11:00 PM in California Not all the races are set but it’s clear it’s been a good night for the Democrats. This was hardly a surprise but President Trump has already begun to blame everyone else. For weeks he’s been calling voters to pretend he was on the ballot and it appeared we did. Tonight he posted on his social media: “I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!” No doubt he will spend the next few days looking for scapegoats and he’s already turned on Fox News for not doing enough to help him.

10:00 PM in California Not long after I wrote the last hour, Susan Collins conceded. This comes as a surprise as she is one of the few Republicans who could attract Democratic voters. She insisted that she voted in the best interest of her constituents but for all her claims she voted as Trump told her and Maine just got fed up.

The polls in Alaska have just closed and we’re a long way from a final vote. The race is between Mary Petola and the incumbent Dan Sullivan. The wrinkle here is that there is another Dan Sullivan who is running as an independent. As you can imagine the Republicans are screaming that this is a conspiracy to confuse Alaskan voters into voting for the wrong Dan Sullivan. As a matter of fact, Trump has directed a lawsuit be filed and a criminal investigation opened against Mary. Again, this may change, but right now Mary is ahead of Senator Sullivan by more than votes for the other Dan. In other words, if you combine the votes of both Dan Sullivans, Mary still leads. Guess this takes the air out of the conspiracy.

9:00 PM in California It’s getting later but we’re still waiting to see if the Democrats will pick up Senate seats in Maine and Michigan. Both states normally take a while to report. We may need to wait a while on Alaska as they are in an hour behind the Pacific Time Zone.

Most of the energy in the race has been national, particularly with the House and the Senate. But the polls closed in California and it’s no surprise that our new governor will be Xavier Becerra who defeated Steve Hilton. Steve was never a threat to win and never really won the support of the national Republican party.

There will be much more of this written (some by me) but we need to talk about redistricting. I’ve spoke about this before but the Constitution mandates a census every 10 years and this be used to determine congressional districts. It’s been the custom that happen only then but Trump demanded some Republican states redistrict now in the hopes they could draw lines to add Republican seats in Congress. It appears to have failed. The problem with their strategy is that they couldn’t change the number of voters, only where the lines were drawn. Some Republicans found themselves in districts with more Democratic voters and this may have cost them.

8:00 PM in California As I write this it appears James Talarico has defeated Ken Paxton in the Texas senate race. That seat was previously held by John Cornyn who ran for reelection but was defeated in the primaries by Ken Paxton. President Trump backed Ken because he didn’t think John wasn’t loyal enough.

While we’re talking about Texas, the incumbent Governor Greg Abbott lost his reelection bid to Gina Hinojosa. It appears being a Republican in Texas is no longer a guarantee to win.

South Carolina also bears a look. Since 2003 Lindsey Graham served in the senate and had no reason to worry about being reelected. Tragically he died suddenly in July and President Trump asked his sister Darline to run for her brother’s seat. It was a nice sentiment but Darline simply lacked any experience and lost to Dr. Annie Andrews.

This is fast becoming an historic night for the Democrats and now let’s look at Ohio. Sherrod Brown served as senator from Ohio from 2007 to 2025 when he was defeated by Bernie Moreno. Sherrod then ran for the other Ohio seat and tonight beat Jon Husted.

There was an open seat in Iowa as Joni Ernst was retiring. Tonight the Democrat Josh Turek defeated Ashley Hinson. Again this was a state the Republicans never expected to have to fight for, let alone lose. Many Iowans farm for a living and they’ve been hurt by Trump’s tarriffs and the high price for diesel to run farm equipment and transport crops.

Of the states that nobody expected to be in play, Kansas has to rank the highest. They haven’t elected a Democratic Senator since George McGill in 1932. Like Iowa, farming is king in they’ve also been hurt by Trump’s policies. Incumbent Senator Roger Marshall lost to Adam Hamilton but there was an additional wrinkle. Senator Marshall is an OB-GYN and in a recent article it was revealed that he sued and jailed patients who either didn’t pay their bills or missed court dates. As a doctor he provided services to his patients and had reasonable expectations that he would be paid. But one of his patients , Meischa Zimmerman, asked the arresting officers to handcuff her out of sight of her 2 year old daughter.

7:00 PM in California As we all know, every two years we go to the polls for elections. All 435 members of the House of Representatives run, along with 1/3 of the Senate. Since the President runs every four years we won’t have that election, though President Trump has told us to pretend I’m on the ballot. Many of us have and it doesn’t look like it’s good news for him. After the 2016 Election I became a little jaded about polls and predictions and I’ve really held my breath until tonight. The President’s party normally loses seats in Congress on the “off year elections” and it’s been looking for a while that the Republicans may lose control of the House where they currently hold a 218 to 214 majority (with 1 independent and 2 seats vacant). In the Senate the Republicans currently hold 53 seats to 45 Democrats with 2 independents. For a long time it appeared the Republicans would hold because only 33 seats are up for election and the Democrats would have to flip four of them (the two independents caucus with the Democrats).

It’s still early but it appears clear that the Democrats will pick up enough seats and NBC News (the network I’m currently watching) projects that they will end up with 244 seats (to 187). It also appears they will pick up Senate seats in North Carolina and South Carolina; in addition, races in Texas, Kansas and Ohio are “leaning” Democrat. It’s too early to call but the path forward for the Republicans has significantly narrowed.