US midterm elections: Democrats close to a majority in the House of Representatives

Democrats are aiming to take the Senate and win back the House of Representatives

The US midterm elections, according to preliminary vote counts in the eastern part of the country, are shaping up in favor of the Democratic Party. BBC North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher writes that it is already a very good night for Democrats: two Senate races that a year ago were considered competitive have ended in confident Democratic victories — the re-election of Jon Ossoff in Georgia and the open seat in North Carolina, where former Democratic governor Roy Cooper defeated the Republicans' party operative Michael Whatley. This is the first of the four wins Democrats need to control the Senate; attention has now shifted to Republican seats in Texas, Kansas and Ohio, where counting is under way. According to CBS News, a BBC partner, the race in South Carolina is tilting toward the Democrats, a result the author calls stunning.

Florida: redistricting did not work, but the state as a whole remains right-leaning

The House of Representatives offers a telling example from Florida: Republicans in the state legislature redrew three districts held by Democrats to make them easier to capture — and lost all three. Other districts where Republicans had expected comfortable victories turned into contests. Democrats also took an open seat in western North Carolina and, according to the author, have chances of success in Virginia, Kentucky and Indiana; in competitive districts they are close to a House majority for the first time since 2022. At the same time, Zurcher notes, Florida as a whole still leans right: Republican senator Ashley Moody narrowly won re-election, and Byron Donalds won the gubernatorial race.

Turnout and electoral shifts

The Democrats' success is linked to high turnout, especially among Black voters in the South, and the return of Florida's Latino voters, who had backed Republicans two years ago. In South Carolina districts with majority Black populations, Senate candidate Annie Andrews is running noticeably ahead of Kamala Harris's 2024 presidential results, and in Miami-Dade County, which Trump won back then, Democrats are again in front. The author nevertheless stresses that a strong result in the East will not necessarily repeat across the country — even electoral waves break differently in different places. Results in a number of states, including the aforementioned Texas, Kansas and Ohio, remained undetermined at the time of publication.

Image source, Reuters