• Democrats have regained control of both the House and US Senate, with just Alaska and Mississippi to call winners
• A Democratic majority will give the party veto power over Donald Trump’s judicial and administration nominees and power to investigate the US president
• Democrats flip key red states including Ohio and Kansas, which last elected a Democrat almost a century ago
• James Talarico has become the first Democrat to win a Senate seat in Texas for decades
• Democrat Abdul El-Sayed becomes first Muslim US Senator following win in Michigan
• Donald Trump has said he will accept the results and blames Republican losses on the fact he was “not on the ballot”

Key Reads

• What are the US midterms and what do they mean for Donald Trump?
• What can Democrats do now they have won Congress?
• Keith Duggan: ‘Today begins the great American comeback … the people have had enough of extremism’
• In pictures: Democrats win control of House and Senate in 2026 US midterms
• Global Briefing: Democrats’ sweeping victory reshapes electoral map for 2028 presidential election

Democrats have swept key US midterm races, flipping long-held Republican seats and securing a majority in Congress as voters rebuked Donald Trump’s policies at the ballot box.

Here are the key takeaways from the results.

Democrats won control of the US Senate by taking states in traditional Republican strongholds in a string of victories that brings new blood to Washington.

The next generation of Democratic leaders – which many see as a field for potential presidential candidates – includes a pastor of a Methodist megachurch, a Paralympic gold medallist, a logger, a paediatrician, a state health official and a former sixth-grade teacher.

After years in which the party was dominated by older grandees such as former president Joe Biden and senator Bernie Sanders, the new intake brings a younger generation into view.

Seven new senators to watch are Abdul El-Sayed (Michigan); James Talarico (Texas); Annie Andrews (South Carolina); Adam Hamilton (Kansas); Roy Cooper (North Carolina); Josh Turek (Iowa) and Troy Jackson (Maine).

Read the full article here.

Democrats are celebrating a number of firsts after sweeping victories across the United States.

Abdul El-Sayed won the Senate race in Michigan, defeating former Republican congressman Mike Rogers to become the US’s first Muslim senator.

Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former mayor of Atlanta, won the governor’s race in Georgia, becoming the first black governor and first woman to be elected to the state’s highest office. Bottoms is also the first Democrat-elected governor in Georgia in more than 25 years.

Nevada elected Democrat Aaron Ford as its next governor, making him the first black person to hold the office in the state’s history.

Gina Hinojosa made history to become Texas’s first Latina governor, and the first Democrat to occupy the governor’s mansion since 1990. She bet the Republican incumbent Greg Abbott.

Representative Chris Pappas, Democrat of New Hampshire, will be the Senate’s first openly gay male senator with his victory over Republican John E. Sununu.

After winning the US Senate race in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed will become the country’s first Muslim senator.

In his victory speech, El-Sayed told a jubilant crowd: “Michigan, we did it … I am so proud and honoured to stand here as your senator-elect from the great state of Michigan.

“Up until right about now, you might have noticed I always say inshallah, or God willing, whenever the outcome of this race was mentioned. But today, tonight, we can turn that inshallah into an alhamdulillah (praise be to God).”

El-Sayed (42), a former public health official, focused on ⁠lowering costs for working families and reducing corporate influence in politics. ​His platform included Medicare for All, a government-funded universal healthcare programme ​championed by progressives in his party.

Meanwhile, the bloody nose American voters delivered to Donald Trump may provoke a volatile response from the White House abroad, Europe Correspondent Jack Power writes.

Officials who cover trade policy in the European Commission had been privately cautioning for weeks that big Republican losses could leave the US president bruised and angling for a fight elsewhere. That might manifest itself in Trump’s war in Iran, impact on already waning US support for Ukraine or see the US president wade into a fresh row with the European Union (EU).

After fears Trump’s tariffs would drag the EU into a destabilising trade war during his first year in office, things had been quiet on that front this year. The political heat had been taken out of the tariff question by the Europeans agreeing to a 15 per cent tariff rate on goods sold into the US.

Back-to-back summits in Dublin next week, organised as part of Ireland’s EU presidency, will be a good opportunity for European leaders to compare notes on how they think these midterm results might influence transatlantic relations for the second half of Trump’s presidency.