Blue wave grows as Democrats flip eight more House seats

Democrats are not done yet. The party flipped another eight House seats, stretching its advantage over Republicans to 253-157 with 25 races still left to call. A string of GOP representatives felt the full weight of the blue wave that has swept their party out of power in Congress.

Not every Republican sank. In the west, congressman Mike Kennedy held his Utah seat and Amanda McKinney won in Washington, giving the GOP two saves on a rough night. Two Senate contests remain uncalled — Mississippi and Alaska — where Democratic candidates are hunting Republican incumbents to pad their new majority.

Los Angeles got a jolt of its own. Democratic socialist Nithya Raman, an urban planner who has sat on the city council since 2020, edged out incumbent Karen Bass to become mayor, a narrow win that the Guardian frames as a rebuke of the city's current direction.

In Washington, the fallout started fast. Harmeet Dhillon, a key Trump ally, resigned from her post leading the Justice Department's Civil Rights division, with attorney general Todd Blanche accepting her notice. She is the first high-ranking DOJ official to exit after the midterms, as Democrats prepare to use their congressional power to aggressively investigate executive agencies.

Michigan senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed wants new leadership in the upper chamber. He told CNN that Senator Chris Van Hollen would be an 'amazing Senate majority leader' and pointedly declined to rule out backing current minority leader Chuck Schumer — a stance he kept on the campaign trail.

Republicans, meanwhile, are turning on each other. Senator Ted Cruz called the loss an 'ass-kicking' and told his podcast it was 'not simply a bad 2006 midterm election, it was a Watergate-level repudiation.' Markets shuddered too: the Nasdaq slumped 5.5% Thursday, its worst day in 19 months, as investors braced for tougher AI regulation under the new Congress. Donald Trump's first official move after the wipeout was a proclamation preserving the Oval Office and Cabinet Room as national monuments.