Roy Cooper has won the US Senate election in North Carolina, the Associated Press reports, a significant victory for Democrats in their quest to regain control of Congress’s upper chamber.
North Carolina has not elected a Democrat to the US Senate since 2008, and the success of Cooper, a former governor, brings his party one seat closer to retaking control of a chamber they lost two years ago, when Donald Trump returned to the White House.
Democrats notched wins elsewhere earlier in the night, with the AP calling Georgia’s Senate race for the incumbent Democrat Jon Ossoff, who easily won a second term in a state that voted for Trump in 2024.
In New Hampshire, Democrat Chris Pappas will succeed outgoing senator Jeanne Shaheen, according to the AP, defying Republicans’ hopes for an upset in a state known for its independent streak. Pappas is the first openly gay man elected to the US Senate.
Even where they have lost, there were signs that Democrats had gained ground with voters in midterm elections that appear to have been defined by Trump’s substantial unpopularity.
In Florida, the AP projects that the incumbent senator Ashley Moody won against Democrat Angie Nixon. But Moody, who was appointed to the Senate last year after Marco Rubio became Trump’s secretary of state, has beaten Nixon by about three percentage points with 97% of ballots counted – a relatively narrow margin in a heavily Republican state.
She will finish the remainder of the six-year term Rubio won in 2022, when he was elected by a 17-percentage point margin.
Democrats have also won re-election in several blue states, including Virginia, Delaware, New Jersey, Illinois, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Colorado and New Mexico, according to the AP. The GOP has meanwhile held Senate seats in deep-red West Virginia, Wyoming and Kentucky.
Republicans currently hold 53 seats in the Senate, and for Democrats to win back control, they must gain at least three more seats from the Republicans. Cooper’s victory in North Carolina is the first Democratic flip of the election, and he will succeed Republican senator Thom Tillis, who opted to retire after falling out with Trump.
Control of the Senate offers potent leverage against Trump for the final two years of his presidency. Not only could Democrats block the president’s bills and issue subpoenas to investigate his administration, they could also reject his nominees to the federal judiciary – including the supreme court.
At the outset of his presidency, it appeared difficult to believe that the minority party would have much of a shot of regaining the majority in the midterms – most senators set to face re-election in 2026 represented solidly red or blue states, giving Democrats few offensive opportunities.
But Trump’s approval ratings have fallen sharply since his inauguration, fueled by dissatisfaction over his handling of the economy, and the all-important cost of living. His decision to attack Iran has also proven unpopular with voters, as has his hardline implementation of immigration law.
To flip the Senate, Democrats initially named as their best bets races in Maine – the only state that voted for Kamala Harris and had a Republican incumbent on the ballot – North Carolina, Ohio and Alaska.
As sentiment towards Trump worsened, the party believed their candidates had a shot at winning in Texas, Kansas, Iowa and South Carolina – all red states Trump won by double digits.
In a sign of Republican concern that a “blue wave” could sweep their Senate majority away just two years after it was created, Trump spent the final weeks before the elections campaigning in places such as Kansas, South Carolina and Texas, where his party usually romps to victory.
Republicans have their own targets, namely Democratic-held seats in states that had broken for Trump two years ago, or that Harris carried by slim margins. This group included Minnesota, New Hampshire, Michigan and Georgia, though Republican candidates have already lost in two of those races.
A poll by the New York Times and Siena University published Sunday found Democrats leading in five battleground states surveyed, and statistically tied in a sixth. But other surveys have found Republican candidates ahead, while some Democrats in key race have been dealing with drama and scandal in the closing days of the campaign.
Last week, the New York Times reported that Alaska Senate candidate Mary Peltola’s campaign collaborated with Democratic operatives to recruit a candidate with nearly the same name as her opponent, the incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan. The state’s governor has ordered a criminal investigation into the allegation, while the US Department of Justice filed a suit to block the election’s certification if Sullivan loses, though a federal judge recently dismissed it.
In Michigan, tensions between Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed and congresswoman Haley Stevens, whom he defeated in the primary, erupted into open conflict after she endorsed his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers. Stevens said she objected to El-Sayed’s stance on an advertisement by an outside group that blamed the rising cost of living on US support for Israel, but Democrats accused the four-term congresswoman of “betrayal”.
