Democrats win control of US House, gaining leverage against President Trump - USA Today
Democrats are projected to win back control of the U.S. House, according to multiple news outlets, harnessing voters’ frustration over high costs to win seats deeper in Republican territory than election forecasters had predicted.
"Today begins the great American comeback," Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who is expected to be the next speaker of the House, said at an election night event. "The American people have spoken all across the land."
The blue wave materialized early on Nov. 3 as Democrats flipped an open seat in Kentucky and won seats in Florida that had been redrawn to favor Republicans. As the night went on, Democrats won races that didn't seem competitive until the final days of the campaign.
In North Carolina's 9th Congressional District, voters ousted Republican Rep. Richard Hudson, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Hudson's Democratic opponent, retired Army Maj. Richard Ojeda, ran for a West Virginia U.S. House seat in 2018, then briefly sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 before launching a failed West Virginia U.S. Senate bid.
Democrats are projected to win at least 224 seats and are leading in about a dozen others.
"This isn't just the reversal of 2024 or a midterm wave like 2018," Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson said in a text to USA TODAY. "It's a rejection of the last 10 years of Trump and a turn of the page."
The results are a blow to President Donald Trump as he enters his final two years in office. Democrats will soon be able to block Republicans’ legislative agenda and subject the president and his Cabinet to increased oversight.
Some Democrats have already signalled they plan to aggressively investigate Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Trump has predicted that Democrats will impeach him if they win control of Congress.
Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia, the incoming chair of the House Oversight Committee, issued a brief statement Nov. 3: "Lawyer up."
While Democrats had the president’s poor approval ratings on their side, Republicans entered the cycle with key structural advantages.
Few true toss-up districts on the map forced Democrats to reach deep into Republican territory. MAGA Inc., a pro-Trump super PAC, had a $400 million war chest that it split between House and Senate races.
As the GOP’s midterm worries grew, Texas Republicans redrew their congressional maps in mid-2025 at Trump's request to create an additional five seats they believed would favor their party. The move sparked a multi-state redistricting battle between Democrats and Republicans that spread through more than a dozen states, including California, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Florida. The net result was expected to give Republicans a few more congressional seats.
Those advantages, however, weren’t enough to counter growing discontent with the high cost of living, especially gasoline prices that have spiked since the United States and Israel launched a war against Iran.
Republicans' redistricting gambit failed to produce the seats it promised. In Alabama, incumbent Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures held onto his seat. Democrats also held onto some seats in Florida and Texas, where Republicans engaged in mid-decade redistricting. And in North Carolina's 1st Congressional District, where Republicans redrew the map to target Rep. Don Davis, the incumbent was leading by 2.5 percentage points with 96% of the vote counted.
In 2026, the battlefield was concentrated in districts Trump won, sometimes by double digits, in 2024. To win those seats, they recruited farmers, ranchers, military veterans and former federal prosecutors.
Democrats hammered Republicans over the state of the economy, linking challengers and vulnerable incumbents to unpopular Trump administration policies such as the Iran war, tariffs, and Trump's feud with Canada. They campaigned outside of gas stations to highlight the high prices.
Democratic candidates also campaigned against what they described as a culture of corruption in Trump's administration, pointing to the various ways Trump and his relatives have benefited financially from entities and moguls with business before the federal government.
Democrats also navigated their own internal battles between incumbents and younger, more progressive candidates who won a handful of primary challenges. While those fights, which took place almost entirely in Democratic strongholds, didn’t determine control of the House, they will shape the party’s agenda in January. Progressives have called on party leaders to make gains on passing legislation such as Medicare for All and restricting aid to Israel.
