Red states and blue states
The gist
Democrats won both the House and Senate by wide margins and flipped seats in historically red states.
The results reshape governorships and who controls state-level policy divides.
How it unfolded
- Nov 3, 2026Democrats won both the House and the Senate by wide margins in Tuesday's midterm elections.
- Nov 4, 2026Democrats flipped seats held by Republicans for decades, turning historically red states like Texas blue; Kansas elected its first Democratic senator in nearly a century and South Carolina its first in nearly 30 years.
- Nov 4, 2026Keisha Lance Bottoms became the first Black woman elected governor in the nation in Georgia, and Deb Haaland of Minnesota became the first Native American woman governor; three Black women will serve in the Senate together for the first time.