Live updates: 2026 US midterm elections and results

Some votes are still being counted - here's the current state of play published at 07:08 GMT The Democrats have won the Senate and the House in US midterm elections, taking control of Congress for the rest of Donald Trump's presidency. While we know that the party will be the majority in Congress in January, we're still waiting on the results of multiple races.

Most of the 435 House races were called on Wednesday, but outstanding results remain for some 24 races. This includes in Tennesse , Louisiana and Virginia where the vote is too close to call. Others that are yet to be called include districts in Arizona , California and Colorado.

Meanwhile in the Senate, two tight races are still under way in Mississippi and Alaska . It could take weeks before we know the results in Alaska, which is one of the most competitive seats in the country. The expected delay is partly because Alaska has ranked-choice ballots, where voters can select more than one candidate in order of preference.

Hakeem Jeffries vows to take on 'Trump Cartel' as he makes bid for House Speaker published at 06:49 GMT Image source, Reuters Hakeem Jeffries, the current House minority leader, has announced his candidacy for Speaker of the House. If elected, Jeffries would be the first black speaker in US history.

The Democrats will control Congress in January, meaning that a representative from the party would become speaker. The speaker operates not only as the leader of the House of Representatives, but also as leader of the majority party. In a letter to colleagues, Jeffries writes: "Against all odds, House Democrats were consistently successful in the minority.

We must now deliver the dramatic change the American people are demanding in the majority." He says that the newly-elected Congress must "aggressively fight for an affordable America," later adding that people "are suffering. Everyday Americans can’t thrive and can barely survive." Jeffries adds: "The days of the House functioning like a wholly owned subsidiary of the Trump Administration are over.

Congress will assume its place as a check and balance on an out-of-control executive branch." Referring to the "Trump Cartel", the representative for New York says that anyone "stealing from the American people, ripping off the American people or screwing over the American people can no longer hide.

We are going to hold the crooks accountable." Currently, the speaker is Republican Mike Johnson. The speaker ranks third in the US presidential succession order, following the vice-president. Jeffries does not step into the role automatically as the present minority leader - he would need to be elected by the House of Representatives.

Democrats eye cost of living after historic win as Republicans search for answers published at 06:01 GMT The fallout from the Democrats' resounding victory in the US midterms continues - here's the latest: Democrats lay out priorities: Senior party figures have pointed to high prices, the Iran war and accountability as issues they plan to tackle after flipping Congress - but marked political differences between the newly elected Democrats may make it harder to deliver what they’ve promised, our North America editor reports Republican blame game begins: After the party’s historic defeat, Vice-President JD Vance has squarely pointed to the Iran war as "the reason we lost".

Donald Trump conceded this was "largely true" but said he would "do it again" if he had to Vance’s comments sent shockwaves through the US capital and were widely seen as a move to distance himself from the president, our Washington correspondent writes Oil falls and markets up: Global oil prices have fallen to their lowest level in two months while stock markets closed higher following the Democrats' victory.

Traders are betting that the results will lead to an end or de-escalation of the war with Iran, our business reporter writes Knife-edge counts in final Senate races: Just a few hundred votes separate the Republican incumbents and their Democratic challengers in traditionally red Mississippi and closely fought Alaska , where the slow count continues - click through to hear our reporters explain what's at stake More results to come: Dozens of House and two gubernatorial races are also still to be called - you can follow the latest on our results page Oil prices fall further published at 05:40 GMT Peter Hoskins Business reporter, Singapore Image source, Bloomberg via Getty Images Global oil prices are losing more ground as traders bet that the midterm results will lead to an end or de-escalation of the war with Iran.

On Thursday afternoon in Asia, Brent crude was 0.9% lower at $93.74, while US-traded oil was down by almost 1.5% at $86.83. Oil prices tumbled by more than 8% on Wednesday after Vice-President JD Vance blamed the impact of the conflict on fuel prices for Republican defeats in the elections.

As we reported earlier, oil prices have fallen to their lowest level in two months. Democrats vow to tackle high prices but must work out how they can deliver published at 05:14 GMT Sarah Smith North America editor in Washington DC After their thumping victories, the Democrats now need to work out how to deliver what they have promised the American people.

Hakeem Jeffries, the Democrat leader in the House of Representatives who is likely to become its first black speaker, has said his party would focus on affordability and accountability - acting as a check on what he called an out-of-control executive branch. "We don't work for Donald Trump," he said.

"We don't work for JD Vance. We don't work for the Supreme Court. We work for the American people.

And the days of the House of Representatives functioning like a wholly owned subsidiary of the Trump administration are over." Meanwhile, Democrats Senate leader Chuck Schumer has promised to make ending the war with Iran a priority. He said cutting off funding to the Department of Defense could be considered if this were the only way to bring about a swift end to the conflict.

There are some marked political differences between the newly elected Democrats, who include some prominent left wingers now making their way to Congress. Significant divisions - especially over policy toward Israel - may surface, making it harder for the Democrats to make good on their promises.

Who is the Democrats' Mississippi hopeful Scott Colom? published at 04:47 GMT Ana Faguy Reporting from Washington DC Image source, Getty Images All eyes are on Mississippi right now, where just over 1,100 votes separate Cindy Hyde-Smith, the Republican incumbent, and Scott Colom, her Democratic challenger - who are vying to represent their state in the Senate.

Cindy Hyde-Smith was the first woman to represent Mississippi in the US Congress, after being elected in 2018. While we wait for all the ballots to be counted - and it could take a little while - here's what you need to know about her opponent: He currently works as a District Attorney and previously was a prosecutor and judge President Joe Biden nominated Colom to be a federal judge in the Northern District of Mississippi but his nomination was blocked in the US Senate by Hyde-Smith While the Mississippi Senate race was not on the radar for many Americans, some big name Democrats appeared to see the potential victory in recent weeks, with former President Bill Clinton, former Vice-President Kamala Harris and Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock all campaigning on his behalf When Hyde-Smith dismissed Mississippians' frustrations about high beef prices and suggested residents of her state "pick another protein", Colom took the remarks and ran, turning them into a television advert telling Mississippians to "pick another Senator" - which gained traction nationally If Colom wins, he’ll be the first Mississippi Democrat elected to the US Senate in nearly 40 years and he will be the state’s first Black senator since Reconstruction Colom is a seventh-generation Mississippian and father of two Media caption, When to expect Senate results from the tight race in Mississippi Midterm results a 'victory' for Canadians hopeful of tariff relief published at 04:18 GMT Nadine Yousif Senior Canada reporter Image source, Getty Images Image caption, Office of the Prime Minister and Privy Council in Ottawa, Canada It was the midterm result that many in Canada had hoped for - a Democratic sweep that was in part a repudiation by American voters of Donald Trump's tariffs on close trade allies.

"I was doing cartwheels down the street," said Ontario Premier Doug Ford on Wednesday morning, calling it "a victory for Canada". Tuesday night's result is unlikely to grant Canada relief from those tariffs any time soon, but there is anticipation that the political shifts could create a more favourable environment for Ottawa to get the best deal now that trade talks are back on.

Democratic leaders like Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, now newly empowered, have both pushed to rein in the tariffs on Canada in recent months. Still, Democratic control of Congress might not do much to move the needle on tariffs. Trump's levies have been largely enacted using executive orders without approval from Congress.

Democrats' sweeping election win leaves Alaska as 'nice to have' published at 03:55 GMT We're still waiting on the results of Alaska's Senate race, where Democrat Mary Peltola leads Republican incumbent Dan Sullivan by some 600 votes. But following the Democrats' resounding result on election night, the race that they were determined to win has become a "nice to have", reports North America correspondent Shaimaa Khalil.

Finger pointing has begun inside the Republican Party published at 03:31 GMT Will Grant BBC correspondent After its most bruising night in more than 30 years, the introspection – and finger pointing – have begun inside the Republican Party Voters across the country had made it clear their ballots would be a reckoning for Trump's decision to go to war with Iran.

Now some of his closest allies are distancing themselves from the conflict, most noticeably Vice-President JD Vance. "The reason we lost is the war," he wrote on social media. "And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there." It was a point which Trump begrudgingly accepted as he spoke to journalists at the construction site of a new ballroom at the White House.

But he insisted he still would not have done anything differently. "You can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon," he said. Many interpret the vice-president's comments as an unofficial launch of his own presidential bid in 2028.

The results are also being seen as a sign that the US is witnessing the beginning of the end of the MAGA movement under Trump. 'Texas is blue - that is a hard sentence to utter', says Senator Ted Cruz published at 03:08 GMT Image source, Getty Images Republican Texas Senator Ted Cruz says the midterm results amount not just to a "blue wave", but a "blue tsunami".

"Nowhere are the consequences of this election greater than Texas," he writes on social media, after the state elected a Democrat to the Senate for the first time in decades in 37-year-old James Talarico . Democrat Gina Hinojosa also ousted Greg Abbott, one of the nation's most high-profile Republican governors.

Pointing to the cost of living and poverty, Cruz says there was "very real pain from real Americans, and too many Republican politicians seem like they didn't understand or they didn't care". "Texas is blue. That is a hard sentence to utter," he writes, and says the Republicans need to rebuild as a "true blue-collar party" after losing core support among rural communities, Hispanic voters and young people.

Republicans bent the rules to beat this Democrat. He still won published at 02:34 GMT Brandon Drenon US reporter Image source, Getty Images Image caption, Alabama Congressman Shomari Figures Democrat Shomari Figures won re-election to Congress in Alabama, despite having to run in a district that Republican state lawmakers specifically designed to defeat him .

"We never felt that we were an underdog in this race," Figures told the BBC, after his victory in a district that Trump won in 2024 by double digits. The Alabama Democrat was one of several candidates targeted this election in a process called redistricting – or gerrymandering – where lines on voting maps are redrawn, often to favour one party.

Both Democrats and Republicans employed the tactic this election cycle, but Republicans led the way, heeding a direct request from Trump. But the move backfired. Texas, which redistricted five congressional seats to Republicans' advantage, lost four of those seats to Democrats, and Florida Republicans are on track to lose all four seats they redrew.

Asked about Democrats' sweeping victories, Figures said: "I think people are just tired, man. They're tired of the overall economy. They're tired of being lied to.

They're tired of the country kind of being run like it’s a reality show." Why is the Senate race so close in Republican stronghold Mississippi? published at 02:09 GMT Just hundreds of votes separate the candidates in Mississippi's Senate race, which has become an unlikely battleground in traditionally Republican territory.

The BBC's Carl Nasman looks at how we got here and when the results might be called. Voter backlash to AI data centres a surprise, says OpenAI president published at 01:53 GMT Lily Jamali North America Technology Correspondent Image source, Reuters Image caption, Greg Brockman at a dinner with Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago in October OpenAI president and co-founder Greg Brockman has said he was caught off guard by the backlash to data centres in these elections.

"I don't think anyone could say they were not surprised by that," Brockman said while speaking at the WSJ Tech conference in California on Wednesday. "It is definitely an issue that's very singular. No-one's ever seen something like that in American politics." "A lot of our shift over the course of this year has really been to realise that, from San Francisco trying to build infrastructure in Texas, Georgia, and other places, you can’t just tweet and say, like, 'this is going to be good'.

"You need to be in those communities," Brockman continued. "We need to do a better job of really communicating to people, to local communities, about why data centres can be beneficial to them." Democrats extend narrow lead in Mississippi Senate race published at 01:32 GMT Mississippi's Senate race remains on a knife-edge with some 96% of the votes counted.

The latest tally shows Democratic candidate Scott Colom leading by a margin of 1,138, - about 0.1% of the total votes - as of about an hour ago. An hour before that, his lead on Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith was just 65 votes. How the Hispanic vote changed the course of the Texas election published at 00:56 GMT Gary O'Donoghue Chief North America correspondent in Austin, Texas I first met Mario Guerrero, a businessman who lives in South Texas near the Mexican border, a few weeks ago.

He has voted for President Donald Trump three times. The main issues on his mind during those elections? Immigration and border security.

But years later, those same issues have driven him to flip his ballot. He voted Democrat in yesterday's midterm election, which sent Texas Democrats to the US Senate and governor's office for the first time in decades. Guerrero tells me today he doesn't necessarily identify with either party, and Democrats will still have to prove themselves.

"I don't think that anybody gets a free pass here. Just because they (Democrats) won doesn't mean that it's all sunshine and rainbows. There's work we have to do," he says.

But "the immigration enforcement has been something that's been mishandled by the current administration," he tells me. And he's not alone. Hispanic voters in Texas have voted for Democrat James Talarico over Republican Ken Paxton by two to one, according to voter poll data.

This group previously backed Donald Trump in the 2024 Presidential election. Now many say the "cruelty" of US immigration enforcement has pushed them away from the Republican Party. Read more here on how the tide change in the state began .

Expensive Republican campaigns did not pay off in some Senate races published at 00:29 GMT Jake Horton BBC News This year’s midterms campaign is set to be the most expensive ever - with most of that money being spent on advertising. The top five Senate races for ad spending were in the battleground states of Ohio, Texas, Michigan, Iowa and Maine, as of the end of October according to advert tracking firm AdImpact , external .

The Republican candidates are projected to lose every one of those. That's despite spending more than $280m (£207m) more than their Democratic opponents across the five contests. In total, the Republican campaigns spent about $960m (£713m) on advertising in those unsuccessful Senate races.

The biggest spending gap was in Texas - where Democratic candidate James Talarico was outspent by more than $140m (£103m) by Republican candidate Ken Paxton on ads. Talarico is set to win that race by more than 10 percentage points. The only contest in which the Republican was outspent was in Iowa - where Democratic candidate Josh Turek is set to win by about five points.

Mail-in ballots being counted by hand in some close-call races published at 00:12 GMT Though we know the overall results of the midterm elections already, there are a few races that are still too close to call. In states like Mississippi, where the Senate race had come down to a razor-thin margin of votes, it could take a week to know who won as mail-in ballots continue to arrive.

In some places, these ballots are hand counted. In Los Angeles, California, officials are still counting ballots to determine who will be the next mayor. Take a look: Image source, Getty Images Image source, Getty Images Image source, Getty Images Democrat candidate 1,138 votes ahead in razor thin Mississippi race published at 00:04 GMT A little bit ago, we told you that more votes were not expected to be tallied in the Mississippi Senate race today, according to Mississippi's Democratic Party chairman.

But we've just had more numbers in, showing that Democratic candidate Scott Colom has widened his lead. He is now ahead by 1,138 votes, according to data from the Associated Press. Cindy Hyde-Smith, the Republican incumbent, has 48.9% of the vote.

Colom has 49%. Counting is ongoing. Market perception crystalises post-election - it will have a real-world impact published at 23:57 GMT 4 November Faisal Islam Economics editor At first markets did not quite know how to react to the Democrats' "blue wave".

The significant market reaction crystallised after Vice-President JD Vance’s remarkable social media message suggested lost voters wanted to "end the war". Crude oil markets had been factoring in a chance of a significant escalation in the Iran war in the coming days and weeks, pushing up the oil price close to $117 (£86.82) late last week.

Today saw a significant 8-9% on-the-day fall in Brent crude to below $95 (£70.49) a barrel. It showed market belief that the manner of the Democrat sweep would serve to restrain the president. Trump still has the formal power to decide on military action, but this was an historic electoral loss directly driven by cost-of-living pressure, in turn inextricably linked to his war choices.

The markets may be wrong or right, but even this market perception will have a real-world impact. Already European gas prices, and US fuel prices have also fallen back. It is worth remembering that in the UK an expected increase in interest rates tomorrow has been explicitly linked to expectations of higher inflation from a longer Gulf War.

It is a reminder that the rest of the world is waiting on the president. In his message to voters, Vance is also making a pitch for 2028 published at 23:36 GMT 4 November Tom Bateman Reporting from Columbus, Ohio Image source, Reuters Vance is telling Republicans not to get angry at the defeat but to win the argument.

His lengthy post is saying his party lost because it abandoned its basic promise to voters in 2024 to bring down prices and avoid foreign wars. But the movement has also been at odds with itself over all this for the last year or so. A row broke out among MAGA Republicans, involving some of the movement’s key influencers, over support for Trump’s policies on the Iran war and US backing for Israel.

Vance opposed the war. He’s implying those, like Tucker Carlson, who implied it would tank Trump’s presidency are being proved right. His rallying cry distances him from the president and tries to burnish his credentials for “America First” retrenchment.

Make no mistake, this is the start of his pitch as battle begins for the succession to Trump. But it will have to play with a wounded president still stuck by the ongoing crisis he created in the Middle East, a stalemated war with Iran.