Four key victories (and two surprises): A review of the Democratic wins in the elections

Democrats needed to gain at least four seats in the Senate and the same number in the House of Representatives to take control of both chambers of the U.S. Congress — something that was beyond their wildest dreams at the beginning of the year. Now they have achieved that dream, and by a wide margin: not only have the main election battles swung in their favor, they have also won races that few expected, from South Carolina, where physician Annie Andrews unseated Senator Darline Graham — sister of the late Senator Lindsey Graham — to Texas, where Gina Hinojosa will be the state’s next governor.These were the main victories (and surprises) on election night, with some results still pending:South Carolina: The night’s biggest shock. Andrews prevailed in a deeply conservative state to defeat Darline Graham. It is a severe rebuke from voters aimed at Donald Trump, who had personally endorsed the Republican to replace her brother after Lindsey Graham’s unexpected death in July, and who persuaded her to seek a six-year full term in this election. The president had poured his support into Graham’s campaign. But recent polls had shown rising support for Andrews and the possibility of an upset in a state that has not elected a Democratic senator in over two decades.Andrews, a physician by training, ran a competent campaign in which she tried to distance herself from the Democratic establishment, which is unpopular in the state. In this case, however, the vote appears less a vote of endorsement for the Democrat than a vote of censure against Graham, whose inexperience was evident from the primaries, when she defeated her main rival, career politician Ralph Norman, with the backing of the pro-Trump machine. In August, Graham said that she “didn’t know much” about national security issues — one of her brother’s specialties — when asked a question during a primary debate.Kansas: Another state few had on their bingo cards just months ago. Democratic pastor Adam Hamilton is the first candidate from his party to win a Senate seat in Kansas in nearly a century. In the heartland, a rural and conservative-leaning state where diesel price spikes and tariffs have hit the local economy hard, Democrats made a shrewd choice by nominating the preacher, who is very popular in the state as founder and leader of one of the country’s largest congregations, the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection. Hamilton, who was affiliated with the Republican Party until this year, holds very moderate positions.At the same time, the Republican candidate, Senator Roger Marshall, grew complacent and was slow to organize his campaign. By the time he did, he was already playing defense in the polls. In September he was hit by a scandal that appears to have been decisive: an investigation by The New York Times found that, during his time practicing as an obstetrician, his clinic had sued about 700 patients for unpaid bills, mostly low-income residents of rural areas, and had applied 18% late fees to overdrawn accounts. Eighty people were arrested for failing to appear at court summonses. The controversy forced him to defend himself until the last moment, without success.Texas: Democrat James Talarico won the Senate contest in Texas against Republican Ken Paxton, the state attorney general, marking his party’s first statewide victory there in more than three decades. The former seminarian prevailed decisively: with 66.1% of the vote counted, he led with 59.4% against a deeply unpopular rival weighed down by corruption scandals in one of the states most affected by the Trump administration’s immigration policies.Talarico, a moderate progressive and Presbyterian seminarian, was the target of an intense Republican campaign led by Trump himself, who nicknamed him “Talafreako.” But Talarico’s warm manner and strong rhetoric, mixing the Democratic agenda with Christian values, helped his campaign gain traction and raise more than $139 million in donations.Talarico’s victory also boosted Gina Hinojosa, who unexpectedly won her race for state governor. Hinojosa will be the first Latina to lead a state that, until a few weeks ago, seemed poised to hand Greg Abbott a fourth term.Ohio: The dirtiest campaign of this cycle backfired on Vivek Ramaswamy, the Republican candidate for governor in a state Trump won by 11 percentage points in 2024. His opponent, physician Amy Acton, won comfortably, helped by a wave of sympathy after a television ad produced by an ally of the president aired.In the ad, the Democrat’s mother, Donna Arthur, accused her daughter of being a compulsive liar — when in fact Acton was a survivor of sexual abuse by her stepfather in childhood, and Arthur had sided with him to the point of fleeing with the man to avoid a trial, losing custody of her daughter and her other son. The spot caused outrage in the state, and several Republican politicians publicly condemned it. Ramaswamy did not pull the ad from the airwaves until the eve of the election.That sympathy effect may also have helped Democratic Senate candidate Sherrod Brown prevail over the incumbent, Republican Jon Husted. Husted ran a lackluster campaign and had gone unnoticed by many voters until Trump started to comment on his physique, after learning that he had played college football.Iowa: Democrat Josh Turek, an unexpected candidate, defeated his opponent Ashley Hinson, photogenic and an excellent speaker, who was one of the Republican Party’s best performers in these elections. Turek, 47, has used a wheelchair since childhood because of spina bifida. He projected an image of resilience and empathy that resonates in the American Midwest, where Iowa is located.Maine: The count was still ongoing in the northeastern state at time of publication and major outlets had not yet declared a winner. But Republican Senator Susan Collins, a veteran of many electoral battles, called her opponent Troy Jackson to concede that, this time, she had been defeated and would lose her seat.Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition