Democrats broke the Republican Party’s two-thirds majority in the Mississippi Senate on Tuesday by gaining two new seats, eroding the GOP’s grip on the 52-member chamber for the first time in over a decade.

But the GOP still has a strong hold on the Mississippi Legislature and can override Democrats on all but a few types of votes if they caucus, in both the House and Senate.

In a reconfigured Senate district in northwestern Mississippi, voters elected Democrat Theresa Gillespie Isom over Republican Charlie Hoots. In another redrawn district in the Pine Belt region around Hattiesburg, Democrat Johnny DuPree defeated Republican Anna Rush.

Republicans previously represented these two areas, but a federal court earlier this year determined the state violated the Voting Rights Act and order

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