Democrats have won both the US Senate and House of Representatives, taking control of Congress for the rest of Donald Trump's presidency. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing BBC News.
Projected results have provided the party with a number of things to celebrate - and rival Republicans some reasons to commiserate. Democrats have tallied up victories in states that were comfortably won by Trump two years ago, registering sizeable swings in the likes of Texas, Kansas, Ohio and South Carolina.
Among the senior party figures who have cheered the results are Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives, who is now poised to take over as the Speaker of the lower chamber of Congress. "Today begins the great American comeback," he told a crowd of supporters. If Jeffries' colleagues choose to keep him as the leader of their party's delegation in House, he will be the next Speaker, taking over from Republican Mike Johnson and becoming the first black person to fill that role.
Abdul El-Sayed has become the first Muslim person elected to the US Senate - after claiming victory in Michigan in what was one of a handful of closely fought contests. His win means the seat stays in Democratic hands. He defeated Republican opponent Mike Rogers, who received a surprise last-minute endorsement from El-Sayed's Democratic rival in the primary contest. The race was one of the bitterest of the midterms. Trump invoked 9/11 and even called El-Sayed a "jihadist" without citing any evidence, prompting a backlash and accusations of Islamophobia.
El-Sayed's supporters went wild when he took the stage to celebrate his claimed victory, wrote the BBC's Nada Tawfik. He said: "Up until right about now, you might have noticed I always say 'inshallah,' or 'God willing,' whenever the outcome of this race was mentioned." He went on to say: "But today, tonight, we can turn that 'inshallah' into 'alhamdulillah'. For the right-wing ops, that just means 'praise be to God.'"
Trump spoke throughout the evening to a number of US media outlets, striking a conciliatory tone and conceding that the Democrats did a "good job". He said he would accept the results and that he was looking forward to working with the opposition party - albeit he would still have the power, as president, to veto legislation that Democrats advance through Texas. Trump distanced himself from some of the Republican candidates who contested the election, saying: "In some cases they didn't like the candidates, and in some cases those candidates were not my friend." He acknowledged that the US-Israel war on Iran, which has impacted consumer prices in the US, had affected the vote, saying: "Iran was a piece of it."
The defeat of Susan Collins, who has served as the Republican senator for Maine for three decades, was one indicator of the scale of the Republican losses. She was felled by Democratic candidate Troy Jackson, a logger who sought to point to his background to persuade blue-collar Mainers to vote for him. In a statement reported by US media, Collins conceded defeat and said it had been the "honour of my life" to serve the state for 30 years. Collins entered the race as one of the most vulnerable incumbent Republicans seeking re-election, and found that her tactic to distance herself from Trump did not work. The BBC's Helena Humphrey described a sombre atmosphere at Collins's watch party in the city of Maine - where the song Closing Time was played.
With James Talarico winning a seat in the US Senate seat and Gina Hinojosa being elected state governor, Democrats scored two statewide victories in Texas - ending a string of defeats they have endured for almost two generations. Talarico's supporters went beserk as the projected results arrived at an election-night party, wrote the BBC's Gary O'Donoghue. Attendees hugged, kissed and drank to a reality they dared not believe would come true.