Democrats win Senate majority with victories across Republican strongholds

Democrats have won control of the U.S. Senate in the 2026 midterm elections, flipping Republican-held seats in Texas, Kansas and South Carolina and ending the Republican majority established two years ago. CBS News and the Associated Press projected the change in control late Tuesday, with several races still being counted.

The party needed a net gain of four seats in the 100-member chamber. Democrats have secured at least 51 seats, Al Jazeera reported, though the final size of their majority remains uncertain. Republicans entered the election with 53 seats; Democrats held 45, alongside two independents who caucus with them.

“Wow! Wow! Now, against all odds, we Democrats have won the Senate,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said in Washington. “We have five words for the American people: relief is on the way.”

The victories stretched well beyond the seats Democrats initially targeted. In South Carolina, pediatrician Annie Andrews defeated Darline Graham for the seat previously held by Graham’s late brother, longtime Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham. No Democrat had won a Senate seat in the state since 1998. In Texas, state legislator James Talarico defeated Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, ending a Democratic drought in Senate races there dating to 1988. The Associated Press reported that Talarico won by a double-digit margin, according to The Guardian.

Kansas elected Adam Hamilton, a megachurch pastor, over Republican Sen. Roger Marshall. It is the state’s first Democratic Senate victory since 1932. “How did this happen? How did a Democrat win in Kansas, a deeply red state, for the first time in nearly a century,” Hamilton asked in his victory speech. He said voters across party lines were signaling that “what’s happening in Washington is not OK.”

Democrats also won Republican-held seats in North Carolina, where former Gov. Roy Cooper beat Michael Whatley, and Ohio, where former Sen. Sherrod Brown defeated incumbent Jon Husted. In Iowa, Democrat Josh Turek defeated Republican Ashley Hinson, Talking Points Memo reported. Democrats defended seats in Georgia and New Hampshire; Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff won reelection, while Virginia Sen. Mark Warner secured a fourth term.

Results remained outstanding in several states. Counting continued in Minnesota and Michigan, where Democrats sought to retain seats, and in Maine and Alaska, where they hoped to defeat Republican incumbents. The BBC reported that Mississippi was also close, according to CBS News.

CBS News projected that Democrats would win the House of Representatives as well, putting the party on course to control both chambers of Congress next year. Republicans won the Senate, House and presidency in 2024. A Democratic Senate majority gives the party control over which measures reach a floor vote and the ability to block President Donald Trump’s cabinet and judicial nominees.

Thirty-five Senate seats were on the ballot this year: 33 in regular elections and two in special elections in Ohio and Florida. According to CBS News, the war with Iran and high gas and diesel prices helped make more Republican-held seats competitive in the final months of the campaign.