LatestHere’s the latest.Democrats seized control of the Senate and the House as voters delivered a blistering rebuke to President Trump in a midterm rout that reset the balance of power in Washington. The romp stretched from coast to coast, with Democrats flipping seats that had spent decades in Republican hands and taking House districts in corners of the country that had long seemed inaccessible.Mr.
Trump told The Times in an interview that he was “absolutely willing to accept those results” and was prepared to work with Democrats. “We’ll, you know, look forward to working with them,” he said. “We’ll probably work something out.”Voters swept out Republican candidates who tethered themselves to Mr. Trump and those who sought a modicum of independence from him.
Democrats flipped Senate seats in Maine, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, North Carolina, South Carolina and even Texas, according to The Associated Press. Many of those states had been longtime conservative strongholds.
Republicans had held the Senate seats in Texas and South Carolina for decades. The Kansas seat had been red for nearly a century.Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican who across 30 years in Washington repeatedly foiled Democratic efforts to unseat her, conceded her race to Troy Jackson, a former state legislator whom Democrats anointed in July after their preferred nominee quit the race in scandal.In Texas, James Talarico, a state legislator who became a national fund-raising sensation, toppled Ken Paxton, the scandal-ridden Republican state attorney general whom Mr.
Trump elevated to the nomination in the spring.“We just took back Texas,” Mr. Talarico said in his victory speech. “We just showed that a politics of division is no match for a politics of love.”In South Carolina, Dr.
Annie Andrews prevailed over Senator Darline Graham, the sister of the late Senator Lindsey Graham. In Kansas, the Rev.
Adam Hamilton stunned Senator Roger Marshall, a one-term Republican.And Dr. Abdul El-Sayed prevailed in Michigan even after his Senate campaign was rattled on Sunday when his defeated primary rival, Representative Haley Stevens, endorsed the Republican nominee and drew the scorn of her own party.Democrats could still widen their lead in the Senate: Ballots were still being counted in Alaska, where Republicans have complained that a potential spoiler candidate could unfairly siphon votes from their incumbent, and in Mississippi, an unlikely battleground where a couple dozen votes separated the two candidates.Democrats also notched major victories in races for governor.
In Georgia, Keisha Lance Bottoms became the first Black woman to be elected governor in the country’s history. In Texas, Gina Hinojosa was the first Democrat elected governor since Ann Richards in 1990, by ousting Gov.
Greg Abbott, a three-term Republican.In another race for governor, Dr. Amy Acton became the first woman elected to lead Ohio, emerging from a vicious campaign that included an ad by her Republican opponent that featured her estranged mother.
Sherrod Brown, a Democrat ousted from his seat two years ago, will again represent Ohio in the Senate after flipping a Republican seat.The results came in a midterm election that is the first national mandate on Mr. Trump’s second term.
They showed what polls have indicated for months — that voters are supremely dissatisfied with Mr. Trump and Republicans who have backed his agenda.Democrats flipped House seats across the map.
And the redistricting effort Republicans undertook in hopes of protecting their majority failed to yield victories that they intended: Democrats won districts in Florida that Republicans redrew to be favorable for themselves, and a North Carolina seat Democrats flipped was also part of the Republican redistricting effort.Democratic candidates have blamed Mr. Trump, and the war he started this year in Iran, for the economic hardships that have driven a current of frustration across the nation.
Republicans have focused on portraying their Democratic opponents as extreme on social issues and the economy as they played defense in reliably red states.Republicans fended off a significant challenge in a Senate race in Florida: Senator Ashley Moody defeated Angie Nixon, a progressive Democrat, in a tight contest to complete the term of Secretary of State Marco Rubio.The last polling places closed at 1 a.m. Eastern on Wednesday, in Alaska, and full results for some races may not be known for days or longer.Here’s what else we’re covering:A complicated landscape: More than 400 Times reporters, editors, data analysts, video journalists and photographers are covering the midterms, seeking to understand a large country with voters who are complicated — and sometimes contradictory.
In Florida, flooding forced more than 20 polling stations across eight counties to be relocated. In North Carolina, technical problems at several precincts caused minor delays; state election officials said they would delay the release of election results to at least 8:15 p.m. from 7:30 p.m.
Trump’s attacks on the integrity of U.S. elections could lead to tensions during voting and baseless challenges to the outcome. The administration has sought to prove that many noncitizens have cast ballots, but few people have been charged with offenses related to voting fraud.
Local and state officials say they are well prepared to run a secure election.Court rulings: A federal judge has turned down a request by Democratic lawmakers and party organizations to prohibit the Trump administration from coercing states into screening incoming ballots. And the Supreme Court issued what appeared to be an extraordinary rebuke to Mr.
Trump, signaling that it was not interested in assisting his efforts to interfere with how states administer elections.Lauren Boebert, a MAGA Favorite, Loses Her Re-election Bid in ColoradoImageRepresentative Lauren Boebert, a Republican from Colorado, was seen as increasingly vulnerable as her alliance with President Trump became a liability. Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York TimesRepresentative Lauren Boebert, a hard-line Republican, on Friday narrowly lost her bid for re-election in a conservative Colorado district, according to The Associated Press, an outcome that showed just how deeply Democrats encroached into Republican territory this year.Ms.
Boebert, a fiery favorite of the MAGA movement, switched congressional districts a few years ago after her old seat in Colorado grew more competitive. But the change was not enough to keep her from being ousted by Eileen Laubacher, a Democrat and a retired rear admiral in the Navy.Ms.
Laubacher declared victory on Monday, and was leading by more than 3,000 votes when the race was called on Friday. Ms.
Boebert, who amplified President Trump’s false claims of a stolen election in 2020, has not yet conceded. Her lawyer suggested last week that Ms.
Boebert would request a recount.Democrats flooded the airwaves in the district with more than $7 million worth of ads, outspending Republicans by more than 23 to 1, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact. Many of the ads fixed on Ms.
Boebert’s polarizing nature and past scandals, with one calling her “uniquely unfit.” Another ad contrasted Ms. Laubacher’s profile as a Navy veteran and mother of five with headlines about Ms.
Boebert.“Lauren Boebert flips out over ‘Beetlejuice’ groping footage,’” the chyron read in one clip, referring to Ms. Boebert’s ejection from a Denver theater in 2023.
Another showed Ms. Boebert cursing at the person filming.“Like so many of us, Eileen is done with the extremists in both parties,” a narrator said in the ad, which was run by Ms.
Laubacher’s campaign. “Maybe the best way to break through the noise is a little less talking and more listening.”ImageEileen Laubacher is a Navy veteran who served in the Biden administration.Credit...Andrew Harnik/Getty ImagesDemocrats had viewed Ms. Boebert as vulnerable in the closing stretch of this year’s race, as her once-close alliance with President Trump became a liability among voters who blamed his administration for high gas prices and other affordability concerns.Ms.
Boebert, first elected in 2020, broke with Mr. Trump at times during the past year, particularly over her calls to release files related to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
And she drew the president’s anger by campaigning for Representative Thomas Massie, the Kentucky Republican who became a nuisance for Mr. Trump.After the election, Ms.
Boebert declined to blame Mr. Trump for Republicans’ blowout losses, though she said she was “very frustrated with the war.” She told reporters this week that the Trump administration should have gone further to deport immigrants who were in the United States illegally and that Republican lawmakers “could have done a lot more.” Ms.
Boebert did not respond to a request for comment.Ms. Laubacher ran on a centrist platform but hammered Ms.
Boebert for her votes against resolutions directing Mr. Trump to end the war in Iran or seek congressional approval.
She also centered a promise to protect rural hospitals in the wake of Medicaid cuts.Ms. Laubacher served in the National Security Council for two years during the Biden administration, and earlier in her career she worked as a Navy intelligence officer and served in the Navy Reserves.
She was promoted to the rank of rear admiral in 2018.“I don’t answer to a political party,” Ms. Laubacher said in a statement declaring victory on Monday. “I answer to the people of the 4th district and I’ll work with anyone and everyone, including President Trump, Republicans, and Democrats to get things done for Colorado.”Video The Voters Who Powered the Blue Tsunami A younger, more diverse electorate than is typical in midterm elections helped drive Democrats’ decisive victory, along with gains among swing voters and support from some Republican voters.
Nate Cohn, The New York Times’s chief political analyst, explains.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTRep. Ken Calvert Wins House Battle Between Two California RepublicansImageRepresentative Ken Calvert won in one of the last remaining Republican strongholds in California.Credit...Caroline Brehman/Associated PressRepresentative Ken Calvert defeated another Republican incumbent, Representative Young Kim, in California’s 40th Congressional District in a rare intraparty contest, according to The Associated Press.The Southern California district, which includes parts of Riverside and Orange Counties, is one of the state’s last Republican strongholds.
Ms. Kim had represented the district since 2018.
Mr. Calvert ended up running against her after his former district, which encompassed much of Riverside County, including Palm Springs, was carved up and distributed among several neighboring districts.During the nonpartisan primary, Mr.
Calvert and Ms. Kim attacked each other as insufficiently supportive of President Trump’s agenda.
But the tone shifted this fall as both candidates portrayed themselves as pragmatic, “common sense” politicians, distancing themselves from Mr. Trump.The campaign turned especially negative, in part because both candidates viewed the race as a fight for their political lives.Ms.
Kim repeatedly labeled Mr. Calvert corrupt, citing ethics complaints and an F.B.I. investigation targeting several real estate deals.
Mr. Calvert has denied any wrongdoing and was never criminally prosecuted.Mr.
Calvert focused his attacks on a campaign donation Ms. Kim received from a Chinese American businessman who has been a target of an investigation into Chinese foreign influence.
Ms. Kim donated the money from the donation and said she did not know about the allegations against him.Kansans elect a Democrat as attorney general, voting out Kris Kobach.ImageChris Mann, a Democrat, has worked as a police officer and prosecutor.Credit...Charlie Riedel/Associated PressKris W.
Kobach, Kansas’ Republican attorney general, helped to make claims of widespread illegal voting a potent political issue years before President Trump became the party’s leader.But Mr. Kobach was denied another term by voters, The Associated Press reported on Friday.
The result demonstrated both how Kansas and Mr. Kobach’s own trajectory have shifted since he crashed onto the national political landscape more than 20 years ago.Chris Mann, a Democrat who has worked as a police officer and prosecutor, defeated Mr.
Kobach, marking the first time in 20 years that Kansans have elected a Democrat as attorney general.It was a momentous election for Democrats in Kansas and across the country. Adam Hamilton, a Methodist pastor and centrist Democrat, became the first member of his party to win a Senate race in Kansas since the 1930s.
He unseated Senator Roger Marshall, a first-term Republican and close ally of President Trump. And in the governor’s race, Cindy Holscher, the Democratic nominee, was leading in a close contest that had not yet been called.Mr.
Kobach was, in many ways, ahead of his political time. As a law professor and Justice Department official in the 2000s, he pushed for tighter immigration laws.
And as Kansas’ secretary of state in the 2010s, he sought and received the authority to prosecute people for illegally voting, making national headlines with the handful of cases he pursued.ImageAttorney General Kris Kobach, a Republican, helped to make claims of widespread illegal voting a potent political issue years before President Trump became the party’s leader.Credit...Charlie Riedel/Associated PressThough studies have shown that a very small percentage of ballots are cast by noncitizens, Mr. Kobach’s focus on the issue helped to elevate illegal voting as a national issue years before Mr.
Trump seized on it during his presidential campaigns. During his first term as president, Mr.
Trump tapped Mr. Kobach to lead a panel on voter fraud.While Mr.
Kobach’s message resonated, his own record was more mixed. A federal judge once found him in contempt of court.
And Mr. Kobach lost his campaign for governor in 2018 to Laura Kelly, a Democrat, before losing the Republican primary for Senate in 2020.
He returned to statewide office four years ago after narrowly defeating Mr. Mann to win a first term as attorney general.As attorney general, Mr.
Kobach has defended a state law restricting gender-transition treatments for minors and pushed unsuccessfully for an elected State Supreme Court. His office also prosecuted the Mexican-born mayor of a small Kansas town, who admitted to voting in U.S. elections without being a citizen, in a case that captured the attention of the Trump administration.Though Mr.
Kobach was once seen as an outlier among Republicans, his views on immigration and voting have become centerpieces of the party’s platform during the Trump era. But in that same period, Republicans’ hold on Kansas has slipped somewhat.Republicans continue to win presidential elections in Kansas by large margins, but Ms.
Kelly won two terms as governor and the once-conservative suburbs of Kansas City have turned blue, repeatedly electing Representative Sharice Davids, a Democrat, to Congress.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTCait Conley flips a key N.Y. swing seat for Democrats, ousting Mike Lawler.ImageCait Conley, a Democrat, sought to tie Representative Mike Lawler to President Trump in her campaign to flip New York’s 17th Congressional District, where the president is unpopular.Credit...Dave Sanders for The New York TimesCait Conley, an Army veteran and former national security official in the Biden administration, beat Representative Mike Lawler in a suburban New York swing district, according to The Associated Press, flipping a seat that Democrats had identified as a top target on their path to recapture the House majority.Ms. Conley rode a wave of voter dissatisfaction with the policies of President Trump, whose tariffs and war in Iran have contributed to higher prices on gasoline, groceries and other essentials.“We started this because we knew that America, the land of promise and opportunity, was on the wrong path,” Ms.
Conley said late Tuesday at her election night watch party in Pleasantville. “But we knew, if we came together, if we brought people together, that we could fix it. And tonight we show that this fight wasn’t a partisan fight.
This was a patriotic fight.”The race, in New York’s 17th Congressional District, was not called until Thursday afternoon, partly because of issues with the processing of ballots in Westchester County. That delayed the counting of tens of thousands of votes.But long before the results were official, Ms.
Conley’s strong performance in Mr. Lawler’s home base in Rockland County led the congressman to concede.Speaking at a banquet hall in a Hilton hotel in Pearl River on Tuesday night, Mr.
Lawler said that he had called Ms. Conley to congratulate her and that “when all the votes are counted tomorrow in Westchester, it will be pretty clear.”The daughter of a postal worker, Ms.
Conley grew up just over the border of the district, which includes the affluent suburbs north of New York City and narrowly favored former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. Ms.
Conley moved back to run for Congress and talked up her years of military service on the campaign trail, beating two more liberal primary opponents in June.Still, her work in the private sector after leaving government became the subject of attacks from Mr. Lawler and outside groups supporting him.
They bankrolled television advertisements that portrayed Ms. Conley, a former U.S.
Army special operations leader, as a corporate puppet beholden to her former employers.Ms. Conley made $328,000 in nearly two years of private-sector work, according to financial disclosure reports, but declined to divulge the specifics of what she did for Hidden Level, an anti-drone-systems company, and for Primer AI, the firm where she consulted, citing nondisclosure agreements.The two campaigns and outside groups backing them spent more than $60 million inundating voters with advertising over the course of the campaign, according to AdImpact, an ad tracking firm.
About half of that money went to supporting Ms. Conley, with much of it spent on ads attacking Mr.
Lawler as a rubber stamp for Mr. Trump. “Mike Lawler votes with Trump 100 percent of the time,” a narrator states in one of the Conley campaign ads. (An analysis by Congressional Quarterly found that in 2025, Mr.
Lawler voted yes on bills Mr. Trump approved of 94 percent of the time.)A former state legislator, Mr.
Lawler shot to fame when he unexpectedly defeated Sean Patrick Maloney, the chairman of the House Democrats’ campaign arm, in 2022. That victory, and his re-election two years later, distinguished Mr.
Lawler as a Republican who could win in a resoundingly Democratic state.The congressman, who flirted with a run for governor last year, went to great lengths to emphasize his independence. He was a lone Republican voice during negotiations over Mr.
Trump’s signature domestic spending bill, conditioning his support for the legislation on raising the cap on the state and local tax, or SALT, deduction. (Ms. Conley had argued that there should be no cap on the deduction, and criticized the fact that the legislation that lowered taxes also cut funding for Medicaid.)Mr.
Lawler also characterized Ms. Conley as aligned with Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York City and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, both democratic socialists.One exchange during the first debate of the campaign summed up the race’s fault lines.
Mr. Lawler called on Ms.
Conley to denounce Mr. Mamdani, whom he claimed was encouraging antisemitism.“I absolutely call out my party when I believe that it’s wrong,” she said.“But you don’t denounce Zohran Mamdani,” Mr.
Lawler replied.“Have you denounced Donald Trump and the harm that he has caused to our families here in the Hudson Valley?” Ms. Conley said in response.The voting problems in Westchester County were the product of human error, officials said, but they nonetheless unsettled voters and poll workers on Tuesday.
It turned out that the county had updated its ballots and the software for its ballot-reading machines to add an omitted race in Ardsley, N.Y. — but the software change had been made only in Ardsley, meaning the machines in the rest of the county were unable to read the updated ballots.Ballots across the county were deposited into orange bags and delivered to a county Board of Elections facility in Ardsley, where a count, under the supervision of lawyers, began late Wednesday morning.At the facility on Wednesday afternoon, a Democratic elections commissioner, Tajian Nelson, declined to give an estimate when reporters asked when the counting would be finished.“We’re not even able to begin with the E.T.A.,” she said.But she added that, by law, the election results must be certified within 25 days. “So based on that, we have to be certified before we have turkey at the end of the month.”Kristi Berner and Wesley Parnell contributed reporting from Westchester County.A Democratic prosecutor unseats a 10-term Republican in a Virginia House race.ImageShannon Taylor, a Democrat, drew on her record as a district attorney and ran on an anti-corruption platform.Credit...Win Mcnamee/Getty ImagesA Democratic prosecutor narrowly toppled Representative Rob Wittman, a Republican first elected in 2007, on Thursday, according to The Associated Press, as a tsunami of voter anger reached his Virginia district.Shannon Taylor, the winner, ran on her long record as the top prosecutor in Henrico County, in the Richmond suburbs. She accused Mr.
Wittman of having profited from stock trading and from tax breaks that he voted for, centering her campaign on a fight against corruption and entrenched “Washington insiders.” (Mr. Wittman vehemently denied the claims.)Mr.
Wittman kept the margins close, even as many Republicans in districts that President Trump narrowly won fell by large margins. On the campaign trail, he leaned on his deep familiarity with the district and promoted the investments he had secured during his nearly two decades in office.The Democratic establishment viewed Ms.
Taylor as a star recruit, and she easily cleared the primary field. During her campaign, she also built on the name recognition she had established during an unsuccessful run for state attorney general in 2025.The congressional district, Virginia’s First, stretches from the Richmond suburbs to the so-called Historic Triangle of Jamestown, Yorktown, and Williamsburg, and out to the Tidewater region on the state’s eastern shore.Mr.
Trump won the district by five percentage points in 2024, but Ms. Taylor’s victory signals it might be moving to the left.
In her campaign, Ms. Taylor worked to tie cost-of-living increases to Mr.
Trump’s policies.Ms. Taylor’s victory came even after a costly redistricting plan meant to benefit her and other Democratic candidates fell through.
The state Supreme Court blocked the voter-approved map in May.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTJohn McGuire, a Virginia Republican, wins re-election to the House.ImageRepresentative John McGuire, Republican of Virginia, defeated a Democratic challenger to keep his seat in the House. Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York TimesRepresentative John McGuire, a Virginia Republican, won re-election to the House, according to The Associated Press, holding a seat for his party that had appeared vulnerable earlier this year.Mr.
McGuire defeated former Representative Tom Perriello, a Democrat who in 2008 won one term in an earlier version of the district, which stretches from Charlottesville to the state’s border with North Carolina.Mr. Perriello entered the race against Mr.
McGuire last year, when it appeared Virginia Democrats would redraw the state’s congressional maps to create a district that former Vice President Kamala Harris had carried by three percentage points in 2024.But when Virginia courts invalidated the redistricting effort, the lines reverted to the 2024 district that Mr. McGuire won by 15 percentage points and Mr.
Trump carried by 12 percentage points. Even in 2025, when Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat, sailed to a double-digit victory for governor, the district went for her Republican opponent by seven percentage points.After his term in Congress, Mr.
Perriello served in the Obama administration as a diplomat in Africa and then worked for the Open Society Foundations, the philanthropic network funded largely by George Soros. Though he remained in the race after the redistricting reversal, his candidacy did not attract large amounts of spending by supportive outside groups.Mr.
McGuire will return to Congress for a second term in the House. He was first elected in 2024, emerging after he ousted an incumbent, Representative Bob Good, during a primary campaign that split the MAGA movement.
Mr. Good had endorsed Gov.
Ron DeSantis of Florida during the 2024 presidential primary campaign, which angered Mr. Trump’s supporters even though Mr.
Good was among the most conservative members of the House.Nebraska voters rejected two ballot measures that would have legalized online sports betting in the state. Gambling companies supporting the measures, including DraftKings and FanDuel, poured more than $20 million into the campaign, promising new tax revenue for property tax relief.
Opponents, who raised just over $1 million, warned that online betting would threaten the integrity of college sports and fuel gambling addiction.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTArizona voters have approved a ballot measure barring transgender student athletes from participating on teams that match their gender identity, The Associated Press reported. The measure also requires transgender students to use only those restrooms and locker rooms that match their sex at birth.Two traditionally stalwart Democratic groups returned to the party fold these midterms after a dalliance with the G.O.P. in 2024.Counties with a Black majority had drifted a little more than a percentage point toward Trump two years ago.
But when the dust settled this election night, those places moved nearly 16 percentage points toward Democratic Senate candidates. The Democrats ended up beating their Republican opponents by more than 50 percentage points in some counties.Young voters also appear to have come back to the Democratic fold after some signs they were willing to vote Republican.
After counties with large numbers of 18- to 34-year-olds swung more than seven percentage points to Mr. Trump in 2024, they swerved left by nearly 23 percentage points this year.ImageCredit...Malika Khurana/The New York TimesAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTWith Democrats performing so well around the country, the party will be looking at Montana as a big potential missed opportunity.
For months, supporters of Seth Bodnar, a well-funded left-leaning independent, and Alani Bankhead, the little-known Democratic nominee, feuded with each other and tried to pressure each other to drop out of the race. In the end, neither did and they split Democratic votes, helping Kurt Alme, the Republican, to an easy victory.Dan S.
Sullivan’s lead in Alaska’s Senate race masks the fact that he is underperforming President Trump’s margins in the 2024 race. Much of the reported vote is from ballots cast on Election Day, which are favorable for Republicans.
In the 27 districts that have finished tallying such votes, Sullivan is running behind Trump by an average of 12 percentage points.In District 22, which includes North Muldoon, one of the most diverse areas in the state, Mary Peltola, the Democratic candidate, leads by nearly 20 percentage points among Election Day voters. Trump carried the same district’s day-of vote by nearly four points in 2024.
The remaining votes here will be from early and mail ballots, which are expected to lean toward Peltola. ImageCredit...Erin Schaff/The New York TimesBeau Bayh, a Democrat, was elected Indiana secretary of state, The Associated Press reported, ending a Republican lockout on all statewide offices.
Bayh, a Marine veteran and lawyer, is a son of former Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana. The Republican incumbent, Diego Morales, did not receive his party’s nomination for another term.It’s after midnight in Los Angeles.
While the Associated Press has not yet called the city’s mayoral race, Nithya Raman, the D.S.A.-aligned challenger to Mayor Karen Bass, gave a speech that sounded a lot like a victory address. She told the crowd of supporters, who were buzzing about progressive wins across the country, that she was hopeful. “But I’m also really superstitious,” she said, “so we’re all just gonna be cool, OK?”AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTKurt Alme, a former federal prosecutor, won the Senate race in Montana, according to The Associated Press, allowing Republicans to hold on to an open seat in conservative territory.
Alme, the former U.S. attorney for Montana, focused his campaign on reducing federal spending and bringing tax relief.He entered the race in March after Senator Steve Daines withdrew his candidacy just minutes before the filing deadline. Daines and Gov.
Greg Gianforte, a Republican, quickly endorsed Alme, as did President Trump. Some Democrats backed the independent bid of Seth Bodnar over their own nominee, Alani Bankhead, believing he was more electable in the heavily Republican state, and Alme was able to capitalize on the rift.Representative Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, the longest-serving woman in Congress, defeated Derek Merrin, a Republican, according to The Associated Press, to win her 23rd term.
Kaptur, 80, was first elected to the House in 1982. She edged out Merrin two years ago in an area that President Trump carried, and the Ninth Congressional District was redrawn to tilt more conservative.
Kaptur prepared for the rematch by moderating her stances to defend her seat. She faced local Democratic backlash over an ad in which she said that “boys should not play in girls’ sports.”ImageCredit...Jeremy Wadsworth/The Blade, via Associated PressAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTIdaho voters reject a referendum to lift the state’s abortion ban.ImageThe Idaho State Capitol in Boise.Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York TimesVoters in Idaho, one of the country’s most conservative states, turned back an effort to repeal the state’s abortion ban, according to The Associated Press.
Two years before the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to an abortion, Idaho lawmakers had already passed a ban, making it a crime for doctors or other health care professionals to terminate a pregnancy. The law went into effect when the high court reversed itself on Roe v.
Wade. Since then, in-person abortions have nearly vanished in Idaho, but the state has also experienced a dramatic drop in the number of doctors practicing obstetrics.
A study published last year found that Idaho had lost 94 of the 268 physicians who were practicing obstetrics when the ban took effect, a 35 percent decline in the first two years, even after accounting for doctors who had arrived in the state over that time. About half of Idaho’s 44 counties lack a practicing obstetrician-gynecologist.Proponents of repealing the ban argued that the state’s Republican-dominated Legislature had gone too far with a law that led to long wait times and fear among the doctors who have stayed.
They hoped that Idaho would join Kansas and Missouri, other conservative states where voters have rolled back abortion limits. Conservatives and the Idaho Republican Party made maintaining the ban their big issue and used it to drive voter turnout.
They said the statistics about doctors fleeing the state were overblown, noting the number of people with active obstetrician and gynecologist licenses in Idaho grew since the abortion ban. Doctors do not need to live or practice full time in the state to maintain one, and not all OB-GYN practices offer a full range of women’s health care.Opponents of the referendum also focused on aspects of the measure that went beyond abortion.
The proposition would have also enshrined a right to birth control and fertility treatments in Idaho. Attorney General Keith Ellison of Minnesota, a Democrat, won a third term, The Associated Press reported, fending off a challenge from a trial lawyer who sought to portray him as complicit in the proliferation of fraud in state-run welfare programs.Ellison touted the lawsuits his office had filed against the Trump administration, including over its immigration enforcement and pursuit of voter data.
He warned that his opponent, Ron Schutz, would be a rubber stamp for the White House.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTThere are still no results in Nevada, more than four hours after polls closed there. That’s because, per state law, no results can be reported until the last person who was in line to vote before polls closed has gotten a chance to cast a ballot — and exceptionally long lines in Washoe and Clark Counties have delayed proceedings.Sarah Trone Garriott defeats Zach Nunn in Iowa, flipping a House seat.ImageSarah Trone Garriott defeated a two-term incumbent.Credit...Thalassa Raasch for The New York TimesSarah Trone Garriott, a Democratic state senator and Lutheran minister, defeated Representative Zach Nunn, Republican of Iowa, according to The Associated Press, flipping a key seat to help her party win control of the House.Ms.
Trone Garriott’s victory over Mr. Nunn, a two-term incumbent who had closely aligned himself with President Trump, was a major breakthrough for Democrats in a district that Mr.
Nunn had won twice. Republicans had invested millions of dollars there to defend one of their most vulnerable incumbents.It was also a rebuke of the Trump administration’s economic agenda in a politically divided stretch of central and southern Iowa, where Ms.
Trone Garriott had made rising costs, health care cuts and the economic consequences of the war in Iran central to her campaign.Throughout the race, Ms. Trone Garriott sought to cast Mr.
Nunn as a politician more concerned with protecting the president and his wealthy supporters than with the financial struggles of ordinary Iowans.“Families are paying too much for groceries, health care and child care, and people are tired of politicians in Washington who look out for themselves,” she said last month, summarizing her central argument.Her victory demonstrated the potency of that message in Iowa’s Third Congressional District, which encompasses Des Moines, its fast-growing suburbs and a broad swath of rural Iowa where Republicans have maintained considerable political strength.A former Air Force intelligence officer, Mr. Nunn, 47, had spent much of his time in Congress as a steadfast supporter of Mr.
Trump’s agenda. He repeatedly backed legislation that cut federal Medicaid spending, declined to break with the president over his sweeping tariffs and for months supported the war in Iran.But as polling showed growing dissatisfaction with the war and its economic consequences, Mr.
Nunn sought to distance himself from the administration. In September, after repeatedly rejecting efforts to restrict the president’s military authority, he joined a small group of Republicans who voted to curtail Mr.
Trump’s ability to continue waging the war.The shift was not enough to save him.Ms. Trone Garriott, who had opposed the war, repeatedly tied the military operation to rising gasoline and fertilizer prices, arguing that Iowa families and farmers were paying the price for a conflict Congress had never authorized.She also attacked Mr.
Nunn’s support for the Republican domestic policy law that reduced Medicaid spending, accusing him of endangering access to health care in rural communities already struggling to keep hospitals and clinics open.Ms. Trone Garriott, who defeated a powerful Republican incumbent to win her State Senate seat, held public town halls in all 21 counties of the congressional district, making her accessibility to constituents a central contrast with Mr.
Nunn.She also proved to be a formidable fund-raiser, bringing in more than $8 million by late October, substantially more than Mr. Nunn’s approximately $6 million.
Outside Republican groups poured millions into defending his seat even as some of the party’s most powerful super PACs withdrew support from another vulnerable Iowa incumbent, Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks.Mr. Nunn had demonstrated considerable political staying power, rooted in his popularity beyond the Democratic stronghold of Des Moines.
But Ms. Trone Garriott appealed to suburban voters and sought to cut into the large margins Republicans traditionally enjoyed in rural communities.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTAdam Hamilton’s victory in the Kansas Senate race represents a significant expansion of the Democrats’ footprint in the state.
He carried 11 counties, winning back three that voted Democratic in the 2022 governor’s race but then flipped to Trump in 2024. He also flipped three counties that voted Republican in both 2022 and 2024.
ImageCredit...Jacqueline Gu/The New York TimesMap that highlights the six counties that Hamilton flipped in Kansas’s Senate race.In a victory speech, Josh Turek, Iowa’s Democratic senator-elect, cast his underdog win as proof of the power of the many over the concentrated wealth of the few. “We have proved that the impossible was possible,” he said, adding later, “We outvoted the billionaires.”Grinning, he welcomed former Senator Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, onto the stage and again credited him with paving the way for his political career as the author of the Americans With Disabilities Act. “I have been saying that it’s going to be beautifully poetic that the man that is coming to get Senator Harkin’s seat back is only there because of the work that he did.”Video CreditCredit...Bayliss Wagner/The New York TimesTurnout in Texas will end in the range of 10 million ballots cast, a record showing for a midterm election in the state that approaches turnout typically seen in a presidential race. It was strongest in areas that James Talarico won, particularly in majority-Hispanic counties like Cameron, Caldwell and Webb, which saw modest declines between 6 percent and 12 percent from two years ago.
Midterm turnout often decreases much more sharply.Richard Pan, a former Democratic state senator, defeated Representative Kevin Kiley, a Republican who changed his registration to independent this year, to win the House seat in a redrawn Northern California district, according to The Associated Press. Pan, a pediatrician who as a state lawmaker was known for passing bills to toughen school vaccine requirements, capitalized in a district where Democrats now outnumber Republicans, 3 to 1.
Kiley, who has represented a rural stretch of Northern California in the House since 2022, tried to distance himself from President Trump’s policies.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTAdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTMax Miller loses in Ohio after ex-wife’s abuse allegations.ImageRepresentative Max Miller lost a race to Brian Poindexter, a union ironworker.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York TimesRepresentative Max Miller, the Ohio Republican whose campaign was rocked by accusations that he physically abused his ex-wife and young daughter, lost his re-election bid, according to The Associated Press, handing Democrats a seat in deep-red territory as they won House control.Brian Poindexter, a union ironworker, defeated Mr. Miller, a two-term congressman whose political rise was fueled by his close relationship with President Trump, in a district Mr.
Trump won by a double-digit margin two years ago. Mr.
Miller had rejected calls by fellow Republicans to drop out of the race after he was accused by his ex-wife, Emily Moreno, of domestic abuse against her and their 2-year-old daughter.Image“I never got in this race to run because Max Miller is terrible in his personal life,” Mr. Poindexter said in an interview. “I got in it to run because of policies that hurt us.”Credit...Daniel Lozada for The New York TimesMs.
Moreno, the daughter of Senator Bernie Moreno, also an Ohio Republican, said that Mr. Miller had scalded her chest and stomach by throwing hot water from a skillet at her body; held a gun to her head; pushed her against a wall and hit her head; and fractured their daughter’s collarbone and bruised her shoulder.
The allegations came to light as part of a lengthy divorce court battle.Mr. Miller denied all of the accusations and embarked on a defiant media tour in which he accused his ex-wife of being mentally unstable, a liar, a stalker and a dangerous individual.As the sordid family drama gained national attention, some powerful Ohio Republicans, including Senator Jon Husted, pressed Mr.
Miller to exit the race and resign. Mr.
Moreno, who at first tried to avoid questions about Mr. Miller, eventually said that his former son-in-law was not fit to hold public office.“If there are any basic standards of character required to hold elected office, Max Miller fails them,” Mr.
Moreno said in an emotional statement. The House Ethics Committee also opened a review of the domestic abuse allegations.Some White House officials wanted Mr.
Miller to drop out of the race in time for Republicans to replace him on the ballot, but the president stopped short of asking Mr. Miller to drop out.In a private phone call, Mr.
Trump simply warned him that it might be difficult for him to win given the allegations. Mr.
Miller was resolute that he would do what the president himself had done when faced with personal scandals seen as fatal to his presidential campaigns: stay in and fight.Mr. Poindexter continued to work full time as an apprentice instructor throughout his primary campaign.
He tried to make his own relatable life story part of his pitch to win over working-class Trump voters.“I never got in this race to run because Max Miller is terrible in his personal life,” he said in an interview. “I got in it to run because of policies that hurt us.”Despite the accusations, Mr. Miller was never fully deserted by House Republican leaders.
Once it became clear there was no way to replace him on the ballot, they quietly spent more than $5 million to defend his seat, according to the ad-tracking service AdImpact.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT