Democrats are building their largest House majority in more than 15 years, heading into the final half of the second Trump administration.

Read Online | November 5, 2026 | E-Paper | 🎧 Listen

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Cathy He

Politics Editor

Good morning, it’s Thursday. After Democrats’ major midterm sweep, Republicans are offering sobering assessments of their bruising loss.

Vice President JD Vance pointed it squarely at the Iran war. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, describing the rout as the “political equivalent of a meteor strike,” said results were votes against Republicans in Washington, rather than votes for Democratic policies, and blamed the GOP for not capitalizing on kitchen table issues.

Exit polling shows that voters rejected Republican candidates because of concerns about the cost of living and Iran.

Those concerns and others propelled massive swings toward Democrats in deep red regions and among certain demographics, such as young men and Hispanics.

President Donald Trump acknowledged the war and high gas prices played a part in the results. Still, he wouldn’t have done anything differently, he said yesterday, reiterating that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon. The president has expressed optimism about working with Democrats in his final two years of office, while saying he’s also prepared to be “Mr. Veto.”

Meanwhile, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) looks to be on a glide path to become speaker, leading a large Democratic caucus (currently at 240 seats with 48 races uncalled). He formally launched his bid yesterday and outlined Democrats’ 100-day agenda focused on accountability and affordability.

Asked about calls within his caucus to impeach Trump, Jeffries said no House Democrat had raised impeachment with him. Other House Democrats, though, have zeroed in on Secretary of War Pete Hegseth as an impeachment target.

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TOP STORY

People are silhouetted in front of a voting results graph during a Democratic midterm election night watch party at the Long Center for the Performing Arts in Austin, Texas, on Nov. 3, 2026. (Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP via Getty Images)

The Biggest Shifts That Fueled the Blue Wave

Democrats defied expectations and expanded into deep-red territory on Nov. 3, fracturing President Donald Trump’s coalition and delivering double-digit swings in key demographics that drove his 2024 victory.

Democrats gained control of Congress, picking up at least seven Senate seats: Maine, Ohio, Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kansas, and Iowa.

More wins are possible, as Democratic candidates hold narrow leads in undeclared races in Alaska and Mississippi. The party reached a 237-seat House majority with 59 races yet to be called.

“We haven’t seen a Congress that looks like this since the ’90s. I think this will go down as one of the most impactful election landslides we’ve seen since the 1970s when the Watergate class entered Congress,” Aaron Dusso, an associate professor of political science at Indiana University–Indianapolis, told The Epoch Times.

These are the biggest shifts that carried Democrats to a 2026 midterm victory.

Democrats Expand Map Into Red Territory

One of the early wins for Democrats was a South Carolina Senate victory for the first time since 1998, ousting Sen. Darline Graham (R-S.C.), who had been recently appointed to finish the unexpired term of her deceased brother, Lindsey Graham.

Democrats flipped several other Senate seats across the South and Midwest in states that had supported Trump in three presidential contests: North Carolina, Texas, Kansas, Iowa, and Ohio.

Those losses reflected a rejection of Trump and Republicans “by extension,” Joshua Koss, an assistant professor of political science at Eastern Michigan University, told The Epoch Times.

Democrats had campaigned in the red states on affordability and the Iran war, and criticized Republicans for giving Trump a “blank check,” Koss said. (More)

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POLITICS

A supporter with the Billionaire Tax Now coalition holds a placard during a media briefing in Los Angeles on April 27, 2026. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)

Beyond Congress, voters also decided on a host of ballot measures, including a billionaire tax, limiting property taxes, gun measures, and voter ID. Here are some key results.
The blue wave hit gubernatorial races too, with Democrats winning a majority of governorships for the first time in 20 years. Texas state Rep. Gina Hinojosa ousted Gov. Greg Abbott, and Keisha Lance Bottoms, former mayor of Atlanta, defeated businessman Rick Jackson to flip Georgia’s governor’s mansion blue.
Republican redistricting efforts seem to have backfired in several states, with more than 10 of those seats going to Democrats.
First Lady Melania Trump and Louisiana State University have secured $5 million in philanthropic donations to establish a permanent endowment fund for students from foster care to attend LSU.

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WORLD

Pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong speaks to the media outside the Legislative Council in Hong Kong on Oct. 29, 2019. (Sung Pi-lung/The Epoch Times)

Joshua Wong, a prominent former student leader of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, was sentenced to nine years and 10 months in prison, following his second conviction under a Beijing-imposed national security law that has been used to arrest many of the city’s prominent activists critical of the Chinese communist regime.
Chinese health authorities reported one death from the plague but didn’t disclose any further details, following the death last month of a worker at an anti-plague institute in Siberia.
A cyberattack against the refrigerator systems of France’s public blood service was recently thwarted, officials said, the incident coming after supermarkets across Europe reported that their cooling equipment was targeted by hackers.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog has accepted the certified results of Israel’s national election, despite claims of fraud and foreign interference by sitting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
China has dispatched more than 100 navy and other vessels across the western Pacific, according to a senior Taiwanese official.

OPINION

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Construction workers raise the final steel beam during construction of the White House ballroom at an event with President Donald Trump in Washington on Nov. 4, 2026. Trump signed the beam during the ceremony. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

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MUSIC

Ray Chen plays the solo in Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E Minor, with the orchestra conducted by Sakari Oramo. (Cbusram/CC BY 4.0)

Tune in Today: Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E Minor Is a Jewel

In July of 1838, German composer Felix Mendelssohn wrote to his friend and colleague, violinist Ferdinand David: “I should like to write a violin concerto for you next winter. One in E minor runs through my head, the beginning of which gives me no peace.” David was concertmaster of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, and Mendelssohn was its principal conductor.

“Next winter” came and went without a new concerto, but the melody that ran through Mendelssohn’s head never left him.

In the six years between the onset of this fortuitous earworm and the completion of his Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in E minor in 1844, Mendelssohn was a busy man indeed.

He conducted the premieres of symphonies by Schubert and Schumann and of operas by Donizetti, Verdi, and Wagner; founded the Leipzig Conservatory of Music; composed among other works his now-famous incidental music for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” including the well-known Wedding March, a cello sonata, a piano trio, his “Scottish” Symphony and two volumes of “Songs without Words” for piano; and was welcomed to Buckingham Palace, where he so charmed Queen Victoria that she sang songs composed by him and his sister Fanny, to his accompaniment. During this period, he also fathered four children.

Little wonder that the concerto took its time emerging.

Throughout the concerto’s gestation, Mendelssohn was in constant touch with David, requesting and receiving advice on technical matters concerning the violin’s capabilities. Some believe that the concerto’s complex and innovative cadenza—which Mendelssohn placed in the middle of the first movement rather than the movement’s end—was co-composed by David. (More)

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Have a wonderful day!

—Cathy He, Madalina Hubert, and Kenzi Li.

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