Voters weigh in

By Jill Nolin | Editor

By Maya Homan, Alander Rocha and Ross Williams

Within an hour of polls closing Tuesday, it was clear that Democrats had made a strong showing and that U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff would be re-elected by a large margin.

But what unfolded after that far exceeded what even the most optimistic Georgia Democrat could have imagined.

By about 9 p.m., it became apparent that not only would former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms become Georgia’s first Democratic governor since Roy Barnes left office in 2003 but that the entire slate of Democratic statewide candidates would share in the victory, flipping offices like agriculture and insurance commissioners that had been considered relatively safe for Republicans. House Democrats are also poised to take control of the state House of Representatives for the first time in more than two decades.

“I’ve been at these elections a lot of times when we went home crying, and so it was hard for me to believe when the results came in as early as they did,” House Minority Leader Carolyn Hugley, who could be in line to be the chamber’s next speaker, told reporters Wednesday.

By Jonathan Shorman

Alabama Republicans had hoped Rep. Shomari Figures would deliver a concession speech on Tuesday night after the state legislature redrew his district to be more GOP-friendly. 

Instead, the Democrat declared victory — winning nearly 54% of the vote.

“We know what happened with this district,” Figures told supporters as he invoked the Republican gerrymander. “But we had a job to do. And so we put our hands to the plow and we did not look backwards.”

The Republican project to gerrymander congressional districts across the country, initiated by President Donald Trump more than a year ago, failed to deliver significant wins for the party — and, in North Carolina at least, even worked against it. Amid a nationwide blue tsunami and voter backlash in Southern states that split apart districts where a majority of residents are Black, Democrats won seats that Republicans redrew to give themselves an advantage.

By Ashley Murray and Shauneen Miranda

As the monumental midterm victories set in, Democrats began to talk strategy Wednesday on how to deliver what voters want: lower prices, attainable health care and an end to a stagnant and expensive conflict in the Middle East.

Starting in January, the party will control both chambers of Congress, giving them the upper hand over much of President Donald Trump’s agenda, including his judicial nominees, and the power to investigate the first two years of Trump’s second term, including his business ventures, war decisions and mass deportation campaign.

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