Trump's first post-midterm speech, Musk scrutiny, Alaska and Mississippi keep counting

Hi, I'm Christopher Wall-Jasper in Chicago. It's Wednesday, November 4th, today. Democrats vow to use their big wins to rein in Donald Trump, while the president used his first post-election appearance to show off his White House ballroom still under construction. Shares of Elon Musk's Tesla and SpaceX tumble, as the nation's eyes turned to cliffhanger Senate races in Alaska and deeply conservative Mississippi. And this is Reuters' World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the frontlines in 10 minutes, seven days a week. Votes in close Senate races in Alaska and Mississippi continue to be counted. In Mississippi, Democrat Scott column is running neck and neck with incumbent Republican Cindy Hyde Smith. Reports of the margin vary according to media tallies. Thousands of ballots from people whose voter eligibility needed to be checked are still pending. Outcomes in both states could go either way. Mississippi could flip a seat to the Democrats, and Alaska could add to their majority or help Republicans limit the losses. The margins are still small enough that the final count may not be settled for days or even weeks. Votes totals are changing, so check back with Reuters for the latest numbers. Vice President JD Vance has blamed the Republican midterm losses on the war with Iran. In a long social media post, he wrote bluntly that, quote, "The reason we lost is the war," adding, quote, "If you'd like to argue it was worth it that losing the Senate for the next six years was worth it, then do so." Trump, for his part, acknowledged the war had played a role in his party's losses, but stood by his decision. "And probably that's probably true, but at the same time, if I had it to do again, I'd have to do it again, because long-term. " He made those comments at his first post-midterm appearance, at an event showing off the construction of his enormous White House ballroom. "Building when it's completed will be one of the great buildings in Washington, DC, and they'll understand that most people understand." While we wait for the final tally in the Senate, a clearer picture of how Democrats pulled off Tuesday night's blowout results has emerged. Data reporter Brad Heath breaks down a few key numbers that define the races. "If there's one number that really crystallized for me the scale of the Democratic route in the midterm elections last night, it's 99 percent. We have pretty complete election results for about 2,100 counties nationwide, and in 99 percent of them, Democrats did better than they did when President Trump was seeking re-election two years ago. And most of the time, they were doing a lot better. Those counties moved 8 percentage points away from Republicans this year compared to 2024. When you take these shifts, the broad movement toward Democrats, what you're really looking at is a polar opposite of what we saw on election night in 2024, and so much of the country moved in President Trump's direction, bringing him back to the White House. You know, only what we're seeing this time is the arrows are all going in the other direction and they're bigger. Another one, 64. We have vote totals so far for 64 counties where Hispanic people make up more than half of the voting population. And in all of those counties, the electorate moved very considerably toward Democrats last night, more so than the rest of the country. You're talking 14 percentage point shifts. This is in Texas, in Miami-Dade County, along the Mexican border. It's a dramatic movement in a demographic that had been key to putting Trump back in the presidency two years ago. The number that helps explain just how high the Democratic wave rose in this election is 11. Republicans have not won any House seats yet that President Trump carried by less than 11 percentage points two years ago. That means the wave was high enough to sweep away Republicans who, in another year, might have thought their seats were pretty safe. Then let's talk about nine. This year, Republicans tried to redraw legislative maps to cement their control in the House of Representatives. And so far, that effort has fallen short. They specifically targeted seats held by 15 Democratic members of Congress. And so far, Democrats have won nine of those. Republicans have picked up none. Six remain to be decided. Next is three. In Florida, President Trump's adopted home state, and really the key to his political support, a Democratic socialist came within three percentage points of winning a Senate seat. That shows that even a movement Trump had described as radical, came within striking distance of winning a Senate seat in a Republican state that he had carried by 13 points and zero. That's the number of competitive House races that Republicans have won so far. There were about four dozen races going into election night that we thought would be important to determining who gets control of the House this year. So far, Democrats have won each and every race that's been decided. Elon Musk spent nearly half a billion dollars backing GOP candidates in the midterms. That's a record for any individual donor in a single cycle. Major losses for Republicans included Texas, the home of Musk's Starbase and Tesla headquarters, where Democrats won the governor's race and a Senate seat for the first time in decades. Musk now faces greater scrutiny from newly elected Democrats on his business empire, controversial data centers, and his ties with President Trump. Here to unpack it all for us is our corporate finance editor, Don Kopecki. Elon Musk spent hundreds of millions of dollars supporting 43 different Republicans running in the House and Senate. Of the hundreds of millions of dollars Musk spent in the races last night, he has ended up with just three candidates that won. And a handful of candidates that are undecided, Musk very likely did make it worse for himself and his companies and putting so much stock in Republicans, especially in a year in which Trump was so unpopular. Musk lost at the elections last night, not necessarily because they weren't smart with their money. They were spending it in competitive races that anyone putting their money and wanting Republicans to win would have spent their money on. But he lost because Trump is so wildly unpopular and Elon Musk has hooked all of his aspirations to Trump and to that party. Democrats are lining up investigation after investigation into Musk, his work for the federal government, his federal contracts, Groc and different issues with his AI businesses, you're going to see Department of Defense officials, NASA officials hauled up to Congress to testify about the contracts that his companies have. So Democrats, even though they don't have the power to cut those contracts off, they have a lot of power to cause a lot of pain and to squeeze Musk and SpaceX and all of his companies really hard next year in Congress. One key aspect of the Democrats' historic victory in Tuesday's midterms was the Farm Bill, from the cattle country of Texas and Kansas to the corn and soybean farmers of Iowa and Ohio. Democrats saw a resurgence in parts of the country that in some cases haven't won in decades. Our policy reporter, Leah Douglas, has been looking into how the left made inroads across the heartland. Strategists and candidates that we talked to told us that this was really a plan that had been years in the making. The Democratic Party understood that they had lost purchase in rural America and really invested in campaigns, tried to field a candidate in every race. And candidates that I spoke to told me that they really focused their outreach efforts, their door knocking, their canvassing on small towns and rural places. Where sometimes they heard from voters that they had never been contacted by a political campaign before. And that really paid off for the party, even though Republicans have won these seats in the past. There's always been Democratic voters in these places. You might have people of color of all different backgrounds. There may be meatpacking plants where there's a large share of Hispanic workers and voters. There's always been a mixed electorate in rural America and what we saw last night really underlines that Democrats can make inroads in these places when they put the strategy behind it. To trick for Democrats will be to continue governing in a way that shows this broad base of voters that the party does take their concern seriously. So on issues like corruption, high prices, health care, these were all major cost of living pocketbook issues for rural Americans. And what we heard is that for the party that have a hope of maintaining this momentum, especially through the 2028 presidential election, they will need to continue appealing to that broad base of voters. For more on any of the stories from today, as well as more analysis and news shaping our world, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. There's a link in the description to download it and start getting pure news. straight from the source. Don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast player. 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