Democrats take the Senate
Today is Wednesday, November 4, 2026
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- Good morning, and welcome to Hark News. Here's what the world got up to while you slept. First, the weather in New York. A high of 69 and a low of 52, with clear skies.
- Democrats have won control of the Senate, and the scale of it is what's striking. Semafor called it a generational wipeout for the GOP, with seats lost in Ohio, Texas, Kansas, Iowa, South Carolina and North Carolina.
- CNN's Decision Desk projects Democrats will flip the House as well. Semafor says the majority may end up bigger than they'd hoped, large enough to insulate leaders from a restive left.
- CNN projects Sherrod Brown will return to the Senate after unseating Jon Husted in Ohio. Separately, James Talarico is projected to beat Ken Paxton in Texas, ending a long drought for Democrats there.
- Abdul El-Sayed has won the Michigan Senate race, becoming the first Muslim elected to the US Senate. Al Jazeera and CNN both made the call.
- CNN's Decision Desk projects Susan Collins will lose reelection in Maine to Democrat Troy Jackson, a pickup Democrats have long wanted in a blue-leaning state.
- CNN projects Adam Hamilton will beat Roger Marshall in Kansas, and Annie Andrews will unseat the Republican senator in South Carolina, a seat held for nearly three decades.
- Jon Ossoff is projected to keep his Georgia Senate seat, one Republicans had targeted as a top pickup.
- Democrat Chris Pappas is projected to win New Hampshire's open Senate seat, making him the first out gay man elected to the chamber.
- Keisha Lance Bottoms is projected to become the first Black woman elected governor of a US state, in Georgia. Amy Acton is projected to win Ohio's governor's race after a controversial attack ad from Vivek Ramaswamy.
- The White House is leaning on turnout and Trump's rallies, and an official said Trump voters showed up when he was on the ballot. Trump himself said he'd have won in a landslide, while a Trump ally called the Iran war a disaster.
- Trump said the US will cut roughly $4 billion a year in military aid to Israel after this year, saying Israel doesn't need it. Congress allocates that money, so the move could set up a standoff.
- Commentators expect Trump may escalate against Iran after the midterms. Fareed's briefing quoted the New York Times and Foreign Policy on the risk, and Politico Forecast said the Iran war could return to the fore.
- The national average for a gallon of gas climbed above four dollars on Election Day, a first for a midterm vote. Semafor's Liz Hoffman argues that whoever takes Congress inherits a pile of problems, from sticky inflation to a shaky job market and a possible AI bubble bursting.
- Semafor reports JPMorgan's view that a Democratic sweep could nudge the S&P 500 down, though a divided government would be better for stocks.
- Axios looked at executives with a lot riding on the midterms, including Elon Musk, Jensen Huang, Sam Altman, Dario Amodei and Brian Armstrong. Democrats have already called for investigations into Musk's role at DOGE.
- Semafor reports more than 130 Democratic candidates ran anti-tech or anti-data-center ads this cycle, according to a Tech Oversight Project analysis, and Democrats used those messages far more often than Republicans.
- Axios and Matt Levine both flagged North Korean hackers as the suspected thieves behind a $6.3 billion Binance theft, which Axios said was prepared with a fake job interview.
- Matt Levine's Money Stuff asks a fun question about OpenAI's eventual IPO. Offshore platforms like Hyperliquid already list perpetual futures on big private companies, and a small track record suggests those prices have been accurate predictors of IPO opening prices.
- Goldman Sachs economist Pierfrancesco Mei finds that workers likely pushed out of their jobs by AI took about a month longer to land new work than other laid-off people.
- Job openings rose by 333,000 in September, and hiring and quits also rose, per the latest JOLTS data that Axios covered. Layoffs fell.
- Axios reports Disney is planning a third round of cuts this year under its new CEO, with thousands of jobs at risk. Netflix and Skydance are also trimming staff.
- The Justice Department deployed about 1,000 election monitors across all 50 states, its largest effort yet. Some local officials worry it could intimidate voters.
- Politico Forecast says the Black Sea is now the world's deadliest shipping lane this year, ahead of the Strait of Hormuz. Russia has been hitting merchant ships carrying Ukrainian grain toward Africa, and hundreds of vessels have been struck.
- Researchers think they've spotted the best evidence so far that red blood cells survived inside a dinosaur bone that's about 115 million years old. Soft tissue rarely makes it through fossilization, so that's a remarkable find.
- Dodge is coming back to the NASCAR Cup Series in 2027 with a two-car Charger team, 15 years after leaving the circuit.
- The gas-powered cars at Disneyland's Autopia ride are set to be swapped for electric versions after a settlement with California over emissions.
- And that's your world for today. The full stories and the links are waiting in the app. Tap through, bookmark what matters, and share what's worth sharing. And if you want to see what stuck, take today's quiz in the app: five quick questions. And if Hark is making your mornings a little better, share it with a friend. It's the best way to help us grow. I'll see you again tomorrow morning. Until then, have a great day.