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Good morning, it's Wednesday, Nov. 4. Democrats won control of both the House and the Senate, handing President Trump a divided government for his final two years.

Also in today's issue: A first in Michigan, Two historic governors, Abortion on the ballot again, New rules for voting, Maps that backfired, Data centers voted down, A quiet Election Day, Alaska keeps counting.

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Texas hadn't sent a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1988. On Tuesday night it did, and that was only one piece of a much bigger shift.

Democrats won control of both the House and the Senate, according to the Associated Press. Voters were fed up with high prices, the Iran war and government corruption. They flipped Senate seats in Iowa, Kansas, Texas, South Carolina, Ohio, North Carolina and Maine, where longtime Sen. Susan Collins conceded. Democrats needed a net gain of four seats. They got at least seven.

But the first real test of this new Washington arrives before a single winner is sworn in.

In the House, Democrats passed the 218 seats they need early Wednesday, when they won a Texas district Republicans had redrawn to keep. Projections put their final count somewhere between about 235 and 255 seats. Trump is the first president in 20 years to lose both chambers in a midterm.

So what actually changes? Start with the Senate. It must approve a president's cabinet picks and federal judges, including Supreme Court justices. Several Senate Democrats have already questioned whether they would confirm any Trump pick for the high court, NBC News reported. Here's a detail worth knowing. The last time a Senate run by the other party confirmed a justice was 1991, when Democrats approved Clarence Thomas.

The House gains the power to hold hearings and issue subpoenas, which are legal orders forcing officials to testify or hand over records. Democrats have said they will look into the Trump family's business interests and how the Justice Department has been used.

Still, Democrats can't simply pass their own agenda. Most bills need 60 votes to move forward in the Senate, and Democrats will be well short of that. Trump also keeps his veto, and overriding one takes two-thirds of both chambers.

He made that point quickly. In a call with CBS News, Trump congratulated Democrats and said he looked forward to working with them. Then he said he has "total veto power." If Democrats won't work with him, he said, "I'd just veto everything." He blamed the losses on weak candidates and said Republicans would have won if he had been on the ballot.

Republicans have a case, too. The president's party almost always loses ground in a midterm, and divided government can push both sides toward compromise. A White House official argued that "candidate quality matters."

Now the test. The current spending law runs out on Dec. 11. The outgoing Congress, including members who just lost, returns Nov. 9 to handle it. If nothing passes, a shutdown would freeze federal paychecks and could disrupt programs like SNAP food aid, weeks before the new Congress arrives on Jan. 3.

Watch that short session. If both parties pass a full-year spending bill, it signals they want a calm start. If they pass only a short patch into January, the new Democratic majority gets its first big fight with Trump right away.

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Abdul El-Sayed won Michigan's open Senate seat, beating Republican Mike Rogers by about six points. He becomes the first Muslim ever elected to the U.S. Senate. The AP called the race at 2:27 a.m., two days after his primary rival, Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens, endorsed Rogers. El-Sayed, a doctor and former Detroit health director, ran on universal health care and taxing the wealthy. Rogers argued he was too far left for Michigan. Some Jewish Democrats also said he hadn't done enough to confront antisemitism. Trump had called him a "jihadist," which El-Sayed called a distraction from gas and grocery prices. The race drew more than $270 million in disclosed spending, a Michigan record.

Keisha Lance Bottoms became the first Black woman elected governor in U.S. history, flipping Georgia for Democrats for the first time since 1998. The former Atlanta mayor beat Rick Jackson, a billionaire Republican. He spent more than $200 million of his own money. He also promised to govern like "Trump with a Southern tone." In Ohio, Democrat Amy Acton beat Vivek Ramaswamy to become the state's first woman elected governor. Late in the race, Ramaswamy ran an ad with her estranged mother. Some Republicans, including outgoing Gov. Mike DeWine, criticized it. Acton will face a Republican legislature that will likely limit her power. Still, governors shape daily life, from Medicaid to school funding (Statehouse News Bureau).

Missouri voters rejected Amendment 3 on Tuesday, keeping abortion legal two years after they voted to end the state's ban. "No" led with 55.6% when the AP called the race. That's a wider margin than the 51.6% that passed abortion rights in 2024. The measure would have banned most abortions, with exceptions for rape or incest up to 12 weeks. It would also have written a ban on gender-affirming care for minors into the state constitution. Supporters called it a moderate middle ground. Opponents said lawmakers were overriding voters. In Virginia, voters added a right to abortion and other reproductive care to the state constitution with about 61% of the vote (VPM).

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Ohio voters wrote photo ID rules into their state constitution, with about 65% support. The rules stay the same for now. But any future change will need voters' approval. Democrat Amy Acton backed the measure. North Carolina passed a similar amendment that covers mail voters, too, with about 60%. Alaska voted to say only citizens may vote, which was already the law. ID measures in Arizona and California were behind in early counts. Virginia went another way on one question. People with felony records will now get their right to vote back when they leave prison. Before, they had to ask the governor (Virginia Mercury).

Republican-drawn maps meant to protect the House majority largely failed. Last year, Trump urged GOP-led states to redraw their districts mid-decade, outside the usual schedule after each census. Yet Democrats won redrawn seats in Florida and held North Carolina's 1st District, which Trump would have carried by nearly 12 points. They also kept Alabama's 2nd District. In Texas, they won most of the new seats Republicans targeted, as many Latino voters who backed Trump in 2024 switched sides. Democrats are drawing maps too: Maryland voters approved a measure letting lawmakers redraw before 2028. And Missouri voters threw out their Trump-backed map, 62% to 38% (St. Louis Public Radio).

Voters in dozens of towns backed new limits on data centers, the giant computer warehouses that run artificial intelligence, or AI. By late Tuesday, 33 measures to restrict them had passed or were leading. Ohio led the way. Ashville voters undid a village agreement for two data centers. Trenton voted to ban them, which puts a planned Amazon site nearby in doubt. In an NBC exit poll, 56% of voters said AI and data centers were a big factor in their vote. Opponents worry about power bills, water use and losing local control. Business groups point to jobs and new money for towns. Ohio manufacturers say data centers aren't what's driving up power bills.

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Election Day ran mostly smoothly across the country, after months of worry that federal officials would interfere. The Justice Department sent about 1,000 monitors to polling places in all 50 states. In New Mexico, officials said monitors were questioning voters near Albuquerque. Feared immigration arrests near polling places didn't happen. Most problems were the usual kind: late openings, long lines and broken scanners. The department says its monitors keep the vote honest. Local officials worried they would scare voters. In Michigan, officials said monitors in Dearborn and Flint wrongly quizzed poll workers about their training. The department agreed to stop it (Michigan Advance).

Alaska's Senate race is still too close to call. Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan had about 48.6% of first-choice votes to Democrat Mary Peltola's 47.4%, with many ballots still out. The other Dan Sullivan, a retired teacher at the center of federal and state investigations, drew about 1.7%. Alaska accepts mailed ballots for 10 days, or 15 from overseas. If no one tops 50%, ranked-choice counting is set for Nov. 18. Senate control no longer hangs on Alaska, but the size of the Democratic majority does. A repeal of the ranked-choice system itself was trailing, 51.4% to 48.7%. A 2024 repeal failed by fewer than 750 votes (Alaska Public Media).

That's the share of voters who say Congress is doing "not enough" to check the president. The number comes from the AP Voter Poll of about 80,000 voters. About 4 in 10 Republicans agreed. Starting in January, a new Congress gets its turn to answer.

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