According to the Associated Press, Democratic candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms won the Georgia gubernatorial election, setting a record and becoming the first African-American female governor in the United States.
Bottoms, the former mayor of Atlanta, defeated Republican billionaire Rick Jackson, who works in the health care industry, in this midterm election. On the eve of voting day, Bottoms said: "What we do now will echo throughout history."
Bottoms' victory is of great significance to the Democratic Party. Previously, well-known Democratic voting rights advocate Stacey Abrams tried twice to challenge Republican Governor Brian Kemp, both of which failed. This time, Kemp's term expired and he did not run for governor.
Bottoms is a descendant of slaves in Georgia, but during the campaign she did not deliberately emphasize the historical significance of her candidacy, instead talking about it in terms of family history.
"I'm at least a fifth-generation Georgian... I say 'at least' because our family can only go back five generations at most, to a plantation in Crawfordville." Bottoms said that her grandfather moved from rural Georgia to the big city of Atlanta. At that time, "you could only go through the back door" to get to the buildings in the city; later, when she was elected mayor, she walked directly into these government buildings from the front entrance.
During this campaign, Bottoms proposed policies that included expanding Medicaid benefits for low-income groups, reducing household expenses, and protecting voting rights.
For more than 20 years, the governorship of Georgia has been held by Republicans. The election is a major setback for Trump, who had previously campaigned for Jackson.
In this year's midterm elections, the Texas Senate race has attracted high attention: the Democratic Party fielded James Talarico, and the Republican Party fielded Ken Paxton. Texas has not elected a Democratic senator since 1988, but this time the election is close. Some polls show Talarico is slightly ahead, but the outcome is still difficult to predict.
Talarico, who has a theological background, is a member of the Texas House of Representatives; Paxton is the Texas Attorney General and a close ally of Trump.
About 7.7 million voters in Texas voted early this time, accounting for more than 40% of all registered voters, setting a record for the state's midterm elections. The number of early voters in 15 counties was even higher than the total number of votes cast in the 2022 midterm elections. In addition, the number of Latino voters has surged, and this group is very important in Texas.
DW interviewed dozens of local residents in Austin, El Paso, Texas, and other places. Many people expressed concerns about the U.S. economy, political corruption, serious political confrontation and other issues.
"I'm heartbroken. It hurts to be an American and have a hard time," one Texan said.
Wilson Ihonvbere, a 67-year-old Trump supporter, said: "The economy is a big problem. Things are very expensive now, which is different from what they promised us."
Another citizen, Steve Schaffer, revealed that he did not intend to vote for Talarico or Paxton; he also criticized billionaire Elon Musk's funding of the Republican Party, especially the Texas election campaign: "Economic power will be transformed into political power, but now that economic power has been blatantly distorted and abused, it is really difficult to continue to maintain the normal functioning of democracy."
According to the New York Times, Musk spent approximately $168 million to support various Republican candidates for the Senate; however, despite investing such a huge amount of money, the Texas election was still very close.
The results of several state senatorial votes are coming out one after another. According to the Associated Press vote count, Georgia's Democratic Senator Jon Ossof, 39, won re-election, defeating Republican candidate Mike Collins, who once served as a member of the House of Representatives. Ossef is a rising political star of the Democratic Party and is regarded as one of the potential candidates for the 2028 US presidential election.
Georgia has traditionally been a Republican-leaning state, and the victory of young rising star Ossef has become a hot topic. However, election results elsewhere on the East Coast were as expected.
In the northeastern state of Delaware, the hometown of former U.S. President Joe Biden, Democratic Senator Chris Coons was successfully re-elected; no Republican has won a Senate election in this state since 1994. Massachusetts was also re-elected by Democratic Senator Ed Markey; New Hampshire's original Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen retired and was replaced by Chris Pappas of the same party in this election.
It is worth noting that in the southern state of North Carolina, former Governor Roy Cooper won the Senate election, defeating Republican Michael Whatley, successfully flipping the state's previously Republican seats. The state's original senator, Thom Tillis, did not seek re-election this time due to conflicts with Trump on the bill last year.
For the Democratic Party, Cooper's victory is a big boost. In the past three presidential elections, North Carolina voters chose Trump.
Exit polls commissioned by the Associated Press and major television stations and conducted by polling agency SSRS showed that about half of American voters saw this year's midterm elections as an opportunity to express their dissatisfaction with current President Trump: three-quarters of the people said they were "angry" or "dissatisfied" with the direction of the country's development; about 70% hoped that Congress could bring more checks and balances to the president.
According to polls, dissatisfaction is very high in Democratic-leaning states such as California and Massachusetts; even in Republican-leaning states, most voters are somewhat dissatisfied.
Preliminary exit polls also show that about 60% of voters disapprove of Trump's performance in office. According to CBS and NBC, Trump's approval rating is now about 38%, which is lower than the 45% during his first term in office in the 2018 midterm elections. Moreover, his approval ratings are still lower than those of George W. Bush in the 2006 midterm elections, after which the Republican Party lost control of the House and Senate.
According to NBC, most voters blame Trump for the poor performance of the U.S. economy. 65% of voters believe that Trump’s policies have led to a deterioration of the economy; for about half of voters, the cost of living is an important factor in their voting.
