US midterms 2026: early results and what is still undecided
Democrats have flipped a Senate seat in North Carolina and held Georgia, but control of both chambers of Congress is still undecided. Here is what has been called, what has not, and what to watch next.
Updated
Early on Wednesday Pakistan time, US networks had called Senate wins for Democrats in Georgia, New Hampshire and North Carolina, the last a seat taken from Republicans.
Control of Congress for the next two years, and so how much of President Trump's agenda can pass, is still being decided in a handful of close races.
Counting continues in Senate races including Texas, Maine, Ohio, Michigan, Alaska and Iowa, and in dozens of competitive House districts, some of which may take days.
Updated November 4, 06:50 Pakistan time: this explainer, first published before polls opened, now includes the first race calls and exit poll findings. Results are still coming in, so the figures below describe the count at about 8:30 p.m. Eastern time on election night. The section on the California ballot dispute has been removed.
Democrats have won the first big Senate contests of the US midterm elections, holding Georgia and New Hampshire and taking North Carolina from the Republicans. But neither party has yet secured control of the House of Representatives or the Senate, and several of the closest races are still being counted.
What happened
Americans voted on Tuesday, November 3, for all 435 House seats, 35 of the 100 Senate seats and governors in 36 states. Before the vote, Republicans held narrow majorities in both chambers. According to Reuters, they had 218 House seats to the Democrats' 214, plus one independent who sides with them, and 53 Senate seats to 47. More than 57 million people had voted early.
The first major call came in Georgia. The Associated Press declared that Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff had won a second term, defeating Republican Congressman Mike Collins, Al Jazeera reported. Ossoff led by a wide margin in early counts. Georgia matters symbolically: Mr Trump narrowly won the state in the 2024 presidential election.
Democrats then picked up their first Republican-held seat. CBS News projected that former North Carolina governor Roy Cooper had beaten Republican Michael Whatley, a former Republican National Committee chairman backed by Mr Trump. The seat was held by Republican Senator Thom Tillis, who did not run again. CBS also projected that Democrat Chris Pappas had defeated Republican John Sununu in New Hampshire, keeping the seat in Democratic hands.
Other calls so far have gone as expected in safe seats. Democrats Mark Warner (Virginia), Cory Booker (New Jersey), Chris Coons (Delaware), Ed Markey (Massachusetts) and Jack Reed (Rhode Island) were projected to win, along with Juliana Stratton in an open Illinois seat. In governor races, Forbes reported that Democratic incumbents Wes Moore in Maryland, Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania and JB Pritzker in Illinois were re-elected.
In the House, the count is at a much earlier stage. One early result, reported by the Associated Press, was a win for Democrat Debbie Wasserman Schultz in Florida, who changed districts after Republicans redrew the state's congressional map.
What voters said
Exit polls, which survey people after they vote, point to economic worries above all. According to figures gathered by Forbes, CNN's exit poll found about 90% of voters said the cost of living was a crucial or major factor, and about 60% disapproved of Mr Trump's job performance. The AP's own voter survey found about 80% said inflation had caused them severe or moderate financial hardship, and about 60% said the US made the wrong decision in attacking Iran.
Exit polls are early snapshots and can shift as more data comes in. They also do not decide anything: only the counted votes do.
What each side is saying
Both parties spent the final days arguing about prices. In a Fox News interview cited by the AP, Mr Trump said "inflation is solved" and predicted the results would be better than people expected. Democrats argued the opposite. Suzan DelBene, who leads the Democrats' House campaign committee, told the AP that "the American people are angry. They want change."
Republicans focused on turnout. "If we turn out our voters, we win," said Joe Gruters, chairman of the Republican National Committee, according to the AP. Before the vote, Reuters reported that Republicans had campaigned on tax cuts, defence spending and changes to safety net programmes, while Democrats had focused on healthcare, housing, groceries and energy costs.
Why it matters
The Senate math is now the key question. Democrats need a net gain of four seats to take control, as both CBS and the AP note. North Carolina gives them one. That leaves the outcome resting on a small group of uncalled races.
Control of the Senate decides who confirms judges, cabinet members and senior officials. Control of the House decides which bills reach a vote and who runs its committees, including those that investigate the government. If Democrats win the House, Reuters notes, their leader Hakeem Jeffries would be expected to become speaker and would be the first Black American in the role. If Republicans hold it, Speaker Mike Johnson or another Republican would likely stay in charge.
The House count is still too early to read. Both CBS and the AP say Democrats need a net gain of three seats there. (An earlier version of this article said four, based on Reuters' count of current seats; the difference comes from how two vacant seats are counted.) Before the vote, the Cook Political Report estimated that Democrats could gain as many as 25 seats, Forbes reported, while rating 23 races as toss-ups. Forecasts are not results, and many close districts will not be called tonight.
The outcome also matters outside the US. Midterms are widely read as a verdict on a president's first two years, and Congress has to approve federal spending, including foreign aid and military budgets.
What's next
The Senate races still uncalled include Texas, where Republican Ken Paxton faces Democrat James Talarico; Maine, where Republican Senator Susan Collins is seeking re-election; and Ohio, Michigan, Alaska, Iowa and Kansas, according to CBS and the AP. Polls in western states and Alaska close later in the night, and Alaska uses ranked-choice voting, which can add extra rounds of counting if no candidate wins more than half of first choices.
House control may take longer. Many competitive districts are in states that take days to count mail ballots. A party needs 218 seats for a majority, and neither has reached that number yet.
The governor races in Texas, Florida, Iowa and Ohio are also still to be decided. The AP says Democrats hope to win a majority of statehouses for the first time in two decades.
The next concrete things to watch are the calls in Texas, Maine and Ohio, which will show whether Democrats have a realistic route to four Senate gains, and the first House seats to change hands, which will indicate whether either party is on course for 218.