Democrats seized control of the U.S. Senate with an early victory in North Carolina as Republican losses mounted nationwide.
Roy Cooper, 68, the former Democratic governor of North Carolina, defeated Michael Whatley, former chairman of the Republican National Committee, in a race that signaled the beginning of a punishing night for the GOP. Cooper addressed supporters shortly after the result was called, framing his win as a rejection of economic inequality and Washington dysfunction.
“You have made your voices heard and they were loud,” Cooper said. “For too many people in North Carolina, the middle class was feeling like a distant dream.”
He continued, “The richest Americans were getting unimaginable wealth at our expense.” Cooper then directly attacked the administration, calling out the “chaos and corruption” in Washington before declaring, “Today you said this has to stop.”
The North Carolina flip was part of a broader pattern that left Republicans reeling. In Georgia, Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff, 39, won re-election in a state that has become a focal point of national politics. Ossoff, who has been mentioned as a potential 2028 presidential candidate, delivered a sweeping condemnation of the president in his victory speech.
“In sweeping and decisive victories the American people have rebuked the depravity, corruption, and incompetence of the failed lame duck president Donald J Trump,” Ossoff told supporters. He added, “And if, at times these last two years, amidst the ceaseless onslaught of brutality and indecency, you doubted whether our republic would survive, let tonight’s results give you courage that the first light of dawn is on the horizon.”
Democrats also held New Hampshire, a critical piece of their path to a Senate majority. Chris Pappas, who moved from the U.S. House of Representatives to the Senate race, defeated Republican challenger John Sununu. Pappas emphasized generational change in his victory remarks.
“This has been a long campaign against the backdrop of chaos, corruption and costs coming out of Washington,” Pappas said. He told supporters, “New Hampshire showed up today, you spoke up today, you said in a resounding voice that New Hampshire needs a course correction. Washington needs a new generation at the table to fix things.”
The Republican Party entered the night controlling both chambers of Congress. Democrats needed a net gain of four Senate seats and three House seats to win majorities in the 100-member Senate and 435-member House, respectively. Projections, Democrats were on track to capture the House as well.
President Donald Trump, 79, struck a defiant tone when speaking to reporters on Tuesday. “I think the results are going to be better than you think,” he said. Trump later suggested he could have negotiated with the incoming Democratic majority and claimed he would have secured a “landslide” victory if his name had been on the ballot.
The private assessments from within his party told a starkly different story. One Republican source in Texas said he was expecting a “bloodbath” for his party. Another Republican source told journalist Mark Halperin it was “going to be a massacre.” That same source added, “It’s worse than anyone thought. The assumptions on the percentage of Republicans that would vote Republican was wrong.”
Democratic strategist Matt McDermott offered an even more dramatic characterization of the results. “It’s not a wave. It’s not a tsunami,” he said. “It’s an electoral deluge of biblical proportions not seen since the 1974 Watergate midterm wipeout.”
The election took place with Trump in the final two years of his presidency, a period when the party controlling the White House historically faces headwinds. Republicans had held unified control of Congress since the beginning of his term, enabling the passage of his legislative agenda.
The results also produced historic outcomes at the state level. Republican Byron Donalds became Florida’s first Black governor, while Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms was elected Georgia’s first Black woman governor.
Polls opened Tuesday with millions of voters casting ballots that would determine the balance of power for the remainder of Trump’s presidency.
Trump is scheduled to face the new Democratic congressional leadership in January when the 120th Congress convenes in Washington.