Democrats take both chambers in a landslide
Today is Thursday, November 5, 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 74 and a low of 60, with partly cloudy skies.
- Democrats flipped both the House and the Senate on Tuesday, a rebuke of Donald Trump that nearly every newsletter led with. The House majority is expected to top 250 seats, and the Senate lineup could reach 56 once Alaska and Mississippi are called.
- Vice President JD Vance blamed the Iran war for the Republican losses, a rare break with the president. Trump told reporters that was largely true, but said he would do it again.
- Speaker Mike Johnson said he will step aside, and Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan are running for minority leader. Leadership elections are set for next week.
- Chuck Schumer says he will confront Trump when needed and cooperate when needed, with a funding deadline on December 11 as the first test. Hakeem Jeffries wants dramatic change, but progressives and centrists disagree on how far to go.
- Voters rejected data centers almost everywhere they appeared on a ballot. Ballotpedia counted 40 of 41 initiatives going against development. Ossoff, Sherrod Brown, and Abdul El-Sayed all won on anti-data-center messages.
- Wall Street cheered the midterm result today. The S&P 500 jumped about 1.6 percent, its best day since August, as traders welcomed the prospect of two years of divided government.
- Elon Musk spent around $446 million backing Republicans, the most any non-candidate has spent on an election, and his picks mostly lost. Ken Paxton and Vivek Ramaswamy both went down.
- The day after the vote, Trump gave reporters a tour of the White House ballroom and talked about its 50-foot ceilings rather than the election.
- Election scholar Michael McDonald estimates about 124 million people voted, just under half of those eligible. That is close to the 2018 midterm rate, which was the highest since 1914.
- Latino voters moved toward Democrats by about 27 points, according to NPR, after trending right in 2024. The Bulwark argued ICE and deportation fears drove much of that.
- Voters aged 18 to 29 backed Democrats 70 to 28, a shift of 32 points from 2024. Playbook reported the youth vote swung about 40 points on net.
- Gina Hinojosa defeated Greg Abbott, ending decades of Republican control of the governorship. James Talarico beat Ken Paxton in the Senate race. Democrats also won the Texas House and Supreme Court seats up for grabs.
- Scott Colom leads Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi by a few votes with provisional ballots still to count. Mary Peltola is slightly ahead of Dan Sullivan in Alaska.
- The new Senate will include the first openly gay male senator, Chris Pappas, and the first Muslim senator, Abdul El-Sayed. Keisha Lance Bottoms is set to be Georgia's first Black female governor, and Deb Haaland New Mexico's first Native American female governor.
- Democrats flipped governorships in Iowa, Georgia, Ohio, Nevada and Texas, and won a majority on Georgia's utility commission for the first time in decades. Democrats also took control of the Texas state House, which Republicans had held since 2002.
- Axios reported the spread between gasoline and diesel prices hit a record, hurting farmers who rely on diesel. Democrats used those high fuel bills in ads across Iowa, Kansas and Ohio.
- Trump said the US will end roughly $4 billion in annual aid to Israel from 2027, a move he said was Netanyahu's idea. Netanyahu's office declined to comment.
- CVS Health said it will split into two public companies, spinning off its retail pharmacy business in 2028. Shares fell about 12.5%. Axios said the move also helps head off antitrust scrutiny.
- Vice President JD Vance broke with Trump after the midterms and blamed the Iran war for the Republican defeat. He argued that voters who backed Trump in 2024 turned on the party over the conflict.
- The FDA gave tentative approval to a generic lenacapavir, a twice-yearly HIV prevention shot, which would cost about $40 a year in 120 low and middle income countries, according to the AP.
- Hackers broke into European supermarket refrigeration systems again, pushing some units to defrost mode and raising temperatures to around 122 degrees in some stores. Semafor also reported a French blood service cold store attack was thwarted.
- Binance said North Korean hackers used a months-long fake job interview to steal $6.3 billion. An engineer was contacted through a job platform by someone posing as a project director.
- SpaceX picked Qualcomm chips for a nationwide terrestrial 5G network, with deployment starting in 2027. Axios estimated the build could cost at least $100 billion.
- Matt Levine wrote that Kalshi's midterm markets gave a 98% chance of Democratic Senate control by 8:30 on election night, and he went to bed.
- 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.