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News / November 3, 2026

2026 Midterm Results: The Blue Wave Swept the Country. Here Is What It Means for Florida

Democrats won both chambers of Congress and flipped seats nobody thought were in play. Florida was the exception, and not by much.

By South Florida Democrats

The 2026 midterm results were not a ripple. Democrats won control of the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate, flipped legislatures across the country, and won Senate races in states that have not sent a Democrat to Washington in decades. Florida is the one big state where the wave crashed short of the beach. For Florida Democrats, the national picture is both a gut punch and a road map.

The House and Senate

CBS News projected Democrats will hold somewhere between 251 and 268 House seats, which would be the largest Democratic majority in nearly two decades. In the Senate, Democrats flipped at least seven Republican-held seats, including Kansas, Iowa, Texas, Ohio, Maine, North Carolina and South Carolina, and held Georgia and Michigan. Reports had Democrats at a minimum of 54 seats with races still being counted.

In Texas, James Talarico won a Senate seat Democrats have not held since the 1980s. In Kansas, Adam Hamilton flipped a seat that has not elected a Democrat in nearly a century.

The states

Democrats flipped the Texas House for the first time in more than two decades, won both chambers of the Wisconsin Legislature, and took back the North Carolina House. Across the country, analysts counted as many as 12 legislative chambers changing hands.

Why voters moved

Exit polls pointed to an electorate fed up with prices for gas and groceries and unhappy with the direction of the country. Early exit polls put President Trump's approval at about 38 percent, on track to be the lowest for a president in a midterm election. Republican leaders themselves offered different explanations, from the war with Iran to turnout.

Why Florida held, barely

Florida Republicans started with a registration lead of more than 1.5 million voters. They won the top races by less than three points. Gov. DeSantis credited Amendment 3, the homestead tax cut, with turning out enough Republicans to save the Cabinet. He also called the national result a meteor strike for his party.

Here is the honest takeaway. The same forces that flipped Kansas and Texas showed up in Florida. They broke the state House supermajority, nearly flipped the governor's office, and pushed two Miami-Dade congressional races into overtime. What Florida lacked was not a message. It was depth: candidates in every seat, organizers in every precinct, and registration work in the off years.

What Florida Democrats should copy

  • Contest everything. Republicans in several South Florida legislative seats had no opponent. Every empty line is a free pass.
  • Start early. Many winning 2026 campaigns started organizing in 2025. 2028 starts now, and 2027 municipal filing windows are open this month.
  • Close the registration gap. The gap is the margin. Every new Democratic registration in Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach matters.

See every seat on the ballot in 2028 on our Florida race map, watch the numbers on the progress tracker, and come meet the people doing the work at an upcoming event.

Join South Florida Democrats