Democrats win Senate races in Georgia and North Carolina and three redrawn Florida seats

Two Senate races in Georgia and North Carolina

Democrats won two Senate contests that had looked competitive a year earlier. Jon Ossoff won reelection in Georgia by nearly 18 percentage points, according to Axios. Former Governor Roy Cooper won the open North Carolina seat by roughly 19 points, beating Republican party insider Michael Whatley, the BBC reported. The BBC called North Carolina the first of the four pickups Democrats need to take Senate control, and said attention had shifted to Republican-held seats in Texas, Kansas and Ohio, where counting was still under way. In Texas, state legislator James Talarico won by approximately 12 points in his race against Ken Paxton, and at 37 he will be the youngest senator once sworn in, the New York Times reported. CBS News, the BBC's US partner, rated the South Carolina Senate race as leaning Democrat, where Democratic candidate Annie Andrews is running.

Texas and North Carolina state and House results

Democrats captured the Texas House, Senate and governor's mansion, which gives the party unified control of state government in Texas for the first time since 1995. In North Carolina, Rep. Richard Hudson, chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, lost his own seat. Axios estimated the state's congressional delegation could shift from 10 Republicans and four Democrats to five Republicans and nine Democrats. Democrats were on track to win in North Carolina's 6th, 9th and 13th districts, Missouri's 2nd and Tennessee's 4th despite little support from national Democratic groups. AdImpact reported that Democrat Cyril Jefferson bought no advertising in the 6th district, while Victoria Broderick had spent $90,000 on her Tennessee 4th district campaign as of 14 October, according to her FEC filing, with no record of paid TV ads from AdImpact.

Florida's redrawn seats and Alabama

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the Republican-led legislature drew new House lines in 2026, creating districts numbered nine, 14, 22 and 25 that favored the GOP. Had those lines applied in 2024, Trump would have carried all but one by double digits and the last by about nine points. Democrats Kathy Castor, Pia Dandiya and Jared Moskowitz were projected to win the 14th, 22nd and 25th districts, and Darren Soto was leading in the ninth. Harvard election law professor Nicholas Stephanopoulos warned against reading too much into the Democratic wins in gerrymandered seats, posting on X:

“In a NEUTRAL environment, they'd be gaining around nine seats net.”

He added that the new maps would still perform better for Republicans than the old ones. In Alabama, Shomari Figures won a district drawn after a court ruled the earlier map diminished the influence of Black voters. This year the Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act provision behind that ruling, and Alabama restored its older map. Under those lines, Trump would have carried the district by 14 points in 2024, yet Figures won.

Florida tilt and a new Democratic class

Florida as a whole still leans right, with Republican Senator Ashley Moody narrowly winning reelection over Angie Nixon and Byron Donalds barely winning the governor's race. The BBC reported that Democrats were back on top in Miami-Dade County, which Trump carried in 2024, and that Hispanic voters in Florida who had backed Republicans two years earlier were returning to Democrats. In majority Black South Carolina counties, Annie Andrews was running well ahead of Kamala Harris's 2024 presidential numbers. The BBC cautioned that a good night in the East does not necessarily carry across the vast nation. The New York Times described a new class of Democrats elevated by the results, including a pediatrician, a pastor, a Paralympian and a former Navy helicopter pilot. The wins will also bring the nation its first Black female governor, its first openly gay man to serve in the Senate and its first Gen Z woman in Congress.