Leif Ames

noun: 1. One who uses deception, especially in a legal, financial, or political context. 2. One who raises petty objections; a quibbler.

Republicans suffered historic losses, Democrats won control of Congress – and Trump backed away from losing candidates

Democrats swept key US midterm races on Tuesday evening, flipping long-held Republican seats and securing a majority in Congress after voters rebuked Donald Trump’s policies at the ballot box.

In an unexpected performance, Democrats defeated incumbent Republicans candidates for historically conservative Senate seats in Iowa, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina and Texas.

Democrats of all stripes declared victory on Tuesday night in clearest sign yet voters have had enough of Trumpism

No single Democratic coalition can claim victory after Tuesday’s resounding midterm results – all parts of the Democratic coalition can.

Their wins were so sweeping, so resounding, that factional divisions fail to explain them. This year, the most important thing Democrats had to be to win was, simply, not Republicans.

In today’s newsletter: A thumping night for the Democrats has seen the party take control of Congress, altering the course of Trump’s second presidency

Good morning. While you were sleeping, a political earthquake hit the United States and it’s still climbing up the Richter scale. Voting in Alaska and Hawaii wrapped up only hours ago, but early midterm results streaming in from across the US are making history for the Democrats, as they cash in on Trump’s plummeting popularity.

Democrats have taken control of the Senate and the House of Representatives, and the scale of their successes are far larger, and the speed at which they’ve materialised far quicker, than had been expected. Some of the most hotly contested races of the night have already been called, with Democrats flipping seats in Texas, Ohio and Kansas.

EU trade deal | Andy Burnham is preparing to announce billions of pounds of trade deals with the EU covering everything from youth visas to pet passports under his vision of a much closer relationship with the bloc.

UK news | A “well-known individual” has failed in his bid to stop two media organisations from publishing allegations of inappropriate sexual activities, the high court has ruled.

UK politics | Reform UK’s leader on Hampshire county council has been charged with 12 counts of rape and one of distributing indecent images of a child.

UK news | King Charles has said that deepening his understanding of the horrors of slavery has made him more determined to address the wrongs of the past, as Caribbean leaders and campaigners intensified demands for an apology and reparations from Britain.

Climate crisis | Countries can start to break their dependence on fossil fuels now without needing to wait for new technologies or economic changes, Brazil’s government has said ahead of a global climate summit.

President’s party stripped of control after he spent weeks pleading with Americans to pretend he was on ballot

• US midterm elections – live updates

• Track live results from all 50 states

• Tell us: what do you want to know about the midterm election results?

Donald Trump has been dealt a devastating blow to his authority in a night of crushing defeats in the midterm elections, which saw his Republican party stripped of control of the Senate and the House as his handpicked “Maga” candidates were swept away by a blue tsunami.

The president spent weeks ahead of the election pleading with the American people to pretend he was on the ballot. He may now rue that tactic: the American people took him at his word, and delivered him a bloody nose of historic proportions, flinging his presidency into lame duck status.

Democrat defeats Mike Rogers in race marked by Islamophobic attacks from Trump and Republican allies

Abdul El-Sayed, the doctor and progressive insurgent, has made history in winning the closely watched US Senate race in Michigan, defeating the Republican Mike Rogers and becoming the country’s first Muslim senator.

El-Sayed’s victory adds to a decisive Democratic majority in the Senate after the party wrested control of the upper chamber on Tuesday.

Democrats flip Senate seats in Michigan, Texas, Iowa, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina and Ohio; voters reject Trump’s agenda in ‘blue wave’

• Track live results from all 50 states

• Full report: Democrats win control of Congress in ‘blue wave’

• Tell us: what do you want to know about the results?

As we bring you the latest from around the country, Donald Trump is certainly paying attention. From the White House, the president said that he was tuning into coverage on Fox News.

“I can’t stand Jessica Tarlov’s voice,” Trump said of the Democratic strategist and Fox News contributor in a post on Truth Social. The president called Tarlov “DUMB AS A ROCK”.

Democrat James Talarico has won the US Senate race in Texas, securing an astonishing and historic victory. Talarico, a state representative, beat the scandal-plagued attorney general Ken Paxton in the most expensive race of this midterms cycle. He is also the first Democrat to win a US Senate seat in the Lone Star state since 1988.

Democrats should take the right lessons from their great night – but will they?

Trump has been a disaster for our country. His economic plans are incoherent, the Iran war is making inflation worse, and his complicity with Israel’s crimes in Gaza and other acts of lawlessness, from the extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean to the kidnapping of Maduro, have been combined with a continuing coarsening of American culture.

Bhaskar Sunkara is the president of the Nation, the founding editor Jacobin, and the author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in An Era of Extreme Inequalities

Osita Nwanevu is a Guardian US columnist

Jill Filipovic is an American author