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Adam Hamilton, Annie Andrews and James Talarico are heading for Washington Alamy
hot off the ballot box
A pastor, a doctor and a seminarian walk into Washington: Who are the new faces elected today?
Democratic victories have swept America, but who are the new senators, governors and members of the House?
THOUGH MOST POLLS predicted Democrats would do well in the US midterm elections, few would have expected the scale of the blue wave we’ve seen.
Democrats’ victories across the US have flipped the Senate and the House back to their control. They’ve also defeated the Republicans in many statewide governors’ races.
Here’s a collection of some of the new faces of American politics.
More youth, more progressives and more blue in red states
James Talarico was the man to turn Texas blue, becoming the first Democrat elected to the Senate there in decades.
Talarico is a teacher by trade and also a trained seminarian. He campaigned to capture religious voters who have previously been turned off Democrats they deemed too progressive.
On the campaign trail, he criticised the rise of Christian fundamentalism in the US and faced questions on how his pro-choice and supporting LGBTQ+ people stances meshed with his faith.
He was previously elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 2018 when he was just 29 years old.
Abdul El-Sayed is one of the breakout stars of this election cycle for the Democrats, partly because of the amount of vitriol Donald Trump and other senior Republicans have thrown at him.
El-Sayed was born in Michigan to Egyptian immigrant parents. He trained as a doctor and first ran in the Democratic primary to choose their 2018 candidate for governor of Michigan.
El-Sayed has been endorsed by prominent progressive Democrats Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders since that governor primary in 2018, which he lost to Gretchen Whitmer.
Now, after his first senate election campaign, the 42-year-old is the first Muslim elected to the US Senate.
El-Sayed is not the only doctor heading to Washington; Democrat Annie Andrews also flipped her state to blue.
In the last few weeks, South Carolina was touted as a possible, but unlikely, Senate seat flip for the Democrats. But paediatrician Andrews secured victory over Darline Graham by over four points.
Andrews previously lost to Republican Nancy Mace when she ran for a seat in the House for South Carolina’s 1st congressional district in 2022.
This time around she secured victory against Graham, running on a platform focused on healthcare and campaigning for Medicare or all.
Graham has occupied the seat since her brother Lindsey Graham died in July. Lindsey Graham was extremely well regarded in South Carolina, making Andrews victory even more significant as she is the first Democrat elected to the Senate there since 1998.
Another significant swing came in the form of Adam Hamilton becoming the first Democrat elected to the Senate in Kansas since 1932.
Hamilton is a senior Methodist pastor and followed a similar path to capturing voters as Talarico, appealing to more undecided and religious voters.
He’s also an author, having written extensively about his faith and theology. He describes himself as a centrist and focused his campaign on healthcare and the cost of living, both key issues that turned voters away from the GOP.
Former governor Roy Cooper is heading to Washington for the first time as a Senator from North Carolina.
While he was training as a lawyer, he became active in state-level politics. He has been a member of the North Carolina House of Representatives, North Carolina Attorney General and the state’s governor.
He has also been a Sunday school teacher and a deacon at his Presbyterian church.
New faces in the House halls
The House will also have new faces come January.
Democrat Adam Hamaway secured a commanding victory in blue district 12 New Jersey. He is a former army doctor and plastic surgeon.
He treated wounded first responders after 9/11 and in 2024 he spent time volunteering as a doctor in Gaza, mostly working with children in some of the worst-hit areas.
Colorado elected its first Black congresswoman ever in Democrat Melat Kiros.
Born in Ethiopia and a democratic socialist, Kiros is just 29 years old. She worked as an associate at a law firm before being fired after publicly criticising firms for opposing pro-Palestine protests.
Retired army Major Richard Ojeda pulled off a big shock to beat the incumbent Republican in his North Carolina district.
After leaving the army, he worked as a teacher. He previously ran in the Democratic primary for the 2020 election but was defeated, and he ran a brief presidential campaign before this.
National attention for state-level elections
The Senate and House weren’t the only areas where voters chose change; voters across the country have elected new governors.
The race that got the most attention was in Ohio, where Amy Acton secured victory after an ugly race against Vivek Ramaswamy where he used her estranged mother in a campaign ad.
Acton is a doctor and was Ohio’s Director of Public Health during the first few months of the pandemic.
She focused her campaign on affordability and has taken more moderate stances on immigration.
As with the Senate race, Texans also ousted their Republican incumbent governor Greg Abbott and elected the state’s first Latina governor in Gina Hinojosa.
Hinojosa started her career as a civil rights lawyer in Texas and served in the Texas House of Representatives.
During the campaign Abbott refused to debate Hinojosa. Polls considered her to be unlikely to win in these midterms before she beat Abbott by seven points.
44-year-old Democrat Rob Sand is Iowa’s governor-elect after winning his election by 11 points.
Sand was the Iowan state auditor for two terms and ran for the governorship on a platform of affordability and healthcare, especially tackling Iowa’s growing cancer rates.
He held events in all 99 counties in the state in a 100 Town Hall Tour during his campaign.
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