Hello my dear friends, how are you all? I hope you are fine and your families are fine too. Today I woke up in Lahore and my phone was full of messages. Everybody was talking about one thing only. Trump lost the election. Yes, you read that right. America woke up to a very big surprise, and I sat with my morning chai and read every single detail for you, so let me tell you the whole story in simple words.
What happened on 3 November
On Tuesday, 3 November 2026, America held its midterm elections. Midterm means the election in the middle of a president’s term. Donald Trump is the president, and this election was like a big test for him. People voted for all 435 seats of the House of Representatives, for 35 seats of the Senate, and for governors in 36 states. About 122.7 million people voted. That is 48.8 percent of all the people who can vote. It is the second-highest turnout for a midterm election in more than 100 years. Only 2018 was higher. So people really cared this time.
And the result? The Democrats won. Not just a small win. A very big win. They took control of both the House and the Senate. In America they call it a “blue wave” because blue is the colour of the Democratic Party. Some newspapers called it a “blue tsunami”. A tsunami is a very big wave, and that is exactly what this was.
The Senate: Democrats flipped seven seats
The Senate is the upper house of America’s Congress. It has 100 seats. Before this election, the Republicans had 53 seats and the Democrats had 47. To win control, the Democrats needed to gain four seats, because 51 seats make a majority. They gained at least seven. That is much more than they needed.
As of this morning, Democrats have won at least 54 Senate seats, and the final number could go up to 56. Two races, in Alaska and Mississippi, are still not called. The biggest shocks came in states where Republicans have ruled for many years. Let me tell you the names, because these are the stories everyone will remember.
In Texas, James Talarico, a Democrat, defeated Ken Paxton, a Republican. Texas is a very Republican state. Democrats had not won a Senate seat in Texas since 1988. That is almost 40 years. Talarico won clearly, only about two hours after the polls closed. In the same state, Gina Hinojosa defeated Greg Abbott, the Republican governor who had ruled Texas for three terms. She became the first Democratic governor of Texas since Ann Richards in 1990.
In Kansas, Adam Hamilton, a Methodist minister, defeated Republican senator Roger Marshall. Kansas had not elected a Democratic senator since 1932. That is 94 years ago. Think about it. Your great-grandfather’s time. In South Carolina, Annie Andrews defeated Darline Graham. South Carolina is a state Trump won by nearly 18 points in 2024, and still the Democrat won. In North Carolina, Roy Cooper won. In Ohio, Sherrod Brown won. In Iowa, Josh Turek won. In Maine, Troy Jackson defeated Susan Collins, a Republican senator who had been in office since 1997.
And in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed defeated Mike Rogers. He became the first Muslim person ever elected to the United States Senate. That is history. I remember reading this news and thinking, this is the kind of story that shows how much America is changing.
The House: Democrats took control too
The House of Representatives has 435 seats, and all of them were up for election. A party needs 218 seats for a majority. Before the election, Republicans had 219 seats and Democrats had 214, plus two independents. Now the Democrats have won at least 240 seats, and the final number could go above 260. Republicans have won 147 seats so far, and 48 races are still not called.
The Democrats won all 20 of the most competitive House races that have been decided so far. They flipped seats in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Arizona, North Carolina, Wisconsin and New Jersey. Many of these were districts that Trump won comfortably in 2024. In California, the Democrats gained five more seats, taking 48 of the state’s 52 seats. In Indiana, Democrat J.D. Ford defeated Victoria Spartz in a district Trump won by 17 points.
This means Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House, is expected to become the next Speaker of the House. The Speaker is a very powerful job. Mike Johnson, the current Republican Speaker, will lose that chair. House Democrats will hold their leadership elections on 18 and 19 November.
Five new Democratic governors, and more history
The wave did not stop at Congress. Democrats won five new governorships: Texas, Iowa, Ohio, Nevada and Georgia. Republicans did not flip a single state. In Georgia, Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former mayor of Atlanta, became the first Black woman ever elected governor in the history of the United States. She defeated a Republican businessman and ended more than 20 years of Republican control of the state. In Ohio, Amy Acton defeated Vivek Ramaswamy to become governor.
I want to pause here and say something from my heart. Whatever your politics, when a country elects its first Muslim senator and its first Black woman governor on the same night, it tells you something. It tells you that voters wanted change, and they wanted it badly. In my own city, when people are angry about prices and jobs, they also vote for change. America is not so different from us in that way.
Why did Trump lose?
This is the question everyone is asking. The answer is not one thing. It is three or four things together.
First, the economy. In the AP Voter Poll, 39 percent of voters said the economy was the most important issue for the country. Prices are high in America, just like they are high here in Pakistan. People go to the market and feel it in their pockets. When people feel poorer, they blame the government. That is true in Lahore, and it is true in Texas too.
Second, the war on Iran. Trump himself said the war played a role in the losses. He said voters were probably unhappy about the short-term effects, like higher petrol prices, because of the war. He also said he would not change his course even if he could go back. That is important for us in Pakistan too, because when there is war in our region, oil prices go up, and when oil prices go up, petrol prices go up here as well. I have written before about Trump’s warnings on Iran, and you can read that article here: Iran warning article. And if you want to see how petrol prices in Pakistan move when the world changes, read our daily petrol price article here: Petrol price article.
Third, democracy itself. 32 percent of voters said the state of democracy was the most important issue. And in the exit polls, half of all voters said they saw this election as a chance to give a rebuke to the president. A rebuke means a strong “no”. People wanted to send a message, and they did.
Fourth, immigration and other issues. 14 percent said immigration was the top issue. Exit polls also showed that voters disapproved of Trump’s job on corruption, on artificial intelligence, and on his hardline immigration enforcement.
One more fact that shows how deep this went: Republicans lost ground in all but a handful of about 1,700 counties where most votes had been counted on Tuesday night. That is not a normal loss. That is a wave that reached almost everywhere.
What did Trump say?
Trump is 80 years old now, and the American Constitution does not allow him to run for a third term. After the results, he said on social media that Republicans would have won if he himself had been on the ballot. He also accepted the outcome and congratulated the Democrats in an interview with Fox News. He said the high cost of living, partly because of the Iran war, hurt his party. But he also said he will not change his course of action.
His allies had a bad night too. One of his allies spent hundreds of millions of dollars supporting losing candidates. And in Texas, Trump had backed Ken Paxton in the primary against John Cornyn, and Paxton then lost the general election to Talarico. So even Trump’s own picks lost.
What happens now?
Now America will have a divided government. That means the president is a Republican, but Congress is controlled by the Democrats. The new Congress takes office on 3 January 2027.
What can the Democrats do with this power? They can block Trump’s laws. They can investigate his administration, his family and his allies. They can block his appointments. For the last two years of his presidency, Trump will have to deal with a Congress that opposes him. Before this, the Republican Congress rarely stopped him. That time is over.
But there is one thing the Democrats cannot do alone. They do not have a two-thirds majority in the Senate. They would need 67 seats to remove a president through impeachment by themselves. They have around 54. They also do not have 290 seats in the House, which would be needed to override a presidential veto. So Trump can still veto laws, and the Democrats cannot easily remove him. What we will see is a fight, not a knockout.
The Democrats will also have to decide what to do with their power. Will they use it to help ordinary people with prices and jobs? Or will they spend two years only on investigations? That is the big question, and the next election will judge them on it. In Pakistan we have seen the same story many times: winning is easy, delivering is hard.
What does this mean for Pakistan?
You may ask, Maryam, why should we in Pakistan care about an American election? It is a fair question. Here is my simple answer. America is the biggest economy in the world. When America sneezes, the whole world catches a cold. We have all heard this saying. When American politics changes, three things can change for us.
One, oil and petrol. America is involved in the Iran war, and that war affects oil prices. When oil prices move, petrol prices in Pakistan move. We already saw that this year. So a change in American politics can mean a change in your petrol bill in Lahore, Karachi or Islamabad.
Two, trade and the economy. America is a big market for Pakistani goods, and American decisions on trade affect our exporters. A divided American government may mean slower decisions, or different decisions, on trade.
Three, the world order. America, China, Russia, the Middle East — all these are connected. When America’s government is divided, its foreign policy can become less predictable. For Pakistan, which sits between big powers, predictability matters a lot.
But let me be honest with you. No one knows exactly what will happen next. Anyone who tells you they know is lying. What we know is the result, and the result is historic. We will watch it together, and I will keep telling you the truth in simple words, as always.
My own thoughts
I have covered many elections on this site, but this one felt different to me. Usually, the party in power loses a few seats in a midterm. That is normal. What happened on 3 November was not normal. Losing both houses of Congress, losing Texas, losing Kansas after 94 years, losing Georgia — that is a message from the people. And the message is simple: fix the prices, fix the jobs, and listen to us.
I do not support any party in America. I am a Pakistani writer, and my job is to tell you the truth. But I do support one thing: when people vote, their voice must be heard. On Tuesday, 122.7 million Americans spoke. Whatever happens next, that voice matters.
So here is my tip for you, my dear readers. Whenever you see big news, do not believe the first headline you see on social media. Wait. Read from two or three good sources. If you want to read more about this election, you can read the 2026 United States elections on Wikipedia, the AP’s 2026 elections project, and Al Jazeera’s visual guide to how the US midterms turned the map blue. Check the numbers. That is what I did for this article, and that is what I will always do for you.
Yes. On 3 November 2026, in the US midterm elections, the Republican Party lost control of both the Senate and the House of Representatives to the Democrats. Trump is still the president, but his party lost Congress. It was a midterm election, not a presidential election, so Trump himself was not on the ballot.
The Democrats won the Senate. They flipped at least seven Republican seats, including Texas, Kansas, South Carolina, North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa and Maine. They now have at least 54 of the 100 seats, and the final number could reach 56.
The Democrats won the House too. They have won at least 240 of the 435 seats, and the final number could go above 260. They needed 218 seats for a majority. Hakeem Jeffries is expected to become the next Speaker of the House.
The main reasons were the economy and high prices, the war on Iran, and voters wanting to send a message against the president. In exit polls, half of the voters said they saw the election as a chance to rebuke Trump. The Democrats also won in states where Republicans had ruled for decades.
The new Congress takes office on 3 January 2027. America will have a divided government: a Republican president and a Democratic Congress. The Democrats can block Trump’s laws and investigate his administration, but they do not have the two-thirds majority needed to remove him from office alone.
Take care, my dear friends. If you have any question about this election, or about anything else, please ask me. You can reach me through our Contact Us page — I read every message, and I will try my best to answer you.
