Democrats took control of the House of Representatives with what could be their largest majority in nearly two decades, NBC News projects, as voters delivered a resounding rebuke to President Donald Trump and Republicans.
The House projection is based on an analysis that Democrats will win about 255 House seats — an estimate that could still go up or down a few seats, but will be well beyond the 218 needed to secure a majority.
NBC News predicted that Democrats would also flip control of the Senate, putting them in charge of both chambers.
Democrats needed to win just three net seats to retake the majority. The blue wave swept through many more GOP-held seats than that — from the East Coast to Texas’ Rio Grande Valley — most in districts Trump won in 2024.
A quartet of GOP incumbents in Pennsylvania were defeated. Democrat Bob Harvie defeated GOP Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, leader of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus; Democrat Bob Brooks knocked out Republican Rep. Ryan Mackenzie in the 7th Congressional District; Paige Cognetti defeated GOP Rep. Rob Bresnahan in the 8th District; and Democrat Janelle Stelson ousted GOP Rep. Scott Perry, former chairman of the far-right Freedom Caucus, in the 10th District.
In Virginia, former Democratic Rep. Elaine Luria won back her old seat, defeating Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans in the Virginia Beach area, while Democrat Shannon Taylor upset longtime Republican Rep. Rob Wittman outside of Richmond.
Another big name in Republican politics, Rep. Tom Kean Jr. of New Jersey, lost his re-election race to Democrat Rebecca Bennett. Also defeated was Rep. Victoria Spartz, R-Ind., the first member of Congress of Ukrainian descent who frequently clashed with Trump and GOP leaders. And in Colorado, Democratic state Rep. Manny Rutinel defeated Republican Rep. Gabe Evans.
One of the biggest prizes of the night for Democrats was Richard Ojeda II’s upset of Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C. As chairman of the House GOP’s campaign arm, Hudson was responsible for protecting GOP incumbents and the majority.
The Democrats’ victory was widely seen as a referendum on Trump’s unpopular policies, including his harsh crackdown on immigration, the eight-month war in Iran and tariffs on U.S. allies that have driven up prices of gasoline, groceries and other goods.
When the party takes control of the House on Jan. 3, it will be the first time in Trump’s second term that he will not have full control of Congress.
Since returning to the White House, Trump has tested the limits of his executive powers, dismantling federal agencies through the Department of Government Efficiency, unilaterally imposing drastic tariffs, and rolling back funding approved by Congress — all while the Republican-controlled House and Senate looked the other way.
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The Democratic leader of the House of Representatives, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, who has been storming across the country in the final weeks of the campaign, is set to make history on Jan. 3 when he is sworn in as the first black speaker of the House.
He entered his election night party to raucous cheers as the rap song “Unbelievable,” by the Notorious B.I.G., played over the speakers. The midterm results show that “the American people are demanding transformational change,” Jeffries told supporters.
“Today begins America’s great comeback. The American people have spoken everywhere, North, South, East, West, Midwest, from sea to sea. The American people have spoken and made it clear that they have had enough of extremism, enough of corruption,” Jeffries said at the rally in Washington.
“They want a Congress that is going to deliver results for the American people,” he said, “and that’s exactly what House Democrats will do once we take office in January.”
With their new majority, Democrats will take control of House committees, gaining subpoena power and the ability to conduct surveillance investigations into Trump’s administration, family and businesses. That could take up significant time and resources for Trump and his allies, forcing uncomfortable public hearings or provoking legal showdowns over subpoenas.
And in a nod to Trump’s first term, some Democrats have vowed to impeach him for a third time, although there is internal debate over whether that is the right political path.
Jeffries told NBC News’ “Meet the Press” that Democrats “haven’t ruled anything and we haven’t ruled anything out” on impeachment.
Representative Robert Garcia, Democrat of California, now ready to who became chairman of the powerful Oversight Committee in January, said his panel plans to focus on “Trump family corruption,” including Trump’s cryptocurrency projects, which have earned him more than $1 billion. The panel will also examine “abuses” by ICE and the Department of Homeland Security, corporate corruption and the Jeffrey Epstein files.
In addition to investigative power, House Democrats will also have the ability to pass legislation with a simple majority. Jeffries said Democrats would focus on four areas: reversing Trump’s cuts to Medicaid, expanding Affordable Care Act credits, restoring Congress’ authority over tariffs and ending Trump’s war with Iran.
“I wouldn’t characterize it as investigating them like crazy. We’re going to follow the facts, apply the law, be guided by the Constitution and let the issues fall where they may,” Jeffries told reporters at Democrats’ campaign headquarters before the election.
The results are a blow to Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who rose from obscurity to the top job and led House Republicans for the past three years. It is unclear whether Johnson, a close Trump ally, will fight to remain as minority leader or step aside; the latter would trigger an extremely competitive GOP race to replace him.
House Democrats had the political wind at their backs; they had to flip a narrow margin of just three seats to regain the majority they lost in 2022. And Trump’s dismal approval ratings were a major factor in the GOP’s loss.
Historically, the president’s party tends to lose seats in midterm elections. Only in two midterms in the modern era has a party reversed this trend — in 1998, when voters punished Republicans for impeaching President Bill Clinton, and in 2002, when President George W. Bush rallied support in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Yet the battle for control of the House has been fought primarily on Republican Party turf this cycle, with Democrats already holding 215 seats, including a dozen in battleground districts. On top of that, the results of this mid-decade cycle’s redistricting wars ended up slightly favoring the Republicans, although Democrats moved quickly to neutralize what could have been a significant Republican Party advantage.
Trump fired the first shot in the summer of 2025, when he urged the Republican Party’s allies in Texas to redraw their congressional lines to help the party win up to five seats. Republicans also redrew the maps of areas like Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana and Missouri in an effort to win more seats.
But Democrats fought back in California, with Gov. Gavin Newsom, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and their allies successfully rallying support for Proposition 50, which approved a new congressional map drawn by the state’s Democrats. This map helped Democrats win GOP-held seats.
While the GOP managed to pick up a handful of majority black and Democratic seats in the South, the Supreme Court blocked Missouri Republicans’ new congressional map, essentially preserving the Kansas City seat of longtime Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver.
“We promised to aggressively push back against extremist MAGA efforts to wrest elections from the American people by destroying Democrats’ chance of winning a majority,” Jeffries said before the election, adding that the redistricting wars would continue in the 120th Congress.
“This fight is not over; we have only just begun,” he added. “This will continue into the next Congress until we pass legislation signed by a future president that will prohibit mid-decade gerrymandering from ever happening again.”
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