American voters made their voices heard in the U.S. midterms, sending a resounding message to the Trump administration that it was not happy with how the country is being governed. Democrats won a majority in both the Senate and the House on Tuesday, and with them control over the committees that write NASA’s budget, set Space Force policy and can compel CEOs like Elon Musk to testify.
CBS News projects Democrats will hold at least 54 Senate seats, with two races still unresolved. The party flipped seats in Kansas, Iowa, Texas, Ohio, Maine, North Carolina and South Carolina. Democrats passed the 218 seats needed for a House majority overnight, and CBS estimates they could finish with more than 250. The new Congress sits on Jan. 3.
All figures are in U.S. dollars.
The new committee chairs
Zoe Lofgren of California, the top Democrat on the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, is in line to take its gavel from Texas Republican Brian Babin. Both won re-election, Payload reported. The chair usually, though not always, goes to the new majority’s senior member, and Babin, whose district includes the Johnson Space Center, would likely stay on as the committee’s top Republican.
Lofgren told the American Institute of Physics last month that a Democratic committee would work to reverse “the tremendous damage that the administration has done to the science enterprise,” and that she wanted budget restrictions on NASA and other science agencies lifted. She pressed NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman at an April hearing on whether he would follow what Congress passes, “not what Russ Vought says,” a reference to the White House budget director.
Valerie Foushee of North Carolina, the top Democrat on the House space and aeronautics subcommittee, was re-elected and is next in line to chair it. Mike Haridopolos, the Florida Republican who chairs it now and represents the Space Coast, kept his seat.
George Whitesides of California, a former NASA chief of staff and Virgin Galactic chief executive, won a second term. He is already the committee’s vice ranking member, the Democrats’ No. 2 post, and sits on both its space subcommittee and the House Armed Services Strategic Forces subcommittee, which oversees military space. A gavel may come open on the committee because Haley Stevens of Michigan, the senior Democrat on its research and technology subcommittee, lost a Senate primary in August and is leaving the House.
In the Senate, Maria Cantwell of Washington is in line to reclaim the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, which she chaired from 2021 to 2025. Ted Cruz of Texas, who was not on the ballot, moves to the minority after two years in which he steered an extra $10 billion to NASA through last year’s budget reconciliation law. The committee’s space panel, the Aviation, Space, and Innovation subcommittee, is chaired by Kansas Republican Jerry Moran, with Illinois Democrat Tammy Duckworth as its senior Democrat.
Susan Collins of Maine chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, which writes the bills that fund NASA and the Pentagon, and sits ex officio on its Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) subcommittee, the panel that funds NASA. Democrat Troy Jackson, a former state Senate president and logger, defeated her on Tuesday, NBC News projected. Patty Murray of Washington, the committee’s senior Democrat, is next in line for the chair.
Moran, who chairs the Senate CJS subcommittee as well as Commerce’s space panel, loses both gavels. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the senior CJS Democrat, would take over the subcommittee. Moran and Van Hollen both told Isaacman in May they wanted NASA fully funded, so the new subcommittee chair is more likely to change what NASA spends on than how much it gets.
In the House, Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the senior Democrat on Appropriations, was declared re-elected by the Associated Press on Wednesday and is poised to take back the chair from Oklahoma’s Tom Cole. Grace Meng of New York, the top Democrat on the House CJS subcommittee, won a contested primary in June and would succeed Kentucky’s Hal Rogers.
On defence, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, who chaired Senate Armed Services from 2021 to 2025, is in line to replace Mississippi’s Roger Wicker. Adam Smith of Washington would take House Armed Services from Alabama’s Mike Rogers. The Democratic seat atop the House Strategic Forces subcommittee, which oversees military space, opens up because its holder, Massachusetts Democrat Seth Moulton, gave up his House seat to challenge Senator Ed Markey and lost the September primary.
Seats near the spaceports
Virginia Democrat Elaine Luria beat Republican Jen Kiggans in the district that includes NASA’s Wallops launch site. In Colorado Springs, home to U.S. Space Force bases and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) headquarters, Democrat Jessica Killin led Republican Jeff Crank, a member of the Strategic Forces subcommittee, 52 per cent to 45 per cent with 85 per cent of votes counted, according to the New York Times. The race had not been called.
Texas elected James Talarico, a 37-year-old state legislator, to the Senate seat John Cornyn holds until January. Cornyn lost the Republican primary runoff to Ken Paxton. Talarico beat Paxton, the state’s attorney general, to become the first Democrat to win a Texas Senate race since 1988, the Texas Tribune reported. Democrat Vicente Gonzalez held the South Texas district that includes SpaceX’s Starbase, beating Republican Eric Flores.
Republicans held Florida, where Byron Donalds won the governor’s race and Senator Ashley Moody kept her seat against Democrat Angie Nixon. Alabama’s Dale Strong, whose district takes in Huntsville and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, returns as well.
The Planetary Society counted at least 90 newcomers in the next Congress before a single vote was cast, after the highest rate of members not seeking re-election since at least 2012.
The funding fight
Congress has until midnight Dec. 11 to pass a budget or extend the stopgap that holds NASA at this year’s $24.4 billion. The White House asked for $18.8 billion for fiscal 2027.
The House spending bill, which never reached the floor, would have cut NASA science by about 18 per cent while adding money for human spaceflight. The Senate Appropriations Committee had not released any of its bills by the late-September recess.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and Cole have both said they want to finish the spending bills before the new Congress, which the Planetary Society called possible but unlikely.
The House and Senate committees each passed a NASA authorization bill without dissent this year, but neither reached a floor vote. A bill that does not pass by January will have to start over in the new Congress.
The Senate version, written by Cruz and Cantwell, authorizes $25.3 billion for 2027 and directs NASA to build a permanent base on the Moon. Its two authors will still lead the committee’s two sides next year, with Cantwell in the chair.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) operates the United States’ civil weather and space-weather satellites and answers to the same committees as NASA. The White House asked for $4.4 billion for the agency in 2027, $1.6 billion less than this year, a request the House Science environment subcommittee reviewed in April, E&E News reported. Congress rejected similar cuts for 2026.
The Commerce Department moved its Office of Space Commerce out of NOAA and into the commerce secretary’s office last year. The 2027 request gives the office $11 million, down from $52.5 million this year, FedScoop reported. The department’s detailed budget proposed halting work on the Traffic Coordination System for Space (TraCSS), the civil system being built to warn satellite operators of possible collisions, while it works out a new financial structure that may include user fees, SpaceNews reported.
Appropriators reversed similar cuts in the 2026 spending bills, and the House Appropriations Committee’s 2027 bill, approved in May, puts $50 million back for the office and backs continued work on TraCSS, according to SpaceNews.
Gabe Amo of Rhode Island, the senior Democrat on the environment subcommittee, which oversees NOAA, would be in line to chair it.
Golden Dome, the Trump administration’s space-based missile shield, got about $25 billion through last year’s reconciliation law, a budget process that lets a Senate majority pass spending without needing opposition votes. Less than $400 million of its 2027 request sits in the regular defence budget, Breaking Defense reported. The rest was meant to come through a third party-line bill, after the one Congress passed in June to fund immigration enforcement.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in September the Senate would “probably” not take up another reconciliation bill until after the election, Arms Control Today reported. Democrats will run both chambers from January, so Republicans can no longer pass Golden Dome money on their own. Senate Armed Services Democrats have called the program’s funding a “slush fund.” Payload called Golden Dome’s funding uncertain after the vote, and SpaceQ wrote in August that the program was heading for a 2027 funding cliff.
SpaceX in Washington, Texas and Louisiana
The U.S. government accounted for about a fifth of SpaceX’s 2025 revenue of $18.7 billion, or roughly $3.9 billion, according to the prospectus for its initial public offering. That total includes xAI and X, which merged into SpaceX before the filing, so the government’s share of the rocket and satellite business alone is higher, Washington Technology noted.
The Space Force awarded SpaceX $2.29 billion in late May for a military communications network tied to Golden Dome and, three days later, $4.16 billion for missile-tracking satellites, CNBC reported.
House Democrats have signalled that restrictions on SpaceX’s Starlink and Starshield services in Ukraine will be a top investigative priority. Starshield is the company’s line of satellites and services for military and intelligence customers. A group of Silicon Valley House Democrats demanded in an October letter to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles an “immediate, government-wide investigation into the decision to restrict SpaceX’s Starshield satellite-based intelligence and military support services in Ukraine,” CNBC reported. The office of Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, told Politico in October that the panel plans to investigate Musk’s role at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Musk spent at least $474 million on the midterms, $224 million of it in Texas, CNBC reported.
SpaceX shares fell almost 7 per cent in premarket trading Wednesday but had recovered most of that loss by late morning, Quartz reported. Kathleen Brooks, research director at the brokerage XTB, told the Wall Street Journal that Congress cannot stop a possible merger of SpaceX and Tesla but could slow one with extra scrutiny.
Democratic appropriators could slow Golden Dome money. They have also spent two years fighting the White House’s proposed NASA cuts, and NASA buys crew flights, cargo runs and a Starship Moon lander from SpaceX.
Democrat Gina Hinojosa beat Governor Greg Abbott, 53 per cent to 46 per cent, with more than 95 per cent of votes counted, according to the New York Times, and will be the first Democrat elected to govern Texas since Ann Richards in 1990. Abbott, governor since 2015, welcomed Musk and his companies to the state.
“Greg Abbott gave Elon Musk the keys to the castle,” Hinojosa told KRGV during the campaign. “We can be pro-business, but I think it’s important to differentiate between making sure we are supporting the business community and our Texas communities, but also making sure they’re not taking advantage of us.”
She campaigned against corporate subsidies and called for a moratorium on new data centres, and SpaceX is building data centre capacity in Texas, CNBC reported. A native of Brownsville, near Starbase, she also spoke out against a possible sale of Boca Chica State Park to SpaceX after Texas Monthly reported the state parks commission had discussed one. Abbott said in October the commission would not take up a sale soon.
“Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now,” Musk posted on X early Wednesday, pointing to plans he has floated for putting AI computing in orbit.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is reviewing SpaceX’s plan for up to 456 Starship launches a year from Starbase. It takes public comments until Nov. 30, and from January it answers to Democratic committees. Starbase, now its own city, in September finished annexing more than 7,100 acres, including much of the state park, the Texas Tribune reported.
Republican Representative Julia Letlow beat Democrat Jamie Davis by about two points, or roughly 25,000 votes, for the Senate seat Bill Cassidy lost in the spring primary. Davis had not conceded on Tuesday night and hinted at a recount, WAFB reported.
Letlow strongly backs Starbase Louisiana, the $100 billion Starship launch site SpaceX announced in August for the coastal marsh of Vermilion Parish. Davis held a town hall in Abbeville with residents worried about the project and said he wanted to hear their concerns, the Globe and Mail reported. Residents have asked the state to release its agreement with SpaceX and were told it would not be available until December.
President Donald Trump told Louisiana voters in an election-eve call that he had recommended Vermilion Parish to Musk, the Louisiana Illuminator reported. Governor Jeff Landry, who announced the Starbase Louisiana deal, faces voters next year, and Davis used his election-night speech to put him “on notice.” SpaceX plans to start construction in 2027 and launch from the site in 2029.
What it means for Canada
Democrats campaigned against the tariffs on Canadian goods, and senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Peter Welch have a bill to scrap the 50 per cent tariffs on some of them, CBC reported. Trump can veto it, and two-thirds majorities to override him are unlikely. Dominic LeBlanc, the minister responsible for Canada-U.S. trade, said the results won’t change Canada’s approach to the talks, the Globe and Mail reported.
“They’re asking less and they’re offering more,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said Tuesday of the White House’s position in trade talks, before the results were in. Scott Matthews, a political scientist at Memorial University, told CTV News that Canada may have lost an advocate in Collins, who had taken credit for persuading the White House to drop tariffs on some Canadian goods important to Maine.
Carney said in February that Canada would be “willing participants” in Golden Dome “if it serves Canada’s interests,” Breaking Defense reported. Kepler Communications, Telesat and MDA Space have all positioned their technology for the missile shield. If Congress slows Golden Dome money, those companies have less to bid on in the United States.
The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) is redirecting its investment in Canadarm3, the MDA Space robotic arm designed for the Lunar Gateway station NASA paused in March, to support operations on the lunar surface. The arm’s future depends on the Moon base NASA builds, and Congress has to pay for that base. From January, the committees that write NASA’s budget will be led by Democrats who, with Republican allies such as Babin and Moran, spent this year fighting cuts to NASA science, which has carried Canadian instruments on missions such as the James Webb Space Telescope.