Election updates: Democrats press to win majority of governor races, but Donalds takes Florida

Votes were being counted in contests for governor in the midterm elections, with Democrats hoping to take over a majority of executive office suites.

BY ASSOCIATED PRESS

Nov 3, 2026, 6:45 PM Updated: 7:13 pm

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican Byron Donalds won the election Tuesday as governor of Florida, defeating Democrat David Jolly. He will be the state’s first Black governor and will follow fellow Republican Ron DeSantis, who was term-limited.

Donalds has served in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2021 and has been a staunch ally of President Donald Trump. Florida has not elected a Democrat as governor since 1994. Jolly is a former Republican congressman. The Associated Press declared Donalds the winner at 9:09 p.m. EST.

Votes were being counted in high-profile contests for governor in Tuesday’s midterm elections, with Democrats hoping to take over a majority of executive offices for the first time in two decades as they ride a wave of voter discontent over the economy, inflation, healthcare and the future of democracy.

Visit KTAR.com’s Election Day results page for the latest counted votes in Arizona

Polls were closed in more than a dozen states, including Texas, Ohio and Florida.

Three Democratic governors who are considered possible presidential candidates in 2028 all won reelection: Wes Moore of Maryland, JB Pritzker of Illinois and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania.

The number of states in play is surprisingly large, a reflection of President Donald Trump’s poor approval ratings dragging on his party. Competitive races include those in heavily populated states; presidential battleground states such as Michigan and Wisconsin; and reliably red states such as Iowa and Ohio.

Roy Cooper projected to flip North Carolina Senate seat

RALEIGH (AP) — Democrats in Washington believed early in the midterm campaign cycle that former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper would be their biggest recruiting win as they tried to forge a once-unthinkable path to a Senate majority.

His state’s voters ratified their confidence Tuesday, delivering Cooper his seventh statewide electoral victory, this time over President Donald Trump’s handpicked Republican candidate Michael Whatley, to flip a key seat in the national battle for Senate control.

The result affirms Cooper’s appeal across a North Carolina electorate that backed Trump in the last three presidential elections. But the president’s standing has fallen and Whatley, the former chairman of the state and national party, was never able to find his footing on the campaign trail.

Florida Senate seat goes to Republican Ashley Moody

Republican Ashley Moody won election Tuesday to the U.S. Senate representing Florida, defeating Democrat Angie Nixon. Moody first took the seat when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis tapped her to succeed Marco Rubio when he became U.S. secretary of state in 2025. A former state attorney general, Moody will serve the last two years of the term Rubio won in 2022.

Nixon, a state lawmaker, is a democratic socialist who tested the strength of Democrats’ left flank in a state where the party has not won a U.S. Senate seat since 2012. Nixon upset establishment Democrats’ more moderate favorite in the primary. Her general election loss is unlikely to help heal the struggling state party’s internal rift. The Associated Press declared Moody the winner at 8:34 p.m. EST.

First openly gay man wins Senate seat

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas defeated former U.S. Sen. John E. Sununu in New Hampshire on Tuesday, keeping a critical open U.S. Senate seat under Democratic control.

With the win, Pappas will become the first openly gay male U.S. senator.

The race to fill the seat being vacated by three-term Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen was one of a handful that could determine the balance of power in the Senate. Republicans were hoping to regain a foothold in a region long dominated by Democrats in Congress while Democrats sought to hold the seat as part of their effort to win control of the chamber.

While outsiders were on the ballot elsewhere, the race for the seat being vacated by Democrat Jeanne Shaheen featured two candidates who tried to tap into anti-establishment angst from the inside. Sununu railed against “career politicians” despite having spent three terms in the U.S. House and one in the Senate before being ousted by Shaheen in 2008. Pappas told voters “Our country is ready for change” while seeking to remain in Washington, where he has represented the state’s 1st Congressional District since 2019.

New Hampshire voters haven’t elected a Republican to Congress since 2010. They also have voted for Democrats for president since 2004, though Republicans have dominated at the state level in recent years

Sen. Jon Ossoff supporters erupt in cheers

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff was reelected Tuesday to a second term, holding a key seat for Democrats by defeating Republican Rep. Mike Collins in a race that catapulted the Senate’s youngest member to the forefront of his party’s national stars as it looks to stymie President Donald Trump in his final White House years.

Ossoff, 39, began the cycle as a top Republican target and the only Senate Democrat running for reelection in a state Trump carried in 2024. But from the start, the senator ran as an aggressive Trump critic, with blistering critiques of “a failed president” that became a staple of voters’ social media feeds across the country.

He became a fundraising juggernaut, pulling in more than $100 million and sparking speculation about a potential 2028 presidential bid to succeed the man he said has used the Oval Office to enrich himself and damage the U.S. political and economic system.

“Corruption in American politics runs a lot deeper than Donald Trump,” Ossoff said during the campaign. “It’s not just the money that’s corrupted our politics. It is a moral corruption, the cynical indifference of powerful people.”

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