined to block Colom and even supported his nomination, calling him, citing “mainstream Mississippi Republicans who tell me they think he’s been a strong law-and-order prosecutor.”
But Hyde-Smith blocked his nomination. She cited the idea that he was supported by liberal donor George Soros and his positions on transgender issues – saying she was “concerned about Scott Colom’s opposition to legislation to protect female athletes.”
Even at the time, though, Hyde-Smith conceded that Colom was “smart and well-liked in his district.”
That looks like it might have been a significant political miscalculation. Colom announced his Senate campaign in September 2025, and now Hyde-Smith’s “smart and well-liked” opponent leads her by fewer than 50 votes.
Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said he doesn’t think Texas is a “ruby red” state anymore, after Democrats won the state’s Senate and governor’s races.
“This is a critical core of the Republican base. Texas was, and they just lost it, and they lost it big last night,” Martin said on CNN.
James Talarico and Gina Hinojosa won the Senate and governor’s races, respectively, the first time Democrats have won statewide office in Texas in 32 years.
“The idea that Texas is a ruby red state, you can’t say that anymore,” Martin said. “Texas is a purple-to-leaning-blue state, and this will have huge implications as we move into ’28 and beyond.”
Texas Democrats have long hoped to turn the state blue. In recent years, some candidates raised the party’s hopes but came up short. In 2018, Democratic Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke came close to unseating GOP Sen. Ted Cruz but lost by less than 3 percentage points.
Georgia Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock urged his party to invest in Southern races, saying the region is key to building a sustainable majority for the future.
Speaking about the razor-thin Senate race in Mississippi, Warnock told CNN’s Erin Burnett: “I have been telling my party now for a long time that it needs to invest in the South. The road to a sustainable Democratic majority in the Congress goes right through the South.”
Warnock recalled how, when he asked donors more than a year ago, “have you thought about Mississippi?”, they echoed back in disbelief: “Mississippi?”
He added, “We’re seeing that what we need to do is invest long term.”
“But regardless of the outcome in Mississippi, we need to be in Mississippi today investing in the long term. It is a blue state that just needs to be organized,” he said.
Asked whether Georgia and Texas are now effectively blue following resounding victories across both states, Warnock said: “These races are hard fought, and every cycle is different.”
“They are won every November. And so, I’ll tell you (as) somebody who will be up (for reelection) soon. I’m not taking anything for granted,” he added. “You have to earn people’s votes.”
It was a big night for Democrats: A historic blue wave swept the party into power in both chambers of Congress and in statehouses across the country.
Front pages captured the moment for Americans waking up this morning. Here’s a look at how some newspapers covered Election Day and the results:
House Speaker Mike Johnson is holding an all-staff call this morning after his party endured deep losses Tuesday night, as Republicans await his decision on whether to run for House minority leader, according to two sources.
If Johnson steps aside, as many on Capitol Hill expect, attention will shift to a possible matchup between House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan for the GOP leader spot. Other candidates could emerge.
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer is expected to run for the No. 2 position.
The secret-ballot leadership elections are expected next week.
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