Democrats win the Senate with at least 54 seats, flipping seven, including Texas, Kansas and South Carolina; Alaska and Mississippi still uncounted
CBS's Senate live page has every call, Schumer's and Thune's reactions and the state of the two uncalled races; Reason puts the night next to 2006.
Democrats will control the Senate in January, CBS News and NBC News project, after the November 3 midterms. As of Thursday, November 5, the party had secured at least 54 seats. NBC lists seven flips: Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, Maine, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas. Democrats also held Georgia, New Hampshire and Michigan, where Abdul El-Sayed beat former Rep. Mike Rogers and, CBS notes, becomes the first Muslim senator.
Among the upsets: James Talarico beat Attorney General Ken Paxton in Texas, the first Democrat Texas has sent to the Senate since 1988 (NBC); Elon Musk spent more than $150 million to boost Paxton, CBS reports. Pastor Adam Hamilton ousted Sen. Roger Marshall in Kansas, Troy Jackson defeated Sen. Susan Collins in Maine, and Annie Andrews beat Darline Graham in South Carolina. Republicans held Nebraska (Sen. Pete Ricketts over independent Dan Osborn), Montana and Florida.
The Alaska and Mississippi races were uncalled at the cutoff. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer vowed to "entangle" President Trump "in legislative razor wire" when he defies the law; Majority Leader John Thune said Republicans "will not stand idly by" as Democrats try to unwind their work. Trump told reporters he would "probably" get along with Democrats "unless they want to be destructive, but I have the power of the veto."
Across the spectrum 3
Democrat
Chuck Schumer, Senate Democratic leader: Schumer called the results a "generational remake of the Senate map" and said that "whenever Trump defies the will of the American people or the law, we will launch investigations, take him to court, and entangle him in legislative razor wire," adding that Americans are calling for "accountability, not accommodation."
CBS News ↗Libertarian
Eric Boehm, Reason: Boehm compares the night to 2006, when an unpopular second-term Republican president with a Middle East war lost both chambers, and argues that "the sooner the Republican Party jettisons an unpopular president and his failed policies, the sooner it will recover."
Reason ↗Republican
John Thune, Senate Republican leader: In a post on X quoted by CBS, Thune wrote that "Senate Republicans will not stand idly by as the far-left, socialist wing of the Democrat Party attempts to unwind everything we've done," and that "we still have President Trump in the White House, and we'll work with him to stop the worst impulses of Democrat extremism."
CBS News ↗-
Six-year itch
After exploring 2026 Senate midterm election results as Democrats win control, Schumer vows "legislative razor wire" against Trump, the pattern political scientists have a name for is the Six-year itch.
Political scientists use the term for the pattern in a president's sixth year in office, when the president's party usually loses seats in that year's midterm election.
Wikipedia · Wade · 5 min
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2006 United States elections
After exploring Trump enters his George W. Bush era as Democrats sweep House and Senate, the precedent Reason keeps pointing to is the 2006 United States elections.
Held in the middle of George W. Bush's second term, the 2006 elections swept Democrats into majorities in both chambers of Congress, ending more than a decade of Republican rule.
Wikipedia · Swim · 30 min
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