County maps show large Democratic swings in 2026 Senate results

North Carolina shifted 22 points; Kansas shifted 21 toward Democrats

The Guardian combined live results from all 50 states with a county-level analysis of Senate contests. As of 8 a.m. ET Wednesday, more than 1,800 of nearly 2,500 counties in states with Senate elections had returned more than 90% of their votes, and 1,837 counties had enough votes for accurate analysis. The vast majority swung toward Democrats relative to the 2024 presidential results, while Texas, Rhode Island, North Carolina and Mississippi recorded the largest state swings.

The publication’s shift calculation compared county-level 2026 Senate results with 2024 presidential results. It measured the change in margin between the two major parties and discounted votes for third-party candidates. County results entered the interactive only when more than 90% of a county’s precincts had reported ballot data.

Roy Cooper’s North Carolina victory delivered a 22-point shift from the 2024 presidential election, and every county in the state swung toward Democrats. Cooper became the first Democrat elected to the state’s Senate seat since 2008. Several North Carolina House districts remained too close to call when the source was published, but The Guardian said the Senate result indicated that Democrats were likely to take several more despite Republicans having redrawn the state’s boundaries in their favor.

Kansas likewise shifted 21 points toward Democrats compared with the 2024 presidential election. Adam Hamilton defeated outgoing Republican Senator Roger Marshall and became the state’s first Democratic senator since 1932. The Guardian said Republicans regularly won Kansas by double-digit margins and that the state became a toss-up late in the campaign as Donald Trump’s approval ratings fell.

At the county level, Starr, Webb and Duval counties in Texas and Seward County in Kansas recorded swings of more than 45 points from Republicans toward Democrats. The urban pattern was visible in Passaic County, New Jersey, within the New York metropolitan area. Trump won 49.8% there in 2024, but Democrats won 62.3% of the 2026 Senate vote compared with the Republicans’ 34.3%.

Age and Hispanic population were also associated with larger shifts. Riley County, Kansas, home to Kansas State University and the U.S. Army’s Fort Riley, had 42% of its population under age 30. Harris carried the county narrowly in 2024, but a 19-point shift in 2026 produced a 59.1% Democratic vote. Starr County in southern Texas, where about 97% of residents were Hispanic or Latino, went from Trump’s 58% in 2024 to James Talarico’s 77% in the 2026 Senate election.

The Guardian attributed part of the Republican performance to Americans not turning out in significant numbers for the party amid high fuel prices and dissatisfaction with the president. It said that turnout pattern allowed Democrats to pick up seats and take control of the House and Senate.

At the broader level, The Guardian’s live summary counted seven Republican Senate losses, 25 House districts and five governor races. In a separate passage on the House, the source said Democrats controlled the chamber after gaining more than 25 seats. Republicans had controlled the House before the election, and every seat was contested because representatives serve two-year terms. The source also said Senate control could block new appointments to the Supreme Court or Trump’s cabinet.

Republicans previously held 53 of the Senate’s 100 seats, while 35 seats were on the ballot. Senators serve six-year terms, with a third facing voters in each two-year election cycle. Democrats needed to flip at least four Republican-held seats to gain a majority. As of October 30, 2026, the Cook Political Report had listed Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Ohio and Texas as tossups.

Texas produced the most prominent pickup. James Talarico won by more than 10 points, and no Democrat had won a Senate seat in Texas since 1988. Pre-election polls had shown only a razor-thin Democratic lead. Texas had voted Republican in presidential elections for decades; Jimmy Carter was the last Democratic presidential candidate to win the state in 1976, and Trump won 56% of the 2024 vote to Kamala Harris’s 42%.

The Guardian connected Talarico’s focus on billionaires with the Michigan result won by progressive Democrat Abdul El-Sayed. El-Sayed’s victory came despite a pre-election endorsement of Republican candidate Mike Rogers by Democrat Haley Stevens that the source called controversial. Trump won Michigan in 2016 and 2024, while Joe Biden won it in 2020, but no Republican had won a Senate seat in the state since 1994.

The Associated Press Voter Trend exit poll, conducted with U.S. broadcasters, provided a first look at how voter groups shifted nationwide. Based on 80,000 interviews at polling stations during the House election, it found that young people, urban voters and households with lower incomes had swung most heavily toward Democrats. The interactive broke down the poll by gender; age groups 18-29, 30-44, 45-64 and 65 or older; race as White, Black and Hispanic; education as college degree or no degree; urban, suburban and rural residence; and household income below $50,000 or $50,000 or more. The Guardian said those swings helped Hakeem Jeffries’ Democrats claim seats including three of four Iowa districts, four Pennsylvania districts and two Texas counties along the border with Mexico.

Democrats won nearly a clean sweep across the 40 House races the Cook Political Report had ranked as competitive before the election. The Guardian also reported that more races moved against the incumbent Republican Party as the campaign developed, allowing Democrats to take Kentucky’s 6th and North Carolina’s 11th districts after Republicans had held them for more than a decade.

Individual results illustrated the breadth of the House shift. Incumbent Republican Ann Wagner lost Missouri’s 2nd district with 46.2% of the vote against the Democratic candidate’s 51.1%. Republicans had redrawn the district to increase their advantage; the area carried Trump by eight points in 2024, while the new boundaries would have given him an 11-point advantage. Wagner, a former ambassador under George W. Bush, had held the seat from 2013, and the Cook Political Report had ranked the race “likely Republican” before the election.

Republicans also lost Indiana’s 5th district, which they had held for more than 30 years. Democrat JD Ford defeated incumbent Victoria Spartz, 51.7% to 48.3%. The source noted that presidential years have higher turnout when comparing the district’s House vote totals between 2024 and 2026. The Republican candidate’s total fell from almost 203,000 to 134,000, while the Democratic candidate’s changed from 136,000 to 134,000.

Marcy Kaptur won re-election in northwestern Ohio, extending what The Guardian described as the longest tenure of any woman in Congress. Kaptur had held the seat since 1983, and the source said she was one of nearly two dozen Democrats representing districts Trump won in 2024. Her district’s newly redrawn boundaries had increased its Republican lean, but her victory showed that some voters were still willing to split their tickets. Nationwide, a record number of Democratic women were elected to the House.

Nine states redrew congressional boundaries before the election, some to benefit Democrats and others to benefit Republicans, although analysis suggested Republicans would gain more seats overall. The Guardian described the level of politically motivated redistricting as unprecedented. Legal challenges included a Democratic gerrymander in Virginia struck down by the state supreme court and a Republican redistricting attempt in Missouri rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court. Democratic victories in redrawn districts in Florida, North Carolina, Alabama and Texas prevented the Republican gains those maps had been expected to produce.

The source said Democrats looked set to finish the election with a “blue wave” of wins, including in districts Trump had carried by wide margins in 2024. That result left Democrats with a double-digit House majority and a larger-than-expected Senate majority. All recent presidents had lost control of a chamber in a midterm election, including Trump in 2018, but the scale of Republican losses in seats held for decades surpassed recent results. Seven Senate losses already amounted to the party’s worst performance since 1994, with further losses possible.

Associated Press calls a winner in a state when it determines that the trailing candidate has no path to victory, which can occur before all votes are counted. The AP’s state estimates update as turnout data becomes available, while official results can take days or weeks to finalize because absentee, mail-in and provisional ballots require verification. Some states can receive and count mail ballots several days after Election Day. The interactive drew demographic data from the U.S. Census American Community Survey’s 2024 five-year estimates, urban and rural classifications from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Congressional District Health Dashboard, historical election data from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and redistricted boundaries from the Redistricting Data Hub and All About Redistricting.