Midterm elections in the USA: Perfect victory on almost all levels

It was an election night that even the most optimistic US Democrats could never have dreamed of. There aren't that many of them anymore, at least since Hillary Clinton's unexpected election defeat against Donald Trump in 2016. And then her party achieves a perfect election victory at almost every level.

Democrats previously held 47 seats in the Senate. They had to gain 4 in order to form the majority of the 100 senators. In fact, they won at least 7 seats, which is comfortable. As of Wednesday afternoon, two races are still open - one of which is a huge surprise: in heavily Republican Mississippi, Democratic challenger Scott Colom is ahead with 43 votes. It will take some time before the election victory is determined: 96 percent of the votes have been counted, that's around 920,000 votes in total, the lead is hardly measurable.

And in Alaska, the electoral system alone ensures that no winner has yet been determined. Currently, with 71 percent of votes counted, Republican Dan Sullivan leads Democrat Mary Peltola by 1.2 percentage points. But in Alaska, it takes a majority of over 50 percent to win outright. If no one has this, what is counted is what those who did not vote for either of the two main candidates stated as their second preference. This is inherently complicated and doesn't get any better if one of the other candidates is named Dan Sullivan the same as the Republican candidate. The result is that this too takes time.

So far we know for sure that the Democrats have gained at least 7 Senate seats and have a clear majority in the Senate with at least 54 seats.

Counting for the House of Representatives is still underway in various constituencies across the country. But with at least 27 gains, the Democrats have a clear majority with at least 231 of 435 seats, and the post of speaker will pass from Republican Mike Johnson to Democrat Hakeem Jeffries.

And the Democrats have also made clear gains in the 36 gubernatorial elections: in Texas, Nevada, Iowa, Georgia and Ohio, the color of the executive branch is changing from Republican red to Democratic blue in five states. There is a certain humor in the fact that the far-right governor Greg Abbott, who was defeated in Texas, was subsequently referred to by Donald Trump as “Rino,” a Republican in name only.

The gubernatorial election in Georgia in particular seems significant because it theoretically gives both Democratic senators, Raphael Warnock and the now re-elected Jon Ossoff, the opportunity to run for president in 2028 without having to fear that a Republican governor will fill their seat with a successor from the opposite side.

The picture is less clear when it comes to the many referendums that were held in the states. The Californian vote on a billionaire tax had previously received the most attention. Counting is still going on there too, but with only 44 percent approval after 60 percent of votes counted, things are not looking good for the pet project of many left-wing and progressive voices across the USA, which would certainly have set a precedent elsewhere if it was successful.

The Democrats won in almost all demographic groups, with one exception: 58 percent of white men without a high school diploma voted Republican. But in all the other groups that Trump had been able to win over two years ago, the Republicans had no chance this time.