Democrats Win Senate, Completing Sweep Of Congress

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) - Democrats won control of the US Senate, NBC News and CBS News projected early Wednesday, completing a sweep of Congress in midterm elections that voters used to deliver a verdict on President Donald Trump’s second term. NBC counted 51 Democratic seats to 40 Republican seats when it called control, enough for a majority on its own, after Democrats flipped six Republican-held seats. Republicans held the Senate 53-47 before the vote, and Democrats needed a net gain of four.

The flips came in states Trump won by wide margins in 2024. Democrats took Texas, where James Talarico defeated Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, and Kansas, where Adam Hamilton defeated Sen. Roger Marshall and became the first Democrat to win a Senate race there since 1932, according to the Associated Press. They also took Ohio, where Sherrod Brown unseated Sen. Jon Husted, North Carolina, where Roy Cooper won, South Carolina, where Annie Andrews defeated Sen. Darline Graham, and Iowa, where Josh Turek won the open seat of retiring Sen. Joni Ernst. Democrats also held Georgia, where Sen. Jon Ossoff won, and New Hampshire, where Chris Pappas won.

In Michigan, Decision Desk HQ projected that Democrat Abdul El-Sayed defeated Republican Mike Rogers, which would make El-Sayed the first Muslim elected to the US Senate. He led 51.7 percent to 46.3 percent in NBC’s count, which showed Rogers needing about 60 percent of the remaining vote, and he declared victory with two-thirds of results counted. “Michigan, we did it,” he said, according to The Detroit News. According to the text provided to Kurdistan 24, he said that the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC spent $42 million against him but that he and his supporters defeated it, and that they do not want their money used to finance apartheid, genocide or wars. Michigan, which Trump won in 2024, was the most expensive Senate race in the state’s history, with more than $243 million spent.

Background: Democrats also won the House, NBC projected, with an estimate of about 255 seats to Republicans’ 180. According to the figures provided to Kurdistan 24, Democrats had been called to win 221 House seats to Republicans’ 128 as counting continued. Alaska and Maine were still undecided when this was written. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said on Tuesday morning that he expected a new Democratic majority, calling his mood “nauseously optimistic,” and he is expected to become majority leader.

Trump has not been reported to have responded to the Senate result in particular. He told Fox News that Democrats “did a good job” and told CBS he would welcome the nickname “Mr. Veto,” saying he would use his “ultimate power” against Democratic legislation. Overriding a veto requires two-thirds of both chambers, which Democrats do not have on their own. On Truth Social, he wrote “I wasn’t on the Ballot,” saying he would have won in a landslide if he had been.

The vote followed months of frustration over prices that rose after the war with Iran began on February 28, with gas climbing to about $4.48 a gallon by May, according to NPR and Marist.