After helping Trump to victory in 2024, young voters swung decisively toward Democrats, helping deliver a wave of midterm victories

The 2026 blue tsunami owes a lot to the youth vote.

According to data from Tufts University’s Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (Circle), which monitors youth civic engagement, early estimates show the second-highest youth turnout in a midterm election in 30 years, second only to 2018, when an estimated 31% of young voters turned out during Donald Trump’s first presidency.

Architect of Trump’s far-right immigration agenda is now most powerful unelected figure in government – it suggests White House is moving to a war footing

Donald Trump just gave the middle finger to millions of American voters.

Any other president who suffered the kind of drubbing at the polls that Trump did this week might have felt at least a sliver of humility – and perhaps even an obligation to work with the new opposition in Congress.

In a reversal of longstanding assumptions, strong criticism of Israel’s actions may have helped put candidates over the top

“You took a chance on the unlikeliest of candidates,” Abdul El-Sayed told a Detroit crowd on Wednesday, declaring victory in Michigan’s hard-fought, often ugly, Senate race. In what was predicted to be a squeaker, the Democrat beat his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, by a healthy seven points.

In some ways, El-Sayed was an unlikely candidate. At 34, in his first run for elected office, he set his sights almost cockily on a US Senate seat. He ran on what has become an uncontroversial affordability platform but also championed the socialist-adjacent Medicare for All.

Tech stocks have lost trillions while voters have rejected the industry’s political champions. The billionaire-led boom is facing a democratic reckoning

This week’s midterms showed that the political bill for the AI boom is falling due. The Democratic sweep intensified fears over runaway spending, mounting debt and resistance to datacentres, sending tech shares tumbling. On Thursday Wall Street suffered its worst day since the pandemic as $3.2tn was wiped from markets. Anthropic, developer of the Claude chatbot, is hoping to float within the next fortnight for $1.5tn (£1.1tn), but it may not now get even a trillion dollars. The dominant AI chipmaker Nvidia saw its value crash by more than $400bn. The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, lost $113bn in two days.

While a few very rich people may be a little less wealthy, the sell-off may not be a bad thing. It brings a needed dose of reality to an industry whose spending plans and valuations depend on heroic expectations of future profits. That is a view held by many influential figures – from Goldman Sachs’ research boss to Nobel laureate Daron Acemoğlu. AI may transform the economy. That does not guarantee investors will earn back the sums being poured into it.

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New lawmakers from Annie Andrews and Adam Hamilton to Abdul El-Sayed indicate they will not support him

Incoming Democratic senators want someone other than Chuck Schumer to become the next majority leader in the US Senate, although Schumer likely still has enough votes in his caucus to remain the top Democrat.

Annie Andrews, the Democratic senator-elect from South Carolina, told Fox News’s Bret Baier on Thursday that the Democratic party needs new leadership. When asked whether she would support Schumer’s leadership bid, she replied: “I still very much believe it’s time for generational change on both sides of the aisle.”

Democratic and Republican lawyers and groups trade sharp legal letters about procedures for counting ballots in tight race

• Where Trump and Republicans lost the midterms – a visual analysis of the key states

Democrat Scott Colom is on the verge of winning a Senate seat in Mississippi in a stunning upset, but ballots are still being counted in a close race where Colom holds a lead of just under 2,000 votes over Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith. Losing ruby-red Mississippi would be the final straw for Republicans after a midterm sweep by Democrats that turned Texas blue and saw a Democrat elected to the seat once held by the late South Carolina Republican senator Lindsey Graham.

A possible legal fight is also brewing, as both sides trade sharp legal letters about the procedures for counting remaining ballots. National voting groups and attorneys have descended upon the magnolia state, joining the local groups that worked to mobilize voters. Democratic and Republican groups, including Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) and Democratic election attorneys from the Elias Law Group, have deployed hundreds of volunteers and lawyers to all the state’s 82 counties to oversee the final rounds of counting.

The successful Democratic contender for a Michigan Senate seat parried the many insinuations lobbed by Republicans

• What happens after the ‘blue wave’? Ask your midterm election results questions

Abdul El-Sayed said he did not expect to be “a main character of this midterms”, but the first Muslim elected to the US Senate in history will take his seat in January after a vitriolic campaign that cast him as the central villain of the president and his party.

By October he told the Associated Press he was “not shying away” from those rightwing fixations. “What are you implying?” El-Sayed, the son of Egyptian immigrants, replied when a town hall attender asked if he would disavow the Muslim Brotherhood, in a now-viral exchange.

Global tech stocks have plunged after the Democrats’ victory in the US midterm elections, with fears of a slowdown in AI development. Major tech corporations including Apple, Tesla and Nvidia shed about $1tn in a single trading session. Is this stock market jitters, or a sign the AI bubble might be about to burst? Lucy Hough speaks to senior economics correspondent Richard Partington

Asian and European markets follow US tech rout with many analysts predicting more waves of selling to come

European and Asian stock markets fell sharply on Friday after the Democrats’ decisive victory in the midterms triggered a rout in US tech stocks a day earlier.

A sell-off on Wall Street on Thursday was followed by sharp falls in Asian stock markets on Friday. The investor sentiment then reached London, where the market was, at one stage, poised for its worst day since March.

In a Guardian article in 2010, the Oxford Rhodes scholar said UK democracy had the ‘upper hand’ over the US

• US politics live – latest updates

In the tense final hours before his dramatic election as senator for Michigan in this week’s midterms, Abdul El-Sayed had a heated encounter with a British TV journalist that rapidly went viral.

As James Matthews, of Sky News, tried to ask him a question, El-Sayed bit back. “Why would I care to have a conversation with you?” he demanded of Matthews, placing both hands on the reporter’s shoulders in a gesture of emphasis.

This live blog is now closed.

• Stephen Miller, architect of Trump’s immigration crackdown, to become White House chief of staff

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Donald Trump will begin the day in Washington today.

He has closed door meetings for much of the day, and will take part in a Diwali celebration at the White House at 1:30pm ET. While that’s currently not open to the press we’ll let you know if that opens up.

Yes, the Republicans suffered humiliating defeat. But the fact that a Trump presidency was even possible means something like it could happen again

He’s down, but not quite out. Barring divine or other intervention, Donald Trump will remain in the Oval Office for a further two years and 10 weeks. Or, as the White House put it in a plaintive social media post brimming with neediness: “PSA [Public Service Announcement]: Trump is still your president.” But that’s not the only reason why the global celebrations that greeted the Democratic tidal wave that swept Republicans out of even their deepest heartlands should be tempered, if only a tad.

Don’t get me wrong, the results of Tuesday’s midterm elections are cause for genuine international jubilation. The defeats of Trump allies in Serbia and Brazil were delicious appetisers, but this was the feast. No mere electoral setback in line with midterm tradition, this was a thorough repudiation of the second Trump presidency and of Trumpism. The 16% swing to Democrats in the popular vote for the House of Representatives was greater even than the 11.2% swing recorded in the Watergate midterms of November 1974, following the resignation in disgrace of Richard Nixon. Trump had worked hard for many months to undermine these elections, either by gerrymandering districts in his favour or preparing the ground for a later claim the vote was rigged, but to no avail: the democratic system proved too resilient, and the American public too determined to have their say. And have it they did, in a voice loud and clear.

Even Donald Trump has acknowledged that support for Israel is increasingly a political liability in US politics. Will the Democratic leadership listen?

Abdul El-Sayed’s victorious path to the US Senate must become a wake-up call to the Democratic party. It shows us, yet again, that Democratic voters care about Gaza, that Palestinian demands for freedom are increasingly connected to American demands for freedom, and that the old smears and accusations against Palestinians and their supporters are fast losing potency.

Even Donald Trump has acknowledged that support for Israel is increasingly a political liability in American politics. Will Chuck Schumer and the rest of the Democratic leadership listen?

Bills have soared in rural state buffeted by tariffs and war in Iran – and Democrat Adam Hamilton’s stunning upset shows how deep economic frustrations run

Linda Olson always does her homework before voting – a trait she inherited from a family invested, and interested, in politics. Her father was a photographer who took portraits of political leaders in Washington, while her grandparents were farmers who cared deeply about their industry.

In 2024, Olson’s research led her to Donald Trump. She trusted that the then-former president would improve their economic realities in Junction City, Kansas – where she was born and raised – if he returned to the White House.

Democrat’s move prevents these people from executions under future governors, after Christa Pike’s failed execution

Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, commuted the death sentences of more than 500 people on the state’s death row on Thursday, a move that ensures they can never be executed under future administrations.

The Democrat’s mass commutation at the end of his term has converted all of the state’s death sentences to life without the possibility of parole, the largest clearing of any US death row in modern history.

Power is draining away at home, but the US president will see a chance to make his mark through foreign policy

• Kim Darroch was Britain’s ambassador to the US between January 2016 and December 2019

Election nights are party time in Washington. The bars and restaurants fill up and the city rocks. For diplomats, it’s an opportunity – but it’s also a long night, as you trek across the party scene in search of insight and illumination. Invariably, it has its moments. I recall being at the Washington Post party on the night of the presidential election on 8 November 2016. Washington is an overwhelmingly Democrat city and the atmosphere was raucously optimistic, reflecting Hillary Clinton’s small but consistent lead in the polls. As the first results came in a shocked hush fell across the room. People gathered in small, murmuring groups. Within 30 minutes, half the guests had left.

In contrast, I recall speaking to Nancy Pelosi, the queen of the Democrats, at a watch party on 6 November 2018, for the midterms during Trump’s first presidency. I asked her what I should put in my overnight report to London, given that most results wouldn’t be in. She said, with striking confidence, that I should predict that the Democrats would retake the House of Representatives. She was right: the Democrats flipped 41 Republican seats. It gave Pelosi a second term as speaker of the House and gave the world the enjoyable theatre of her sitting directly behind Trump at his State of the Union speeches, rolling her eyes at the bombast.

Kim Darroch was British ambassador to the US from 2016 to 2019, and is author of Collateral Damage: Britain, America and Europe in the Age of Trump

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JD Vance, Ron DeSantis and Ted Cruz all pointed to Iran war and affordability as key factors in Democratic victory

• Q&A: Ask your questions about Democrats’ win in the midterms

Republican hopefuls in the race to succeed Donald Trump swiftly blamed two key pillars of his agenda – the Iran war and tariffs – for summoning the Democratic blue wave that swept the US midterm elections.

The fallout from the stunning success of Democrats on Tuesday night has left Republicans reeling – and grasping for the reasons behind the collapse in support. On Thursday, the Associated Press called more competitive House races for the Democrats, though Senate races in Alaska and Mississippi remained undecided.

In Michigan, support for Israel was a kind of political hologram. But the media often made it seem real

Among the things that Abdul El-Sayed’s victory in the Michigan Senate race revealed is this: the debate over US policy toward Israel does not primarily pit the left versus the right. It pits the top versus the bottom.

There was no grassroots enthusiasm in the state for maintaining US military aid and weapons sales to Israel. That view no longer commands support even among ordinary Republicans. There was instead a massive infusion of pro-Israel money, mostly from extremely wealthy people.

But the president still has veto power, which he can wield to dictate policy over tariffs, the war in Iran or aid for Ukraine

In a rare occurrence, a US election may have actually been decided by foreign policy. Donald Trump’s war in Iran and international tariffs are seen as playing a key role in the inflationary pressures that drove so many Americans to vote against his party on Tuesday in what has been described as a “generational wipeout” for the Republicans.

And in the coming months, the president is going to face severe headwinds on those policies as Democrats storm back into control of Congress, threatening investigations of some of his top envoys and Pentagon contractors, big fights over budgets linked to the Iran war, and greater scrutiny of US relationships with allies such as Israel.

Bitter postmortem under way as party comes to terms with Darline Graham’s stunning loss to Annie Andrews

• Q&A: Ask your questions about Democrats’ win in the midterms

It’s not that Shane Brown somehow didn’t know about the US Senate election in South Carolina. Nor was he unaware that the outcome of the race between Senator Darline Graham and her Democratic challenger, Annie Andrews, was shockingly competitive when he refrained from voting on Tuesday.

The campaigns would not let him forget it.