Several groundbreaking Black women had a chance to achieve historic firsts but fell short. In perhaps the most high-profile governor’s race in the country, Stacey Abrams lost her rematch against Georgia Governor Brian Kemp. In the race for the Senate, Rep. Val Demings failed to unseat incumbent Marco Rubio in Florida, and Cheri Beasley was unable to defeat Republican Ted Budd in the open Senate race in that state. Supporters are pointing towards institutional failures in these races, including years of voter suppression policies in Georgia and a lack of national Democratic support for Demings and Beasley.

Tuesday brought good news to several Black women candidates, including progressive Summer Lee, who became the first Black woman elected to the House of Representatives from Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, Zaynab Mohamed has been elected as the first Somali America representative in the Minnesota state Senate; she and two other candidates became the first three Black women ever elected to the Minnesota Senate. Other firsts include Wes Moore, who will become the first Black man to serve as Governor of Maryland; that state will also see the first Indian American Lieutenant Governor, Aruna Miller, and its first Black Attorney General, Anthony Brown. Meanwhile, despite Florida breaking Republican in a number of key races, Maxwell Frost, a 25 year old Afro Latino Democratic candidate, became the first member of Gen-Z to be elected to Congress.

In the months leading up to the election, economic instability and right-leaning polls predicted a potential “Red Wave” of Republican victories. Such results would be in line with typical midterm elections, which tend to trend away from the party that holds the White House. So far, results have been better than expected for Democrats. Republicans, meanwhile, appear divided. Although former President Donald Trump has strongly signaled that he will launch a reelection bid soon, his influence appears to be waning as several Trump-backed candidates lost on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis easily won reelection, solidifying his position as Trump’s main rival in the Republican Party; Trump has already started to publicly throw shots at DeSantis, who might challenge Trump for the GOP nomination.

As Blavity previously reported, several states voted on whether to remove exceptions from their state laws that still legalized slavery as punishment for crimes, a stipulation that has contributed to mass incarceration an abuses within the criminal justice system. Most notably, efforts to remove that language failed in Louisiana. Though this is an embarrassment for a state that has been accused of various forms of institutional racism, the failure also reflects poor wording in the ballot initiative which caused confusion as to what it would actually accomplish. The legislator who initially wrote the proposed change actually urged voters to reject it so that he can re-introduce a more clearly worded version of the bill at a later date.

As of Wednesday morning, it was still unclear which party will control either the Senate or the House of Representatives, as a number of races across the country remain too close to call. This includes the heavily-scrutinized Georgia Senate race between Democratic incumbent Rev. Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker. This race is close enough that it will likely lead to a run-off election, the second time in two years that Georgia would see a second round in its Senate race.

Democrats have already done better than expected, but whether or not they will hold onto Congress or lose to a narrow Republican majority will not be decided for days or maybe weeks. And the intense nature of this midterm election indicates that 2024 will be another very heated election.