The short answer is that the map moved almost everywhere at once. In the 2026 midterms, Democrats flipped seven Republican-held Senate seats without losing a single one of their own, took back the House of Representatives, and won five new governorships, according to race calls by the Associated Press and network projections. It is the largest midterm swing against a sitting president’s party in two decades, bigger in the Senate than the Democratic wave of 2006.
Here is the full picture, chamber by chamber, including the races that were holds rather than flips and the two Senate seats still not called.
The Senate: seven flips, all one way
Republicans went into Tuesday holding the Senate 53 to 47. They came out of it in the minority. The Associated Press has called seven Republican-held seats for Democrats, based on NPR’s tally of AP data:
| State | Democratic winner | What happened |
|---|---|---|
| North Carolina | Roy Cooper | Won by the widest margin of any flip, about 59% to 39% |
| South Carolina | Annie Andrews | Flipped a seat Republicans expected to hold |
| Texas | James Talarico | Beat Ken Paxton 55.1% to 43.0%, the first Democratic Senate win in Texas since 1988 |
| Ohio | Sherrod Brown | Returned to the Senate via a special election |
| Kansas | Democratic pickup | Part of a farm-belt swing that also moved Iowa |
| Iowa | Democratic pickup | Republicans had held the seat comfortably |
| Maine | Troy Jackson | Defeated Susan Collins, a senator since 1997, who conceded on the night |
With those calls, the Democratic caucus stands at 54 seats, counting the two independents who caucus with the party, against 44 Republicans. Two Republican-held seats, Alaska and Mississippi, remain uncalled; Mississippi is too close to call, with the Democrat narrowly ahead in the count. Even if Republicans win both, they cannot reach a majority.
The House: a majority built in the suburbs and the map fights
NBC News projects Democrats will win about 255 House seats, comfortably above the 218 needed, with Republicans losing at least 25 seats. Some of the movement was drawn on maps before a single vote was cast: California’s Proposition 50 districts sent five more Democrats to Washington, giving the party 48 of the state’s 52 seats, a story we explain in our Prop 50 breakdown. Elsewhere the swing was organic: Iowa’s House delegation went from four Republicans to three Democrats and one Republican, and North Carolina’s delegation inverted under pressure from the statewide tide.
The governorships: five flips
Democrats also won five governorships previously held by Republicans: Nevada, Texas, Iowa, Ohio and Georgia, while holding every governorship of their own that was contested. Republicans did not flip a single state executive mansion. The Texas result was the symbol of the night: Gina Hinojosa defeated three-term Governor Greg Abbott, a race covered in our Texas governor report, as part of a statewide sweep.
What did not flip, despite the headlines
Not every Democratic win was a flip, and the distinction matters for reading the map. Michigan’s Senate seat was a Democratic hold: Abdul El-Sayed succeeded a retiring Democrat, Gary Peters, in a race we covered in our Michigan report. Minnesota and New Hampshire were also holds. And the flurry of searches about New Jersey and Virginia results this week pointed at races that did not exist: both states elected their governors in 2025, not 2026.
What it sets up
The new Congress convenes on January 3, and President Donald Trump will face divided government for the final two years of his term, with Democratic majorities positioned to block his legislative agenda and to run investigations from both chambers. Whether this map is a realignment or a referendum is the argument of the next two years. The numbers, at least, are not in dispute: seven Senate flips, a House majority of roughly 255 seats, five new governorships, and not one Democratic seat lost anywhere in the country.
Sources: Associated Press race calls as tallied by NPR; NBC News and CBS News projections; Le Monde and Res Publica election analyses, November 4, 2026. Figures are unofficial and subject to certification.