5 things to know after election night: From the Politics Desk

Welcome to a special post-election edition of the From the Politics Desk newsletter! Dive in below for the latest storylines around the House, Senate and state-level results.

— Adam Wollner

The dust is continuing to settle following a momentous midterm election, with Democrats securing stunning victories up and down the ballot after voters delivered a stark rebuke to President Donald Trump and his party.

Here is the latest on where things stand.

Redistricting fell flat: Republicans redrew more than a dozen congressional districts in states such as Texas, Florida, Ohio and North Carolina ahead of the midterms in an aggressive attempt to shore up their narrow majority in Washington.

However, Democrats may actually come out ahead in the 2026 redistricting war, or fight it to a draw, in part with massive upsets in some of these same states after overpowering the GOP maps, Ben Kamisar reports.

Democrats will hold at least 11 of the 15 seats redrawn by Republicans before the election to benefit their party, with more gains possible depending on how the final votes fall. But that’s not all: They also picked up a seat in a Utah district that was redrawn by a court to their benefit, and they are poised to net as many as five seats in California, where Democrats did a redraw of their own.

Republicans, meanwhile, lost Texas’ 15th District after making it more vulnerable as part of an ill-fated attempt to topple Democratic incumbents in South Texas. And they’re at risk of losing up to two more seats Republican lawmakers similarly watered down in other states.

Democrats have so far gained a net of flipped 34 seats, giving them 242 seats to Republicans’ 150, with 43 races uncalled.

A reordering in the House: Democrats are on the cusp of elevating Hakeem Jeffries to become the first Black speaker of the House. Meanwhile, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told his staff this morning he will not stay on as Republican leader in the new Congress.

Democrats will face a tricky challenge when they take control of both chambers of Congress in January: carrying out aggressive an oversight of Trump and his administration while needing his signature to advance just about any legislative goal, Scott Wong and Sahil Kapur write.

Democrats could still expand their Senate majority: As things currently stand, Democrats flipped seven Senate seats, bringing their total to 54 compared to 44 for the Republicans. Two Senate races remain uncalled: Alaska and Mississippi.

In Alaska, Democrat Mary Pelotola has 48.2% support, while Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan has 47.9% with three-fourths of the expected vote in. But if no candidate eclipses a majority, the race will go to a ranked choice tabulation. And that could take weeks to resolve, as mail ballots that were postmarked by Election Day can be counted up to 15 days later.

And in Mississippi, GOP Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith and Democrat Scot Colom are separated by less than 65 votes, with more than 95% of the vote tallied. According to Bridget Bowman, there is no mechanism for an election to undergo a recount under Mississippi state law, and both parties are signaling that they’re gearing up for a legal battle.

Democratic gains extended to state level: In addition to flipping the House and the Senate, Democrats clinched a majority of governorships for the first time in 16 years, Adam Edelman notes.

In five states, Democrats also secured a trifecta — winning control of the governorship and both chambers of the legislature — giving the party a level of power it hasn’t held in some of those places in years.

And Democrats swept the secretary of state races that were on the ballot in key presidential battlegrounds, per Jane C. Timm, while flipping the office in two red-leaning states.

GOP blame game: It didn’t take long for the finger-pointing among Republicans to begin after polls closed last night. Some wondered whether the party would finally break from Trump, who told voters to “pretend” he was on the ballot in the midterms, Matt Dixon, Garrett Haake and Allan Smith report.

Vice President JD Vance said on X that the “real reason” for the GOP’s widespread losses was anger over Iran war.

Meanwhile, in his first post-election public appearance, Trump boasted about the White House ballroom under construction and largely skirted talk about his party’s performance, Rebecca Shabad writes.

That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner.

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