US midterm election results live: Trump’s Republicans to lose control of House of Reps

First it was the House of Representatives, now the Senate.

Josh Turek is now projected to win a Senate seat in Iowa, giving the Democrats the 51 seats needed for control.

Democrats have scored stunning victories in the South Carolina and Texas Senate races, seizing Republican strongholds for the first time in a generation as tens of millions of voters deliver a scathing rebuke to US President Donald Trump.

Democrats are also on track to take control of the US House of Representatives in the US midterm elections, after flipping eight Republican seats in states including Kentucky, New Jersey and North Caroline and showing strength even in solidly conservative districts.

In Texas, Democratic state Representative James Talarico withstood a barrage of outside spending to defeat scandal-plagued Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton in a state that voted for Trump by 14 percentage points two years ago.

In South Carolina, pediatrician Annie Andrews became the first Democrat to win a Senate seat since 1998, a stunning victory over Trump’s hand-picked candidate Darline Graham in a state that he carried by nearly 18 percentage points in 2024.

The red state of Texas has turned blue. The New York Times is projecting the Democrats will win a Senate seat in Texas.

James Talarico will become the first Democrat to represent Texas in the Senate since 1994.

It isn’t looking good for the Republicans, but Donald Trump says they would have won in a landslide if he was on the ballot.

“I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE! Thank you for your attention to this matter,” he posted shortly after 10:30 p.m. He was watching the returns in the East Wing with political advisers and Cabinet members, according to his official schedule.

US President Donald Trump’s Republicans have lost control of the House of Representatives, according to projections by US broadcasters including CNN and NBC News.

The call on Tuesday comes after Democrats won two of the four Senate seats needed to control the powerful chamber.

Democrat Annie Andrews won South Carolina’s US Senate seat, a stunning victory over Trump’s hand-picked candidate Darline Graham in a state that he carried by nearly 18 percentage points just two years ago.

Andrews’ win, along with Democrat Roy Cooper’s win in North Carolina’s Senate race, gave the party two of the four seats it needs to net in order to take control of the chamber.

The results also suggested that a Democratic wave was growing large enough to swamp even deeply Republican areas.

Annie Andrews has won a South Carolina Senate seat, according to the New York Times, the first woman to do so and the first Democrat since 1998.

With 89 per cent of the vote counted, the pediatrician has 51 per cent of the vote, compared with 47 per cent for Republican Senator Darline Graham, who was appointed to the seat after her brother, Senator Lindsey Graham, died in July.

Flipping the southern state puts the Democrats with five seats of a Senate majority.

The Democractic Party’s chances of winning both houses of Congress has risen to 99 per cent in the US mid-term elections.

Four hours after counting started in some states, the Polymarket betting service put the Republican Party’s chances of retaining its narrow control the House of Representatives at less than 1 per cent. Four hours ago, the Republicans’ odds were 6 per cent.

In the Senate, which the Republicans control 53-47, Polymarket predicts there will be 55 Democrats and 45 Republicans after the election. About a third of senate seats are being chosen.

Polymarket, which is banned in Australia, has become a popular way in the US and elsewhere to bet on world events, from elections to wars.

Byron Donalds, the 48-year-old son of a single mother from Brooklyn, was elected the first Black governor of Florida after promising to allow parents to pull their children from failing state schools and fund private educations with government grants.

Mr Donalds won 50.1 per cent of the vote, according to the Associated Press, a result that is a national first. Three other Black men have been elected governors in the US. All were Democrats.

An advocate of lower taxes, strict immigration controls and gun rights as a Congressman, Mr Donalds is closely associated with President Donald Trump, who has called him a “TOTAL WINNER” who would make a “great and powerful governor”.

His signature proposal, school vouchers, are hated by teacher unions. They allow parents to move funding from public to private schools, a free-market solution for poor educational standards.

The state’s previous governor, Republican Ron DeSantis, won the 2022 election with 59 per cent of the vote. Prohibited by term limits from running again, he is considered a potential candidate for the Republican presidential nomination in 2028.

Former North Carolina governor Roy Cooper defeated US President Donald Trump’s handpicked candidate Michael Whatley, delivering Democrats a crucial win in a state Mr Trump carried in all three of his presidential campaigns.

The Associated Press called the race for Mr Cooper on Tuesday evening (local time), marking his seventh statewide election victory.

“We knew that the chaos and corruption in Washington were hurting our people. Today, you said this has to stop,” Mr Cooper told a crowd.

“Tonight the campaign ends, but tomorrow the work of governing begins.”

The 69-year-old will replace Republican Senator Thom Tillis, who decided against seeking a third term after clashing with Mr Trump over his signature tax and spending legislation.

The victory makes Mr Cooper North Carolina’s first Democratic senator-elect since 2008, despite the state’s longstanding tendency to elect Republicans to the US Senate.

Mr Whatley delivered a concession speech saying he “will never stop fighting for North Carolina”.

“While the results today are not what we’ve been working for, my commitment to you in this great state remains as strong as ever,” Mr Whatley said.

The Democratic Party has won eight seats in the US Senate, taking its total to 42, acording to the Associated Press, the primary source for election-night data in the US.

The Republican Party has won one more Senate seats than the 31 it already holds, two-and-a-half hours after the first voting closed, according to the AP.

The results do not mean that the Republicans have lost the election. The first votes counted are from north-eastern states that lean to the left.

But there were worrying signs for the Republicans in Florida, where US President Donald Trump owns a large estate. Three counties with Hispanic majorities are shifting to the left, the New York Times reported, by at least 18 percentage points in the Senate count.

In Georgia, Democrat Senator Jon Ossoff easily defeated Republican Mike Collins in a state that looked vulnerable at the start of the year. Senator Ossoff has 62 per cent of the vote after 57 per cent has been counted. In 2021 he was elected with 50.6 per cent.

The Democrats lead the Republicans in the House of Representatives by 39 to 8 seats and have elected 11 governors compared with eight Republicans.