Editors’ Notes
It was a historic night for Democrats, pulling out the strongest showing since Watergate. While many are celebrating the win, the more important question to me is how will they govern? Some Democrats have signaled their intent to investigate President Trump. Beyond the congressional level, Isaac Saul of Tangle (Center) made an interesting point: “Not enough people are talking about the larger ramifications of what just happened at the state level. For example: Democrats now have enough state governments to ratify the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact and effectively end the Electoral College. They will be able to redraw congressional maps across the country and hold the line on election-reform bills. State constitutions could be overhauled. The long-term results of this shift could be much, much bigger than people are considering.”
News About the Midterms
Democrats won both the House and Senate in a night of firsts. The first openly gay man was elected to the Senate in New Hampshire; the first Native American woman was elected to the Senate in Minnesota; Keisha Lance Bottoms became the first black woman elected governor in Georgia, and more.
The night was even more favorable to Democrats than polls predicted, flipping senate seats in Texas, Kansas, Iowa, Ohio, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Maine. The party also flipped gubernatorial seats in Nevada, Texas, Iowa, Ohio, and Georgia. They’ve picked up 31 House seats as of this writing (48 still to be called).
Read more:
- Democrats Win House and Senate
- How the Left and Right Embraced Different Narratives Heading Into the Midterms
- Issues That Tipped the Scales for Democrats in the Midterms
- Progressive Democrats Won Historically Big on Tuesday. What's Their Political Future?
- Trump Admin Likely to Escalate Iran War After Midterms - WSJ, Axios, Tucker Carlson
Analysis and Opinions about the Midterms
Voices on the left and the right were fairly in alignment about seeing the results as a rebuke of Trump, although some on the right saw it more as a failure of Trump to sell his ideas to the American public than a failure of policy itself. The economy, the war in Iran, and corruption turned out to be some of the biggest issues for midterm voters.
Isaac Saul said in Tangle (Center), “Given the way Trump has treated people like Zohran Mamdani, I think Democrats would be wise to approach the president like an open, persuadable leader they may actually be able to work with…I proposed a radical theory a few months ago: Decency is about to make a comeback. I’d chalk last night up as a win on that front. Voters in Ohio rejected Vivek Ramaswamy’s indecent ad campaign. Ken Paxton got blown out. Even candidates who ran respectful above-the-belt campaigns, like Colom (who hasn’t won yet) and Ashley Hinson (who lost), outperformed pugilistic candidates like Abdul El-Sayed and Marsha Blackburn. Americans are tired of the mud-slinging, dial-it-up-to-11, nonstop hatred and indecency. I think what we saw last night is a good reminder that you can run on decency and still win.”
Michelle Cottle wrote in the New York Times Opinion (Left), “Mr. Trump cares only about developments that affect him directly. As such, he might feel a whisper of unease about his lap-dog Republicans ceding control to crusading Democrats with subpoena power and two years of pent-up rage. After all, one of his go-to campaign pitches to Republican voters this year was that, if the blue team won the midterms, Democrats would immediately revive their unfair persecution of him. Maybe even impeach him a third time! But, deep down, a Democratic win was surely what he was rooting for all along. Conflict is Mr. Trump’s jam. The nastier the better. For all his self-aggrandizing talk about building stuff, his true talents lie in combat and destruction. He long ago shattered the spine of the G.O.P., so humiliating its members now is a minor thrill at best. But facing off against Democratic majorities in both chambers still buzzing from their electoral win? Now that is something to live for.”
A columnist wrote for the Washington Examiner (Lean Right), “If bad candidates were the deciding factor, the Democrats would have been on the receiving end of the 2026 shellacking…So why did the Republicans get killed on Tuesday? I’d argue it wasn’t as much a policy issue as it was a marketing one. According to the exit polls, 74% of voters considered the Iran war to be a crucial or major factor…Trump’s ability to sell the public on his agenda was absolutely on the ballot, and Republicans, good and bad candidates alike, paid dearly for it.”
A piece in the Canadian Globe and Mail (Center) read, “By the standards of American elections, this was an earthquake. The two-party system is so entrenched, and American voters’ political identities so immovable, that shifts in the balance of power in any given election tend to be muted…By the standards of most other countries, however, the loss was relatively modest…The rebuke is even milder when compared to the scale of Republican misgovernment over the past two years…Even a lame-duck president has considerable powers, particularly one who is unbound by any norms of political or personal conduct.”
