Republicans have wrested back control of the Senate after four years in the minority, positioning the GOP to play a massive role in nominations and in looming policy battles regardless of whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump emerges victorious in the presidential race.
It’s a massive if largely expected, win for the GOP, which invested heavily in candidate recruitment this cycle. Armed with a highly favorable map, national Republicans worked competitive primaries in battleground states, hoping to maximize their offensive strength in the general election. It worked.
Republicans flipped West Virginia early in the night and added Ohio to their column around 11:30 p.m. Republican Tim Sheehy has led in most recent polling in Montana, though it is too early for an official call there.
They have other possible pick-up opportunities in states like Wisconsin, Nevada, Michigan, Arizona, and Pennsylvania. But Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) both won reelection, closing off a path for Democrats to offset their losses by flipping a GOP-held seat.
The party will take control just as longtime GOP leader Mitch McConnell steps down from his role atop the conference, and it’s still unclear who will take his place. Elections for Senate GOP leadership are slated to occur next week, with two longtime McConnell allies, Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas), and conservative Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) running for what will become majority leader next term. Others could still jump into the election.
There is not yet a call in the presidential race, but if Harris wins, the chamber would become an instant logjam for her administration. Republicans have signaled they’ll even make Cabinet confirmations a fight, meaning any major policy initiatives from the current vice president would be an incredibly tough sell.
But a Republican-led Senate would be a boon to a Trump presidency, with the ability to confirm nominees and control legislation on the floor. The size of the majority will matter, since there are still several Republicans in the Senate that regularly broke with Trump during his presidential term, including Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. They’re likely to become outsized voices in this newfound Senate majority, especially if Trump is in the White House. However, if Republicans win more seats, those moderate voices will lose power on nominees and other items subject to a simple-majority threshold for passage.
Republican candidates in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan are leading as of early Wednesday and party operatives believe that their fates will largely depend on Trump’s performance. Democratic candidates in those states are largely not outrunning Harris. Wins in those three states could grow a GOP majority to 55 seats since Republicans are favored to win in Montana. In Arizona, Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego maintains a comfortable lead and no results are available in Nevada, which is notorious for counting ballots slowly.
Due to the 60-vote threshold for most legislation, the GOP will still have to work with Democrats on certain priorities. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is expected to stay on as the top Democrat in the chamber after four years leading the Senate; he had insisted until the end that his party would defy the odds, as it did in 2022 when Democrats gained a Senate seat.
The party knew this cycle was going to be tougher. They had two incumbent Democrats running in red states — Ohio and Montana — and Sen. Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.) opted for retirement, effectively handing Republicans that seat. The best pickup opportunities were in red states: Texas and Florida.
Still, the chamber — barring an all-out implosion of the filibuster — will require bipartisan collaboration to get most legislation through. That includes must-pass legislation that will come up next year, like government funding and raising the debt limit. Republicans have also insisted they want to tackle legislation addressing core conservative issues, a mission that would be aided by a Republican presidency and House, neither of which have been called yet. “As a new Republican Senate majority, our focus will be to take on an agenda that reflects America’s priorities — lower prices, less spending, secure borders, and American energy dominance,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), current GOP conference chair, said in a statement late Tuesday night.
With this cycle sealed, Democrats are expected to immediately go on the campaign offensive. The party has been salivating over potential pick-up opportunities in North Carolina and Texas in 2026 and has only a handful of competitive seats to defend, namely Georgia and Michigan.
Delaware State Sen. Sarah McBride, already the nation's highest-ranking openly transgender elected official, made history once again on Tuesday, becoming the first openly transgender person elected to the United States Congress.
She clinched Delaware’s lone House seat in a resounding victory, according to the Associated Press. While her win is a landmark moment for the transgender community, McBride, 34, was careful not to make her identity the centerpiece of her candidacy. “I’m not running to be the trans member of Congress,” McBride says in a sit-down interview with TIME in Dover, Del. two weeks before the election. “I’m running to be the best damn legislator that I can be.”
Still, her historic win comes at a time when transgender rights are under siege and the political discourse surrounding LGBTQ+ issues has reached new levels of polarization. This year alone, state legislatures have passed or proposed nearly 700 bills that seek to restrict transgender rights, from banning gender-affirming healthcare for minors to limiting trans participation in sports.
McBride ran on a platform focused on expanding access to healthcare, supporting paid family and medical leave, and addressing economic insecurity. Delaware is traditionally a blue state, and her campaign resonated with progressives and moderate Republicans who were drawn to her track record of bipartisanship and her commitment to pragmatic solutions. As a state senator, she worked with Republicans to pass a paid family and medical leave law in Delaware.
Once in Congress, she hopes to pass a similar paid family and medical leave law, as well as invest in universal child care and elder care. “We have a 1950s care infrastructure for a 2024 workforce,” she says. “I think we lose out as a nation from both a competitive standpoint and a compassion standpoint by lacking those policies. It would be my hope that a Democratic trifecta would not only prioritize but pass paid family medical leave and universal child care and historic investment in housing.”
McBride will enter Congress at a time of heightened political tension, particularly around transgender rights. Just days before her election, former President Donald Trump ramped up his attacks on transgender issues, including pledging to outlaw gender-affirming care for minors if re-elected. Far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia has called McBride’s campaign a “complete evil” and previously posted anti-trans signs across the hall from a lawmaker with a transgender child.
Asked how she would respond if another member of Congress mistreated her because of her identity, McBride says, “Their immaturity is not worthy of being dignified with a response. My focus is going to be doing the work. Are there going to be some members of Congress who are going to be weird and immature about me being there? Sure, but those are members of Congress that won't work with any Democrat and they can barely work with their own Republican colleagues.”
McBride knows all too well the personal risks that come with being a visible LGBTQ+ public figure. She says her safety and security were major considerations during her campaign and weighed on her when she thought about running for Congress. But “if I refrain from giving back to my state and this country because of risk,” McBride says, “then those who would seek to use the risk of violence to silence people, to push people into the shadows, will have won.”
McBride recognizes that the culture wars over transgender rights, particularly under a potential second Trump Administration, could make her job as a legislator even more difficult—but she plans to fight back by turning the focus away from herself and onto legislative issues. “The only people that really care about discriminating against trans people are the extreme elements of Donald Trump's base, a handful of immature politicians, and the dredges of the internet,” McBride says. “And I think what we have seen throughout the last several years is that this country does not hate trans people. It's a small number of politicians and activists who are taking their own insecurities and their own desperation and turning it into a political tactic, and I don't think it actually carries the day.”
While McBride’s personal story has garnered much of the national attention, she wants her work in Congress to be remembered for its focus on issues that directly impact her constituents. She plans to join both the New Democrat Coalition, which advocates for centrist policies, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus, whose members push for bold progressive reforms.
She has also long been an advocate for trans rights. In 2013, she played a key role in advocating for the Delaware bill that protected transgender people from discrimination, and in 2016, she became the first transgender person to speak at a major political convention when she delivered a powerful speech at the Democratic National Convention. In her 2018 memoir, Tomorrow Will Be Different, McBride recounts her personal struggles and triumphs as a transgender woman, chronicling her journey toward self-acceptance and the fight for trans rights.
“If there's one thing beyond the tangible policies I can contribute in the House,” McBride says, “and I know people might not expect this—it's that I want to help bring down the temperature. I want to model for this country what it means to be an active citizen, and that is to have conversations across disagreements and differences. Our democracy only works if we are willing to engage with one another and maintain our bonds with one another, and I know it's hard right now to do that… I hope to be part of healing and bridging the divides in our politics.”
From the early hours as the first polls opened to the late-night anticipation of results streaming in, photographers across the United States are capturing a visual chronicle of Election Day. While navigating the repetitive scenes of voting lines and election night watch parties, they attempt to find compelling images as the evening rolls on.
Below is a selection of the strongest and most striking images from this Election Day, as Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are essentially tied in the polls.
The photographs capture the anxieties, uncertainty, and excitement of a day like no other.
Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert has won her congressional race in Colorado's 4th district.
The controversial rightwing lawmaker, who was first elected to Congress in 2020, won the race against Jeff Hurd, according to the Associated Press.
Boebert will begin her third term as a Colorado representative, but this time for a different district. She announced at the end of 2023 that she would switch districts after winning her seat in the 3rd district by just 546 votes in 2022, putting herself in a safer race to stay in Congress. The 4th district went for Donald Trump by 15 points in 2020.
The move proved a successful strategy, ensuring another term for Boebert despite a series of controversies in the run-up to the election. She made headlines in September 2023 after she was removed from a Denver theater at a showing of ‘Beetlejuice’ for allegedly “vaping, singing [and] causing a disturbance.” She was also granted a temporary restraining order against her ex-husband in February. Boebert nodded to the controversies in a video announcing her plans to run in the 4th District, saying that it will be a “fresh start” for her following a difficult year.
“Since the first day I ran for public office I promised I would do whatever it takes to stop the socialists and communists from taking over our country,” Boebert said when she announced her plan to run in the 4th District.
Boebert captured national attention as an unpredictable, pro-gun, anti-abortion political outsider— receiving a fine after flouting mask and vaccine mandates in the Capitol and feuding with Capitol police after attempting to carry a gun into House chambers during her first year. She has been a staunch supporter of Trump and the MAGA movement, amplifying Trump’s baseless election fraud claims and calling for the impeachment of President Joe Biden.
California voters approved a ballot measure that would reclassify some misdemeanor theft and drug crimes as felonies, essentially undoing a previous ballot measure that big-box retailers and law enforcement officials have long blamed for increases in theft, property crime, and homelessness.
Voters approved state Proposition 36 by a whopping margin of 40 percentage points, or 70.6% to 29.4%, according to unofficial results from Tuesday’s general election. The ballot measure needed only a simple majority (50% plus one vote) to pass. The race was called by the New York Times and the San Francisco Chronicle shortly after 9 p.m.
In 2014, voters passed Prop. 47, which aimed to curb overcrowding in California’s prisons by turning some drug and theft crimes into misdemeanors. Among other things, the measure famously said shoplifters who stole $950 or less in goods from stores could only be charged with a misdemeanor, whereas in the past, prosecutors could charge those offenders with a felony.
Under Prop. 36, the theft of $950 of goods or less from stores is now classified as a felony punishable by up to three years if the offender has “two or more past convictions for certain theft crimes (such as shoplifting, burglary or carjacking).” It also lengthens felony sentences by up to three years if at least three people jointly commit a theft or property crime, and requires that some felonies — such as dealing drugs like fentanyl — be served in state prison and not county jail.
The measure also establishes a new category of crime, called “treatment-mandated felony,” which allows those charged with drug possession who don’t contest the charges to complete drug treatment and have their charges dismissed instead of being incarcerated. However, if they don’t finish treatment, they could serve in state prison for up to three years.
The push to undo Prop. 47 was led by prosecutors, police departments, and retailers who blamed it for a surge in commercial burglary — such as smash-and-grab crimes — and shoplifting. Indeed, a study by the Public Policy Institute of California that examined shoplifting and commercial burglaries after the passage of Prop. 47 found that, while commercial burglaries had gone down, the rate of reported shoplifting incidents in 2023 had reached its highest level since 2000, and that such crimes occurred most in Alameda, Los Angeles, Sacramento, and San Mateo counties.
The critics of Prop. 36, a coalition made up of nonprofit groups, advocacy organizations, elected officials (including Gov. Gavin Newsom), and other community leaders, said the measure would reignite the failed war on drugs while contributing to the prison overcrowding that spurred the passage of Prop. 47 in the first place. They also said the measure would gut funding earmarked for rehabilitation services meant to keep people from reoffending.
But the results of Tuesday’s election show that voters overwhelmingly didn’t buy that argument.
All told, supporters of Prop. 36 raised about $16.8 million to get it passed, while its opponents raised $7.7 million to defeat it, according to figures from CalMatters.