Democrats Take Congress as Tech Billionaires' Big Spending Backfires

Democrats stormed back into power Tuesday night, taking control of Congress and handing President Donald Trump a brutal midterm rebuke. The clearest shock came from Texas, where James Talarico beat Ken Paxton to become the first Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate from the state in nearly four decades. Gina Hinojosa took down three-term Gov. Greg Abbott, making her the first Democratic governor of Texas since Ann Richards left office in 1995.

It wasn't just Texas. Democrat Annie Andrews upset Darline Graham in South Carolina, a race Republicans had banked on winning. Sherrod Brown defeated Republican Sen. Jon Husted in Ohio, and Democrats flipped Senate seats in Iowa and North Carolina while scoring key wins in Georgia and New Hampshire. Rep. Chris Pappas, who beat former Republican Sen. John Sununu for an open New Hampshire Senate seat, called the night a warning shot: ''Tonight's results are a wake-up call for corporate special interests and billionaires who have been rigging the economy.''

The billionaire class took the hardest hit. Elon Musk, the world's richest man and the cycle's biggest individual donor, spent record sums trying to keep Republicans in power, including in Texas, and came up empty. Talarico hammered Musk on the trail, accusing him of trying to buy ''his very own personal United States Senator.'' Exit polls showed voters were rattled by government corruption and the swelling influence of billionaires in politics — and Musk's money may have become the liability.

The AI data center boom was on the ballot too. Texas is a major hub for planned data center construction, and Hinojosa campaigned on pausing new projects until the state writes tougher rules. Her win gives Democrats real sway over how that build-out unfolds, even though the Texas Legislature stays in Republican hands. Nationwide, the corporate groups and tech titans who bankrolled data center-friendly candidates watched hundreds of millions of dollars go nowhere.

Markets felt it fast. As the scale of the Democratic gains became clear, Dow futures fell and S&P 500 futures slipped Tuesday evening. A more adversarial Congress is expected to turn up the heat on tech companies and the AI infrastructure push, giving lawmakers a powerful check on Trump in the final two years of his term — including the ability to block chunks of his agenda and ramp up oversight.

Economic anger drove the wave. Many voters blamed Trump's tariffs and the war with Iran for making their finances worse, with the cost of living still squeezing household budgets. The message landed hard: promises to bring prices down didn't beat back frustration over costs, corruption and the country's direction. The story is still developing.