Generally speaking, Democrats overperformed on election night, sweeping to power in what observers are calling a “blue tsunami.”
While millions of ballots remain to be counted, the Democrats, as of 7 a.m. CT, had wrapped up 228 House seats, flipping 25 seats from red to blue. Republicans have yet to flip a Democratic seat and only have 138 House seats. That’s bound to change somewhat, but the Democrats only need 218 seats for a House majority.
A reasonable estimate this morning is that well over 90% of votes nationally have probably been cast and reported, but the remaining ballots are concentrated in enough close districts that dozens of House races are still unresolved. Republicans should pick up a few more seats, but it’s a grim picture no matter what happens going forward.
With two Senate races outstanding in Alaska and Mississippi, Democrats will have at least 54 seats. That’s a pretty solid majority, which means they will be able to block any Supreme Court appointees that come their way.
The speaker-to-be, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), will have something that Mike Johnson never had: a workable majority. The 228 Democratic House members are already more than Johnson could count on. Jeffries has proven he can move his caucus in the same direction, meaning that on the all-important procedural votes that allow anything to get done in the House, Democrats can pretty much do whatever they want.
Democrats won by epic, sometimes historic margins across red and blue states, up and down ballots, obliterating almost everything President Trump, and a Republican Party remade wholly in his image, built over the past decade in American politics, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen write in a “Behind the Curtain” column.
Trump and Republicans are left with a mostly white, mostly old House and Senate minority, confronting a younger, more diverse ascendant Democratic Party with power and margins it hasn’t held in 18 years, since the dawn of the Obama era.
The results speak louder than any words we can write:
Democrats won Senate races in Texas, Kansas, South Carolina, Ohio, and perhaps Mississippi en route to what could be a 55-seat majority.
Democrats won swing districts all across red America, with national average margins of victory of roughly 13 points, according to a New York Times estimate. Dems appear headed for a 250+-seat majority, an 18-year high.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis points out the troubling math.
Dems will get 55 Senate seats and 250+ House seats. Looking at the Senate map and considering such a massive House margin, it is very unlikely Republicans will recapture the Congress in 2028. Might not have a shot at Senate control until 2032. https://t.co/40BP6SjOaq
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) November 4, 2026
This is very much like the late 1970s and early 1980s — Republicans wandering in the wilderness with few prospects of winning either the House or Senate.
But the silver lining here is that, as it was in 2022, Democrats are going to be controlled by their radical, crazy base. A few years of that and voters will come scurrying back to Republicans. At least for a while. Then the cycle will begin again, and each succeeding election will be claimed as a “mandate” for its particular brand of governance.
We should hope the Democrats govern as if they have a mandate. How many times in the next two years are we going to hear, “But I didn’t vote for that!” The more we hear it, the more likely it is that Republicans will start working their way back and find their way out of the wilderness.
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