Black voters help propel Democrats in sweeping Southern midterm wins, with Keisha Lance Bottoms elected Georgia governor

Black voters and the Southern vote

Strong turnout among Black voters helped Democrats win races across the South in the 3 November midterm elections. Roughly nine in 10 Black voters backed Democratic House candidates, according to the AP Voter Poll. In Montgomery, Alabama, Sheyann Webb-Christburg, who was 8 when she was part of the crowd of civil rights marchers attacked at Bloody Sunday in Selma, watched Shomari Figures win another term. Figures, 41, held a district that Alabama Republican lawmakers had reshaped to make his reelection harder, and that President Donald Trump carried by double digits two years earlier. Webb-Christburg said after the result:

“I think a new movement has started”

LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, linked the turnout to the Trump administration's crackdown on diversity programs and its efforts to narrow how Washington teaches US history on race and civil rights. She said:

“Our survival has been based on our ability to resist it and respond and navigate around it.”

Democratic leaders and organizers presented the outcome as a rebuke to Trump and to a Supreme Court ruling earlier this year that weakened the Voting Rights Act and let Republican-led states redraw districts in ways that reduced Black representation in Congress.

Georgia, the Carolinas and Mississippi

Keisha Lance Bottoms became the first Black woman elected governor in US history. Black women also won Georgia's attorney general, secretary of state, agriculture, insurance and labor commissioner posts, and the school superintendent job. Jon Ossoff won re-election by 18 points, and Democrats won every statewide race in Georgia and flipped the State House. A science-focused PAC, 314 Action Fund, backed several winners, spending more than $30 million this cycle and raising $3.6 million for pediatrician Annie Andrews in South Carolina and $3 million for physician Amy Acton in the Ohio governor race.

Annie Andrews (South Carolina Senate)3.6

Amy Acton (Ohio governor)3

Annie Andrews (South Carolina Senate)

3.6 $ million

Amy Acton (Ohio governor)

3 $ million

Data from the article text

Andrews, a pediatrician, won the South Carolina Senate race by more than four points, and Democrats flipped a House seat and 10 state legislative seats there. In North Carolina, former governor Roy Cooper won the Senate race by nearly 20 percentage points. In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed defeated Republican Mike Rogers, becoming the nation's first Muslim senator, while in Texas James Talarico beat Republican Ken Paxton after courting Black voters. In Mississippi, Scott Colom, a district attorney, led Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith by a razor-thin margin on 5 November, with thousands of ballots outstanding. Colom built commanding leads in heavily Black Hinds County, home to Jackson.

House races across the country

In North Carolina's redrawn 1st District, Don Davis beat Republican Laurie Buckhout by more than 10,000 votes in unofficial results. Cyril Jefferson beat Republican incumbent Addison McDowell by more than 6,200 votes in the 6th District. Democrats had won eight of the state's House seats by 5 November, despite a map drawn in October 2025 that tilted toward Republicans across most of the state's 14 seats. In Arizona, the AP projected that Amish Shah beat former NFL kicker Jay Feely in the open 1st District. In Virginia, Shannon Taylor flipped a district that Republican Rob Wittman had held since 2007. After decades without one, Montana sent a Democrat to the House: Sam Forstag, a former smokejumper, won a seat Trump carried by nearly 12 points in 2024. Republicans still held several longtime safe seats, though by much narrower margins than expected, including Andrew Garbarino and Nick LaLota on Long Island.

Counts still open

As of 5 November several North Carolina races had not been called. In the 3rd District, Republican Rep. Greg Murphy led Democrat Raymond Smith Jr. by 233 votes with all precincts in, according to unofficial tallies, and recounts are possible. In the 5th District, Democrat Chuck Hubbard held a 99-vote lead over Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx on unofficial results. Democrats will take control of Congress in January. The timeline of the count is shown below.

The Mississippi Senate race remained uncalled as of 5 November.