Democrats won control of the Senate in the US midterm elections Tuesday, with initial results showing the party securing shock victories in Texas, Ohio, North and South Carolina, Kansas and Iowa.
Issued on: 04/11/2026 - 04:52Modified: 04/11/2026 - 05:48
The Democratic Party won the Senate in Tuesday's midterm elections, picking up seats in North and South Carolina as well as Texas, Iowa, Ohio and Kansas.
While polling suggested the Democrats would wrest the House of Representatives away from President Donald Trump's Republican Party in the US midterm elections, the struggle for the Senate was expected to be a close one.
Republicans held a 53-47 Senate majority going into Tuesday’s elections, with Democrats needing a net gain of four seats to take control.
Follow live for the latest results in the battle for the US Senate.
Democrats flip North Carolina
Democrat Roy Cooper handily won North Carolina’s US Senate race, defeating Trump-backed Republican Michael Whatley and giving Democrats a crucial pickup in their battle for Senate control.
Cooper, a well-known former two-term governor, defeated Trump's hand-picked candidate after campaigning on the high cost of food and energy as the president's approval ratings fell.
“Tonight, we showed the country that when everyday people come together, we can make change,” Cooper told a crowd of energetic supporters in Raleigh, pledging to get straight to work in Washington on affordability, which he centred in his campaign.
Read moreLive results of the 2026 US midterm elections
Cooper, 69, will replace Republican Senator Thom Tillis, who announced his retirement after breaking with Trump over Medicaid cuts in the president’s signature tax and spending law.
With statewide name recognition, Cooper built a significant polling lead, drawing strong support from independent voters. Whatley, a former Republican National Committee chair who has never held elective office, campaigned alongside Trump in North Carolina.
Shock upset in South Carolina
Democrats picked up another Senate seat when pediatrician Annie Andrews narrowly defeated Darline Graham, who was seeking to permanently fill her late brother Lindsey Graham's shoes, media projections showed. She is the first Democrat to win a Senate seat in South Carolina since 1998
Andrews stunned Darline Graham, who temporarily filled the seat after her brother's death in July but turned out not to be as strong a candidate as her party – or Trump – had hoped.
NBC News and CNN called the race in Andrews's favour.
Graham was appointed to the Senate by South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster after Trump recommended her for the role.
The president described the appointment as a "fabulous tribute" to her late brother, a prominent foreign-policy hawk and close Trump ally.
Talarico wins Texas in historic victory
Democrat James Talarico, a former schoolteacher and Presbyterian seminarian who campaigned on a "politics of love", won the US Senate race in Texas, flipping yet another seat for his party in a huge blow to Republicans.
Talarico defeated the state's attorney general Ken Paxton, a close ally of Trump who survived impeachment and years of scandal, NBC News and CBS News projected.
He becomes the first Democrat to win statewide office in Texas since 1994.
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The result was a major setback for Trump, who threw his weight behind Paxton and made the state a campaign priority.
The result also marks a defeat for tech billionaire Elon Musk, who became one of Talarico's most vocal opponents in the final weeks of the campaign.
The world's richest man, who has moved the headquarters of Tesla, SpaceX and X to Texas, spent more than $200 million supporting Paxton, according to federal filings.
Ohio narrowly falls to the Democrats
Democrat Sherrod Brown defeated Republican Jon Husted in a tight race in the Midwestern state of Ohio, notching another flip for his party.
The special election was called to fill the seat for the last two years of what had been Vice President JD Vance's term, after Husted served in 2025-26. Brown is a former senator himself.
CNN and NBC News called the race in Brown's favour.
Democrats pick up seat in Kansas for the first time since 1932
Democrats picked up another Senate seat when Adam Hamilton defeated Republican incumbent Roger Marshall in the central state of Kansas, media projections showed.
Hamilton, a Methodist minister, is the first Democrat to win a US Senate seat for Kansas since 1932, CNN and NBC News projected.
Reliably red Iowa turns blue
Josh Turek won Iowa’s rare open Senate race, flipping a Republican-held seat and becoming the first Democrat since former president Barack Obama to win a federal race in the state.
Turek defeated Republican Ashley Hinson to succeed retiring two-term Republican Sen. Joni Ernst in a race that drew hundreds of millions of dollars in ad spending.
While thought to be a reliable red state in recent cycles, Iowa reemerged as a political battleground this year amid high fuel prices, a weak agricultural economy and a war overseas.
The retirements of Ernst and Republican Governor Kim Reynolds made for the first cycle without incumbents seeking the top-of-the-ticket seats since 1968, breathing new life into Democrats’ efforts to reverse years of electoral failure in the state.
Ossoff wins re-election in Georgia
Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff was re-elected to a second term, holding a key seat for Democrats by defeating Republican Mike Collins in a race that catapulted the Senate’s youngest member to the forefront of his party’s national stars as it looks to stymie Trump in his final White House years.
Ossoff, 39, began the cycle as a top Republican target and the only Senate Democrat running for re-election in a state Trump carried in 2024. But from the start, the senator ran as an aggressive Trump critic, with blistering critiques of “a failed president” that became a staple of voters’ social media feeds across the country.
He became a fundraising juggernaut, pulling in more than $100 million and sparking speculation about a potential 2028 presidential bid to succeed the man he said has used the Oval Office to enrich himself and damage the US political and economic system.
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Ossoff addressed supporters Tuesday night and reiterated his key talking points that the Trump administration is corrupt and that everyday Americans were falling behind.
“The American people have rebuked the depravity, corruption and incompetence of the failed lame duck president Donald J. Trump," told his supporters Tuesday night.
“Together, we’ve affirmed that our task is not just to contain one president’s wickedness, but to heal the brokenness beneath," he added.
(FRANCE 24 with Reuters, AFP and AP)
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