The results of the 2026 US midterm elections were marked by a string of historic breakthroughs, as candidates on Wednesday broke through social and political barriers to achieve milestones that had long eluded the country’s politics.
Democrat Chris Pappas won the Senate race in New Hampshire, becoming the first openly gay man elected to the chamber. In the southern state of Georgia, Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms won the race for governor, making her the first Black woman elected to the top office in any US state. Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms became the first Black woman elected governor in US history, while Democrat Gina Hinojosa is set to become Texas’s first Latina governor. A former Atlanta mayor, Bottoms defeated billionaire health care executive Rick Jackson, a win that returned the governor’s office to Democrats after more than two decades of Republican control. “Georgia, we sent a message loud and clear that we want a leader who will put Georgia first and who will stand up to all the chaos coming out of Washington, DC. After completing college, he served as a state lawmaker, county treasurer and state executive councilor before being elected to Congress.
The 46-year-old grew up working in his family’s Manchester restaurant, which opened in 1917 and claims to have invented chicken tenders.
“No matter who you voted for tonight, I will be a governor for all of Georgia,” she said on polling day on Tuesday. Pappas said his win was a “victory for Team New Hampshire over the broken status quo. “Tonight’s results are a wake-up call for corporate special interests and billionaires who have been rigging the economy, for the cowards in Congress who have enabled health care cuts, tariffs and war, and for the incompetent president who can’t even be bothered to care how people are being hurt,” he said.
During the election campaign, Bottoms stressed her plans to improve an uneven economy and counter President Donald Trump’s administration in Washington.
