WASHINGTON — Democrats won control of the Senate on Tuesday, sending shockwaves through Washington on a historic night that saw them flip seats in deep-red states such as Texas, South Carolina and Kansas.

Just after 11:30 p.m. Eastern time, when The Associated Press projected the chamber to flip, Senate Democrats had wrested six seats from Republicans — a stunning result that gives the party new powers to confront President Donald Trump in his final two years in office.

Winning the Senate was considered an unlikely prospect for Democrats at the beginning of the year, given the number of red states they needed to compete in. But strong candidate recruitment and a favorable political environment put the chamber within Democrats’ grasp.

With their majority, Democrats are expected to serve as a significant check on Trump, who could now have a more difficult time advancing his nominees through the chamber.

“Against all odds, we Democrats have won the Senate, and we have five words for the American people: Relief is on the way,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer said Thursday night in Washington.

“The American people reduced the red brick wall to a pile of bricks,” the New York Democrat added. “As a result, there is now a generational remake of the Senate map that is going to change America now and on into the future.”

Path to the majority

The Democratic path to the majority ran through several deep-red states that have proved hostile to the party in recent years and that Trump carried by double digits in 2024.

In Texas, state Rep. James Talarico defeated scandal-plagued Republican state Attorney General Ken Paxton, becoming the first Democrat to win a Senate election in the Lone Star State since 1988. Paxton had defeated Republican incumbent John Cornyn in a primary runoff earlier this year.

In perhaps the biggest shocker of the night, South Carolina Democrat Annie Andrews defeated appointed Sen. Darline Graham, a shocking flip in a state that last elected a Democratic senator in 1998. Graham was appointed to the Senate in July after the death of her brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham, and ran for the full term with Trump’s strong endorsement.

And the longest Senate drought in the country ended Tuesday when Democrat Adam Hamilton, pastor of the nation’s largest United Methodist church, unseated Republican Sen. Roger Marshall in Kansas, a state that had not elected a Democrat to the Senate in 94 years.

Other flips came in onetime battleground states that had turned decidedly red in recent cycles. In Ohio, Democratic former Sen. Sherrod Brown defeated Sen. Jon Husted, who was appointed to the Senate to complete the unfinished term of Vice President JD Vance. And in Iowa, Democratic state Rep. Josh Turek defeated Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson to succeed retiring GOP Sen. Joni Ernst.

The night began strongly for the party, with key holds in Georgia, where Sen. Jon Ossoff easily dispatched GOP Rep. Mike Collins, and New Hampshire, where Rep. Chris Pappas defeated a comeback bid by former Sen. John E. Sununu.

Former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper also gave Democrats their first flip of the night, defeating Republican Michael Whatley, the former Republican National Committee chairman.

Democrats also held the open seat in Minnesota, with Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan prevailing over former NFL sideline reporter Michele Tafoya.

The majority agenda

A Democratic majority in the Senate would run into a president who has said he would become “Mr. Veto” against any legislation coming out of chambers controlled by the opposition party.

With Trump in that position, Democrats will likely push “for legislation that may set the agenda for the future in case a Democrat’s elected in 2028,” according to Christian Grose, a professor of political science and public policy at the University of Southern California.

With control of the Senate, Democrats are also poised to block Trump’s nominees, escalating the opposition they mounted while in the minority during his first two years back in office.

“Very few of them are going to get through,” Schumer told Semafor in October. “It’s the quality of the candidate that matters. Thus far, Trump has a record of notoriously bad candidates.”

Those nominees would likely extend from the Cabinet to the judicial branch, potentially even hindering passage of a Supreme Court pick in case of a vacancy.

Schumer told reporters ahead of the October recess: “The bottom line is, one of the reasons we want to do everything we can to take back the Senate is not let Trump put such horrible justices — MAGA justices — on the Supreme Court and the lower courts.”

Other Democrats have agreed with that sentiment and pointed to 2016, when Mitch McConnell led the Senate and blocked the confirmation of President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. That left the seat open for more than a year, with Trump eventually filling the spot with Neil Gorsuch.

As Sen. Reuben Gallego, D-Ariz., told reporters recently: “We’ve got to do exactly what McConnell did to us.”

Senate Democrats will also gain subpoena power, bolstering their ability to investigate Trump and his administration. Those investigations could include his handling of the conflict in Iran, his family’s business ties and wealth gains while in office, or his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

“We have a real duty to investigate all of this just absolutely blatant corruption that’s so dangerous to our national security,” Senate Judiciary member Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said in September, shortly after reporting emerged about wedding after-party celebrations for Trump’s eldest son, which were financed by a Russian businessman with ties to the Kremlin.

While Democrats in Congress could in theory pursue a third impeachment against the president, the appetite to seal the deal in the Senate would likely fall short, given they would need 67 votes to convict.

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