Democrats are on course to win 56% of the vote for the House of Representatives, the biggest win for either American party in 50 years.
While opposition to Donald Trump played a big role, a coalition this big and broad reflects deeper forces at work: long-term demographic shifts which are changing the American political map, and could reshape future elections, starting with the 2028 race for the White House.
Three long-term demographic trends are pushing up the shares of voters sympathetic towards the Democrats, even within states that have supported Republicans in the past.
These trends are rising diversity, the growing electoral heft of the youngest generation, and the spread of university education. Migration magnifies the impact of all three.
Back in 2024 Donald Trump made substantial gains among Latino and black voters, but in 2026 these gains were fully reversed. Black and particularly Latino voters reverted to their previous long-term lean towards the Democrats.
This dynamic matters because America is rapidly becoming more ethnically diverse.
In 2000, 72% of US adults reported a non-Hispanic white ethnicity; by 2025 this had fallen to 58%.
The change is even more rapid in some of the states trending most towards Democrats.
For example, both Texas and Georgia have shifted in the last few decades from states with substantial white majorities in 2000 to states where less than half of the population now identifies as white non-Hispanic.
The rapid growth of black, Hispanic, Asian and other minority electorates has helped shift both of these states.
The swing away from the Republicans was even larger among the youngest Americans.
Voters under 30 turned out more than usual and backed the Democrats by huge margins in 2026, a blue "youthquake" crucial to the party's success.
This distinctly blue cohort did not exist when Trump was first elected in 2016.
Since then voters who have grown up amidst the economic uncertainty and political chaos of the Trump era have joined the electorate in ever larger numbers.
They played a major role in the Republican rout this week, and their numbers will continue to grow in elections to come.
Americans are also divided by education. Democrats won voters with an undergraduate degree by 21 points, and those with postgraduate degrees by 34 points.
Here, too, demographic change is working against Republicans. The share of American voters with at least an undergraduate degree has risen from 24% in 2000 to 37% in 2025. The electorate with postgraduate degrees has risen even faster.
Migration amplifies the political impact of these demographic changes.
The youngest adults, particularly recent graduates, move most often between US states and to America from other nations in search of better jobs and opportunities. Migration therefore accelerates political change in rapidly growing states like Texas and North Carolina.
The Democrats' 2026 gains in once-deep red states were powered by surging support in urban and suburban areas with large domestic and international migrant populations.
One striking trend is identified by the British political analyst Ian Warren. Many of the biggest swings in Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina and elsewhere came in counties running along Interstate motorway routes. These "funnel newcomers to the state", typically "young families looking to buy their first home".
Such voters are not only from blue-leaning demographic groups but, as car commuters with large mortgages, they are acutely sensitive to the cost of living crisis.
Demography, however, is not destiny. Democrats know this better than most as they have been burned before.
President Obama's victory in 2008 seemed to herald the rise of a new electoral coalition, only for Trump to ride a huge wave of support among white non-college voters in the once-blue Midwest to victory just eight years later.
The Democrats' current advantage may prove fragile. The midterms saw a huge drop in turnout in the most strongly Trump-voting places as "MAGA" voters registered their disappointment in the president by staying home. The landscape will look different again if, as is likely, many such voters return in the next presidential contest.
Yet while not all the blue shifts seen this week will endure, the long-term trend is clear - the electoral weight of blue-leaning demographic groups is growing and will continue to grow as diverse and graduate-heavy new cohorts join the electorate.
Significantly, that growth is most rapid in many of the largest traditionally Republican states of the South.
That has implications for the next presidential election in two years' time. The blue shift in states like Georgia and North Carolina opens a new path to the White House for Democrats, as presidential elections are won and lost through the Electoral College, where the value of a state is linked to its population.
After the Democratic stronghold of California, Texas is the biggest prize of all. With 40 Electoral College votes, it is worth more Electoral College votes than Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota combined.
A Democrat who wins Texas has one foot in the White House. A Republican who cannot carry the Lone Star state faces a much more difficult challenge in 2028.
The Republicans, one of the oldest political parties in the world, have bounced back many times before. But this week's giant blue wave has served notice on Trump's party: America is changing fast. They will need to change too if they are to win again.
Data visualisation by Kate Schneider, Alicja Hagopian, Joely Santa Cruz and Daniel Dunford.
Thomas Markle, 82, was pictured in handcuffs in a wheelchair as FBI agents escorted him from a Florida retirement home.
He was transported by ambulance for a short court hearing in Tampa and charged with one count of "possession of child pornography".
US Attorney Bill Essayli said agents had seized about 78 items including "slides, film negatives and books" in two Los Angeles storage units allegedly rented by Mr Markle.
The items found are said to include "sexually explicit photographs of himself with prepubescent girls".
"These allegations are extremely serious, and we will prosecute Mr Markle to the fullest extent of federal law," Mr Essayli said.
Authorities said Mr Markle had rented the two storage units since 2008.
He did not enter a plea at Friday's hearing and was released back to a senior care facility with an electronic tag so his location can be monitored.
The judge also ordered a psychiatric examination to ensure he is able to understand the legal proceedings.
It comes just two weeks after Meghan's half-brother Thomas Markle Jr said he had found "hundreds, if not thousands" of child abuse images while clearing out his father's property in the Philippines and had reported him to authorities there, as well as in the US.
He also gave belongings allegedly containing the lewd images to Philippine authorities.
Police there found thousands of photographs and a video of child sexual abuse in phones, memory cards and other belongings discovered in Mr Markle's former home in the central Philippines province of Cebu, officials have said.
'Most deplorable' images
Philippines Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla described the images as "most deplorable," but police said they do not know who owned, produced and distributed the obscene pictures.
Mr Remulla said: "We recovered 7,500 photos and one video of underage males and females of Asian, Latina and European descent."
It was, he said, "the most deplorable displays of impunity towards sexual activity that I have ever seen".
Thomas Markle Snr has called allegations against him "sick lies".
In the fallout, it also emerged Metropolitan Police had shared a letter with the duchess in 2019 about alleged offending by her father outside the UK.
However, the force did not inform other law enforcement agencies.
Meghan has been estranged from her father since 2018 and he did not attend her wedding to Prince Harry.
The duchess has recently revealed the decision to cut off her father was to protect her children.
She said she was "deeply distressed" by the claims against him, but the couple have so far declined to comment on Friday's decision to charge him.
'More' sympathy for Meghan
Royal commentator Jennie Bond told Sky News that "there will be a great deal more" public sympathy for the duchess following the revelations, adding "as there should be".
Ms Bond said she had spoken to "someone extremely close to her, very shortly before this arrest", who told her Meghan was "as well as can be expected in the circumstances".
Also, "she [the duchess] is appalled at the suffering that young children may or may not have been put through and of the families involved. And her thoughts are with them".
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Mr Markle, a former TV lighting director, moved back to the US earlier this year after suffering a stroke and having his leg amputated.
Police in the Philippines were last week handed a warrant by a court to start examining the digital material handed over by Mr Markle Jr.
Around 30,000 people, according to the Vatican, turned out for his first engagement, a formal welcome and speech at Montevideo's Plaza Independencia with Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi and government officials.
Later, the pontiff celebrated Mass after arriving at the Parque Paris Londres in Paysandu, north of the capital.
After arriving on Friday, his motorcade route was lined with people cheering wildly as he passed by in his popemobile, some chanting: "Pope Leo, Uruguay is with you!"
He kissed babies that were passed up to him and received the keys to the city from Montevideo's mayor.
At the event, Leo, speaking in Spanish, praised Uruguay's development while recalling its Catholic heritage.
A key aim of his visit, the first to Uruguay by a pope since 1988, is to push the Catholic faith as a way of confronting today's challenges.
Uruguay, home to 3.5 million people, is considered the most secular nation in Latin America, which houses around 40% of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics.
It was the first country in the world to legalise marijuana for recreational use, the second country in Latin America to decriminalise abortion, and the third nation in the Americas to legalise same-sex marriage.
More recently, it became the first country in the region to approve assisted dying legislation over the strong opposition of the Catholic Church.
"It is everyone's responsibility to ensure that each person can live with dignity, receive the care they need, and be accompanied until the natural end of his or her life," the Pope said.
Later, he presided over an evening vespers service at Montevideo cathedral, that ended at 9pm local time (1am, Rome time).
His visit has proved popular among local Catholics, Uruguayan church officials have said, with tickets to his prayer vigil at Montevideo's Centenario Stadium reportedly selling out within two days.
The next stop for Leo will be Argentina, followed by Peru, where he spent two decades as a missionary bishop.
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The pontiff said he felt better than he looked after travelling to South America less than a month after having lung cancer surgery.
Speaking to reporters during the flight from Rome to the capital Montevideo, he put his quick recovery down to "trusting God, good doctors, good surgeons, and overall I think a healthy lifestyle".
Asked if he felt as good as he looked, 71-year-old Leo replied: "Maybe better."
Police were called at about 8.50am on Friday following reports that two males - one brandishing a sword - had been seen chasing two 17-year-old boys.
One of the boys sustained a "superficial wound", Gloucestershire Constabulary said.
Armed police attended the scene, near St Peter's High School, to search for the suspect, but they had already fled.
"It was reported that two males, one who was in possession of a sword, had been seen chasing two boys," the force said.
"The suspects then fled from the scene on foot."
A 19-year-old man was arrested overnight on suspicion of assault occasioning actual bodily harm and affray, police said.
Meanwhile, an 18-year-old man handed himself into police early on Saturday and was arrested on suspicion of possessing an offensive weapon, assault and affray.
Both men remain in police custody, while a woman arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender has been released on bail.
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Detective Inspector Sophie Dawkins said: "We completely understand the concern this incident would have caused, especially when it happened near a school at drop-off time."
The second boy involved in the chase was not injured, the force said.
Gloucestershire Police said anyone with information should come forward.
Incumbent Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said that even though the result was "too close to call", his centre-right National Party has a "pathway to forming the next government".
There was no definitive winner on election night on Saturday, but Mr Luxon's conservative coalition, which includes libertarian ACT and populist NZ First, could secure a wafer-thin majority.
But if Mr Luxon wants to remain in office, it could take weeks of negotiations and rely on votes counted after election day.
Mr Luxon did not claim victory in a speech to supporters at National's headquarters in the capital Auckland.
"National is once again the largest party in parliament and we have a pathway to forming the next government," he said.
"But I have to tell you right now it is too close to call."
The left-wing bloc, led by Labour Party leader Chris Hipkins, appeared to have fallen short of a majority.
"Tonight, New Zealand has spoken," he told supporters.
"It may take us a little bit longer to figure out exactly what it is that you've said."
The deadlocked result follows an election campaign that has been dominated by concerns about healthcare, housing and the state of the economy.
Under New Zealand's Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) voting system, voters don't elect prime ministers, but instead cast two votes, one for their preferred party and one to select a local representative.
Parties must either win a constituency seat, or win 5% of the preferred party vote, to enter parliament.
To govern, a coalition of parties must hold more than half of parliament's seats.
The total number of seats is determined by official calculations on election night based on quirks of the country's vote.
There are 120 seats in New Zealand's parliament, comprising 71 constituency seats and at least 49 party seats.
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But this total number can increase in cases of overhang.
This is where a party wins more electorate seats than the total share of seats it would otherwise be allocated based on its share of party votes.
Saturday figures showed there could be a 130-seat parliament, with 66 seats needed for a majority.
However, parties negotiating shared governing arrangements would prefer a more comfortable margin. Results suggested a coalition of National, ACT and NZ First would hold 67 seats, a number that has fluctuated.
Official results will not be announced until 27 November after special votes, which include those from overseas voters or people outside their electorate, are counted, which have historically tended to favour the left.
The vote count so far has suggested several prominent members of the National's frontbench could lose their seats, including financial minister Nicola Willis, speaker Gerry Brownlee, defence minister Paul Goldsmith and attorney-general Chris Bishop.
New Zealand's electoral system makes coalition governments the norm, with the tightness of this year's race meaning smaller parties will likely play a role.
Relative newcomer, the Opportunity Party, looks set to enter parliament for the first time, with the party's leader Qiulae Wong saying she would negotiate with whichever party won the most votes.
"We made that call based on the fact that we need a majority of seats in parliament in order to form a government. So that is what we will stick to," she told public broadcaster TVNZ.
New Zealand has slowly emerged from a prolonged economic downturn, with growth subdued, household budgets strained and unemployment rising to 5.7% in the third quarter, its highest level in 11 years.