The Democrats have so far won 228 seats, already comfortably past the 218 required for a majority, and have flipped 25 of those from the Republicans.
Last night, Trump acknowledged the Democrats’ wins, telling the New York Times,, external “I am absolutely willing to accept those results."
He also posted on Truth Social , externalthat if he was on the ballot, "We would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!"
Democrats seized control of the House and Senate in commanding fashion during Tuesday’s midterm elections, flipping seven Senate seats and making history in multiple races in a widespread rebuke of the Trump administration and Republican candidates.
Political analysts late Tuesday and early Wednesday largely attributed the victories by Democrats to voter dissatisfaction over the Trump-initiated U.S. war with Iran, rising gas prices and broader economic anxieties, including the persistent affordability crisis.
It’s “a full-blown repudiation of [Donald] Trump and GOP policies,” said Costas Panagopoulos, a distinguished professor of political science at Northeastern University.
Voters also expressed frustration with the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement and what many of them described as the president’s failure to deliver on promises to lower prices and improve the economy.
Projected Democratic victories included Keisha Lance Bottoms’ capture of the Georgia governor’s office, making her the nation’s first Black woman governor; Chris Pappas’ victory in New Hampshire’s Senate race, making him the first openly gay man elected to the U.S. Senate; and Hakeem Jeffries’ reelection to the House, positioning him to become the first Black speaker if Democrats elect him to the post.
In Texas, Democrat Gina Hinojosa prevailed over Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, becoming the state’s first Latina governor and the first Democrat to hold the office since Ann Richards left in 1995.
On the Republican side, Rep. Byron Donalds won Florida’s gubernatorial race, becoming the state’s first Black governor.
“This is a change election,” Jeffries said. “And we understand as House Democrats we need to deliver dramatic change. Things are broken.”
Other high-profile races included Democrat Roy Cooper flipping a Republican-held Senate seat in North Carolina by defeating Republican challenger Michael Whatley, according to the Associated Press.
Democrat Annie Andrews defeated Republican Darline Graham, Lindsey Graham’s sister, in South Carolina. In the Lone Star State, U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico became the first Democrat to win a statewide office in 32 years by defeating Republican Ken Paxton, a Trump pick.
In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed defeated Republican Mike Rogers to win the state’s open U.S. Senate seat, becoming the first Muslim elected to the Senate. In Maine, Democrat Troy Jackson ousted longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins, ending her nearly 30-year Senate tenure and making him the first Democrat elected to represent Maine in the Senate since 1995.
The results so far point to a major night for Democrats, with victories in several key races and historic firsts for the party.
Whether those wins amount to an endorsement of a broader Democratic policy agenda is a more complicated question, said Martha Johnson, an associate professor of political science at Northeastern University.
She said the Democratic victories also suggest “problems with candidate quality on the Republican side,” which “is itself a reflection of Trump and his influence” over the primaries.
“Democrats are benefiting from Americans’ dissatisfaction with inflation, tariffs and the war with Iran, as well as frustrations with how Trump is governing,” Johnson said.
Johnson said the Democrats still need to articulate how they will generate improvements for people across the country,
“I do not think we can see this as a clear victory for the Democratic Party’s policy agenda or priorities, which are themselves hard to pin down given the wide variety of candidates and messages in the party,” she said.
Trump remained adamant that Republicans faced such a defeat because he wasn’t on the ballot.
“If I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!,” he wrote Tuesday evening on his social media platform, Truth Social, despite the fact that during the campaign, the U.S. president had encouraged supporters to “vote like I’m on the ballot.”
Election law experts, voting rights advocates, and Democrats were prepared for the White House to potentially contest the results of the election.
Trump spent much of the year warning about voter fraud, external - which experts say is rare - and had previously claimed the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden, was rigged against him.
The Justice Department launched unprecedented attempts to intervene in state election processes, and touted illegal non-citizen voting as a rampant issue despite evidence that this was rare.
But with the midterm results overwhelmingly in the Democrats' favour, that clamour from the administration has gone conspicuously quiet.
Despite a few technical hiccups in a handful of jurisdictions, so far it appears the election went very smoothly. That makes it very politically difficult to dispute the results.
James Talarico, the Democrat who has flipped a crucial Texas Senate seat from Republicans, says one of his biggest priorities in Congress will be to "get big money out of our politics"
"Last night the people of Texas delivered a crystal clear message to the world's first trillionaire," he tells CBS, referencing Elon Musk, who poured more than $47m (£35m) into the campaign of Talarico's opponent, Republican Ken Paxton. "Texas is not for sale."
"We're all tired of these billionaires who own the algorithms, who own so many of the news networks, who own the politicians fighting on our screens," he adds.
Now that Democrats have won a majority in the House of Representatives, Democrat Hakeem Jeffries, formerly the House Minority Leader, is poised to become the first black Speaker of the House.
Last night's blue wave was "an incredible victory for the American people all across the country, and a stunning rebuke [of] MAGA extremism", Jeffries tells MS Now's Joe Scarborough.
Responding to a question on what comes next for his party, Jeffries says "we won on affordability, and now it's our job to govern on affordability".
Turning to Congress, Scarborough asks about Trump's priorities for lawmakers.
Jeffries says the president needs to end the war in Iran, before the new Congress even takes power in January.
"That was clearly one of the messages that the American people decisively sent last evening," he says.
Once again, Iran has played a significant role in American elections.
On this very day 47 years ago Iranian students seized the US Embassy in Tehran, taking American diplomats hostage. The 444-day crisis contributed to Jimmy Carter’s defeat by Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election.
Now, the war with Iran, along with soaring energy prices and the rising cost of living, has led to major Republican losses in the midterms and handed Democrats control of both chambers of Congress.
Analysts close to the Iranian regime, appearing on state television, have openly discussed prolonging negotiations with Washington and maintaining pressure on oil supplies, in the hope that the economic fallout would weaken President Trump politically and undermine Republican prospects in the elections.
Nearly a half-century ago, Iran released its American hostages just minutes after Reagan was sworn into office, January 20, 1981.
Tehran may now hope that a Democratic-controlled Congress will limit Trump’s ability to launch another major military offensive against Iran.
But while Congress can restrict funding and challenge presidential decisions, Trump, as the US commander in chief, still retains considerable authority over military operations and foreign policy.