Democrats' big midterm victory takes shape: at least 253 House seats and 54 in the Senate

Three days after the US midterm elections, the scale of the Democrats' victory is becoming clearer. The party has won at least 253 seats in the House of Representatives and at least 54 in the Senate, its largest majorities since the Obama administration. However, two Senate races, in Alaska and Mississippi, and dozens of House races remain too close to call.

The unexpected nail-biter in deep-red Mississippi is a remarkable reflection of the Democrats' success across the country, and in the South especially. A win by the Democratic nominee, Scott Colom, would mean the state elects a Democrat to the Senate for the first time in 44 years, and he would be the state's first Black senator since Reconstruction.

On Thursday night, Colom led the Republican incumbent, Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, by about 1,800 votes. Lawyers for Hyde-Smith wrote to Mississippi officials requesting that provisional ballots be preserved, a signal of potential litigation over the election. A lawyer for Colom's campaign also wrote to election officials objecting to aspects of the Hyde-Smith campaign's request.

The NAACP said it had sent lawyers to Mississippi. The group's president, Derrick Johnson, a resident of Jackson, said in a statement that his team was 'working around the clock in Mississippi to make sure voters who used provisional ballots are counted.'

In Alaska, former Representative Mary Peltola, a Democrat, had a slim lead over Senator Dan S. Sullivan, a Republican, on Thursday night. A New York Times analysis indicated that Peltola's lead would most likely hold. But it could be days before remaining mail ballots are counted, and the race may require a ranked-choice tabulation, which would not occur until 18 November.

Ebullient Democrats continued to celebrate their election gains, while Republicans were reckoning with their worst performance since the aftermath of the Watergate scandal half a century ago.

President Trump wrote on social media late on Thursday that his party had faced a drubbing because he was not on the ballot. 'IF I WERE, WE WOULD HAVE WON IN A LANDSLIDE!' he wrote.

Hours earlier, Senator John Curtis, a Utah Republican, had pinned the defeat on the president. 'It turns out voters care about the economy,' Mr Curtis said, adding: 'This was about the president and the president's policies.'

As Republicans pointed fingers at one another, and at the president, for the steep losses, Secretary of State Marco Rubio dismissed reports that he was planning to leave the Trump administration but declined to answer questions about his political future in an interview.

Meanwhile, Representative Katherine M. Clark of Massachusetts, the No. 2 House Democrat, is set to become the majority leader in January. Ms Clark would make history as the first woman to hold that title, though Representative Nancy Pelosi of California served as House speaker, a loftier role.

The Democrats' midterm victories may raise the chances that enough states sign onto a mechanism that, in theory, could elect the next president effectively by popular vote instead of through the typical rules of the Electoral College. The party's surge in Tuesday's elections included gaining the governor's office and both statehouse chambers in at least four states: Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Under the agreement, called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, participants promise to give all their electoral votes to the presidential ticket that wins the national popular vote. But the agreement takes effect only once signed by states representing a majority of the Electoral College, at least 270 electoral votes. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia have adopted the compact so far, representing 222 electoral votes. If all four states that just won total Democratic control were to join, the group would tip over the 270-vote threshold.