Democrats win South Carolina Senate seat in Trump rebuke

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Democrat Annie Andrews has won South Carolina's US Senate seat, a stunning victory over President Donald Trump's hand-picked candidate Darline Graham in a state that he carried by nearly 18 percentage points just two years ago.

Ms Andrews' win, along with Democrat Roy Cooper's win in the North Carolina's Senate race, gave the party two of the four seats it needs to net in order to take control of the chamber. The results also suggested that a Democratic wave was growing large enough to swamp even deeply Republican areas.

It was still too early to determine whether Democrats would be able to replicate those performances in the other critical races that will determine the Senate majority, including Alaska, Iowa, Michigan, Maine, Ohio and Texas, with millions of votes still uncounted in those states.

Ms Andrews, a pediatrician, is the first Democrat to win a Senate seat in South Carolina in 28 years, after a race that neither Democrats nor Republicans considered competitive until recent weeks.

After the death of his ally, US Senator Lindsey Graham, Mr Graham's sister Darline was appointed to fill his seat and Mr Trump encouraged her to run for a full six-year term. But her political inexperience proved a liability.

Democrats also held onto Senate seats in Georgia and New Hampshire, both races that were once considered competitive but moved out of reach for Republicans amid Mr Trump's declining approval ratings.

Rebuke to Trump

"In sweeping and decisive victories, the American people have rebuked the depravity, corruption and incompetence of the man named President Donald J. Trump," incumbent Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff, the projected winner in Georgia, told supporters at a victory party.

In Florida, Republican Senator Ashley Moody fended off Democrat Angie Nixon but was ahead by only about 3 percentage points in a state Mr Trump carried by 13 points in 2024, according to a vote count compiled by Reuters and USA Today, further evidence that even solidly Republican states were shifting dramatically toward Democrats.

Democrats held onto three House districts in Florida that Republican politicians had redrawn earlier this year, all of which backed Mr Trump by at least 9 percentage points. The fate of the House overall remained uncertain, with the majority of races still uncalled.

Midterm elections are typically viewed as a referendum on the president, and that is especially true for Mr Trump, who dominates attention like no other politician. Mr Trump himself told his supporters to "pretend I'm on the ballot" and held dozens of rallies in the closing weeks.

According to exit polls conducted by SSRS on behalf of a consortium of US media outlets including major television networks and the Associated Press, half of voters nationwide said they saw the 2026 midterm elections as an opportunity to rebuke the president, and three-quarters said they are "angry" or "dissatisfied" with the way the country is headed.

In addition, 70% of voters surveyed said they want Congress to provide more checks and balances on the president.

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History is against Republicans, as the sitting president's party has lost ground in Congress in all but two midterms since World War Two. Mr Trump's approval rating is hovering near his career lows, with voters frustrated by war with Iran, higher fuel prices and wider affordability concerns.

Led by Mr Trump, Republicans have portrayed Democratic candidates as radical, un-American and even communist, labels Democrats flatly reject.

The president has sought to energise his base with more than two dozen campaign rallies since the start of October, most in states he easily won in 2024, underscoring Republicans' defensive posture.

Opinion polls show voters are most concerned about affordability and disapprove of Mr Trump's handling of the issue. His tariffs on imports, many of which the courts threw out, and his decision to attack Iran in February raised prices for consumers.

Trump deploys election monitors

There are 47 US House races widely seen as competitive, according to a Reuters analysis of the leading election forecasters. If the other contests all proceed as predicted, Democrats would need to win only 13 of those races to secure a majority.

But Democrats have little margin for error in the Senate. The party must defend all of its current seats while winning at least two states that voted for Mr Trump by a double-digit margin two years ago, such as Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Ohio, South Carolina and Texas.

Opinion polls show Democrats either narrowly leading or within striking distance in all of those states.

Legal observers and Democrats have warned that Mr Trump, who has long falsely claimed that US elections are rigged, may attempt to challenge the results if Republicans lose.

The US Justice Department said it had deployed 1,000 election monitors and observers to all 50 states in what it called the largest Election Day monitoring effort in history.

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Read more:
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Democrats eye House gains as key races tighten

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Democrats criticized the plan as potential voter intimidation. In roughly two-thirds of the jurisdictions the department listed, voters supported Democrat Kamala Harris over Mr Trump in the 2024 presidential election, a Reuters analysis found.

Election intrigue in Alaska

A New York Times report upended the Alaska Senate race when it reported that the campaign of Democratic candidate Mary Peltola, 53, helped recruit a third candidate to run as an independent who shares the first and last name of her Republican opponent, Dan Sullivan, 61.

Ms Peltola has denied involvement. Mr Trump's Justice Department has launched a criminal probe into the allegations and filed a lawsuit to block certification of the election results, though a judge dismissed the latter effort.

Supporters of the incumbent Sullivan said they were not confused by the presence of two Dan Sullivans on the ballot.

"They make it pretty obvious: It says 'incumbent' after his name," said Jake Wesley, 27, who grew up in Anchorage and is now stationed there in the US Air Force.

In recent days, Mr Trump has complained repeatedly that voters may not know the meaning of the word.