Abdul El-Sayed wins Michigan Senate seat as first Muslim senator

This is the evening edition of the One News Page Global Briefing, for Wednesday, the fourth of November, twenty twenty-six. Here is what matters now.

Progressive Democrat Abdul El-Sayed has won Michigan's open U S Senate seat, defeating Republican Mike Rogers and becoming the first Muslim elected to the Senate, multiple election calls confirmed. El‑ Sayed, a physician, ran on the party’s left flank and withstand Islamophobic attacks from former President Donald Trump and Republican allies during one of the country's bitter and expensive races. His victory keeps a crucial seat in Democratic hands and adds to the party's growing Senate majority in the midterm cycle.

Meanwhile, in North Carolina, former Governor Roy Cooper has flipped the state's open U S Senate seat for the Democrats, defeating Michael Whatley, the former Republican National Committee chair whom President Trump had backed to succeed retiring Senator Thom Tillis. Cooper's win gives North Carolina its first Democratic senator in a decade. Republicans retained Florida's Senate seat, where Ashley Moody defeated Democrat Angie Nixon, C B S News projects.

In Maine, Democrat Troy Jackson, a fifth-generation logger and former president of the Maine Senate, has unseated five-term Republican Senator Susan Collins, ending her nearly thirty-year career in Washington. Jackson had little more than one hundred days to introduce himself to voters after replacing Graham Platner as the party's nominee in July. Collins, the only Republican representing New England in Congress, conceded in what Democrats counted as one of their most sought-after wins.

Elsewhere in the Senate races, Senator Jon Ossoff won reelection in Georgia, defeating Republican Representative Mike Collins in a state President Trump carried in twenty twenty-four. Ossoff, an aggressive anti-Trump campaigner often mentioned as a possible twenty twenty-eight presidential contender, was the only Senate Democrat seeking reelection in a Trump-won state. In Kansas, the Rev. Adam Hamilton, a centrist Democrat, unseated Senator Roger Marshall, a fierce Trump loyalist, becoming the first Democrat to win a Kansas Senate seat since one thousand nine hundred and thirty-two. In New Hampshire, Democratic Representative Chris Pappas defeated former Republican Senator John Sununu to keep the seat of retiring Senator Jeanne Shaheen in Democratic hands. The Guardian reported that Pappas will become the first out gay U S senator.

In recent elections, Democrats achieved significant victories in several states. Texas State Representative Gina Hinojosa defeated three-term Republican Governor Greg Abbott in a major upset, becoming the state's first Latina governor and its first Democratic chief executive since one thousand nine hundred and ninety-five. The New York Times reported that she concentrated on pocketbook issues and that voter opposition to Republican immigration policies provided a tailwind. In Georgia, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms defeated Republican billionaire Rick Jackson to become the first Black woman elected governor of any U S state and Georgia's first Black governor. Ohio Democrats also ended sixteen years of Republican control of the governor's mansion, with former health director Dr. Amy Acton defeating biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who was endorsed by Trump. Acton will become the first woman elected governor of Ohio.

On foreign policy, President Donald Trump said the United States will stop providing roughly four billion dollars a year in military aid to Israel after the end of this year, telling Fox News in an Election Day interview that Israel no longer needs the assistance. Trump said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had approached him about the move and that the two had made a deal months ago. He added that Washington would still sell weapons to Israel and accused Democratic candidates of using military support for Israel against Republicans.

In Spain, Transport Minister Óscar Puente has resigned following a high-speed train collision south of Madrid that killed sixty-nine people and injured dozens more, one of Europe's deadliest rail accidents this century and the second deadly crash in Spain in less than a year. Earlier on the day he resigned, Puente had announced new safety measures, including improvements in control centers and a faster rollout of the European Rail Traffic Management System. Euronews reported that a high-speed train had been allowed to keep running at more than one hundred and sixty km/h after its safety system failed, and that rail workers were threatening to strike. Puente also said he would withdraw from the upcoming election.

Back in Washington, Vice President J D Vance publicly blamed the administration's war with Iran for the Republican Party's midterm defeats, declaring in a social media post, "The reason we lost is the war." The statement appeared to mark an effort by Vance to distance himself from President Trump after a night of broad Republican losses.

That was the evening edition of the One News Page Global Briefing. Read the complete briefing and explore its supporting coverage at one news page dot com.