Counting in the US midterm elections continued on Wednesday (local time) as Democrats won back the House and a string of decades-old records fell. Taiwan's United Daily News and the World Journal said final results in some close Senate races were still pending.
The World Journal, citing NBC News estimates, reported that the House is projected to end up 248 Democrats to 187 Republicans. The chamber has 435 seats, so the majority line is 218. The new Congress is sworn in on January 3, when Democrats will gain subpoena, investigative and impeachment powers.
광고 문의 · 300×250United Daily News read the outcome as a strong voter rejection of President Trump's agenda. That is the paper's own assessment; an official Republican response was not found in the reports consulted at the time of writing.
The Senate picture and Mississippi's 28 votes
According to the World Journal, Democrats flipped five Republican seats: Kansas, Texas, South Carolina, North Carolina and Ohio. The same article's headline says Democrats retook the Senate, yet its text says they need a net gain of four and must hold Michigan and Minnesota, so the account is not fully consistent. Whether the chamber changes hands awaits the final tally.
The tightest contest is Mississippi. Taiwan's Central News Agency and United Daily News reported that at midnight on Wednesday, with about 97% counted and nearly one million ballots cast, Democrat Scott Colom led Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith by just 28 votes. The state has not elected a Democratic senator in over 40 years, and a Colom win would make him the first Black US senator from the state since Blanche K. Bruce. The articles reviewed did not mention recount rules.
Records set across the map
United Daily News called Texas a change after 30 years. With 83% counted, the Associated Press tally showed Democrat Gina Hinojosa on 53% against incumbent Greg Abbott's 46% for governor, and James Talarico on 55% against Ken Paxton's 43% for the Senate. The report said Democrats last won a statewide Texas office in 1994, and cited Bloomberg's tally that Elon Musk-controlled political action committees spent more than 205 million dollars in the state.
Other records: per United Daily News, Kansas Democrat Adam Hamilton beat sitting Senator Roger Marshall, the first Democrat to win a Senate race there since 1932, while reports say a Democrat defeated Lindsey Graham in South Carolina. The University of Florida Election Lab counted more than 61.7 million early votes, a midterm record, and OpenSecrets put total campaign spending at 11.9 billion dollars, up from 8.9 billion in 2022.
In NBC News exit polls, 72% of voters aged 18 to 29 chose Democrats against 25% for Republicans, and Latino voters split 62% to 35%. The paper compared that with Kamala Harris's 51% of the Latino vote in 2024. Most of these figures are interim counts and may change when results are certified.
