No single Democratic coalition can claim victory after Tuesday’s resounding midterm results – all parts of the Democratic coalition can.
Their wins were so sweeping, so resounding, that factional divisions fail to explain them. This year, the most important thing Democrats had to be to win was, simply, not Republicans.
Trump gave Democrats the political gifts of a deeply unpopular war against Iran that led to rising prices, chaotic tariffs that devastated small businesses, farmers and international alliances, healthcare cuts, a deadly deportation scheme, self-enrichment, corruption, a never-ending debacle over a reflecting pool renovation.
Democrats took the ball and ran with it, taking on Trump as popularity continued to slide. It wasn’t just the typical midterm backlash a sitting president’s party faces; it was a wholesale rebuke of the president’s Make America Great Again movement, the clearest sign yet that voters have had enough of Trumpism.
Democrats of all stripes declared victory on Tuesday night: moderates, progressives, populists, Democratic socialists. And they won up and down the ballot, flipping both chambers of Congress, several governor’s mansions and delivering multiple new legislative trifectas in the states. These victories will provide avenues for Democrats to hold Trump accountable and act as a functioning branch of government, something voters have said they’ve been missing in Trump 2.0.
Democrats competed deep in Republican strongholds – places that wouldn’t have made the map even six months ago. US senators will join Democratic ranks from Kansas and South Carolina. Texas went blue, and not just in one race. Voters in rural districts that Democrats had previously written off showed they could be persuaded. Maine voters ousted a 30-year veteran of the US Senate despite a scandal-plagued Democratic candidate, who was eventually replaced.
At the Democratic watch party in Des Moines, Iowa, where Democrats flipped the governor’s office, US Senate and three of four congressional districts, the excitement neared a level of disbelief.
“To Iowa Democrats, we’ve had a hard few years here in Iowa, but balanced government has been restored,” Rob Sand, elected the state’s next governor, told supporters in his victory remarks.
These wins will give Democrats a chance to hold Trump accountable at all levels of government – and to prove to voters that they can competently govern, should they harness the momentum.
The depth of the Democratic wins underscore the unpopularity of the Republicans, something voters around the country have been signaling all year. In talking to voters over this past year, I felt their deep discontent, an anger that animated their votes, on a level I hadn’t seen before. On the campaign trail, voters of all political stripes were fed up, their fury at the status quo rose above all else on their list of voting priorities.
When I asked progressive political consultant Anat Shenker-Osorio about this months ago, she predicted that the midterms would be decided by the “mad as hell, ain’t going to take it any more” vote, as midterms often are. It would not be a sudden embrace of Democrats, but a “plague on both your houses”, she said. The size of Democrats’ wave would depend on how persuasive they were at convincing angry and disillusioned voters to turn out.
Given the blue tsunami, it seems they were convinced their vote was worth it.
In most instances, Democratic candidates showed up and listened. They held town halls all over their districts, hearing the anger that punctuated politics. The Democrats raged vertically, at the billionaires and elites who rule the US political system, blaming them for rising income inequality that leaves Americans feeling like it’s impossible to get ahead.
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Voters, the results showed, are done with Trump’s Republican party. Trump’s coalition has all but driven out any remaining factions that publicly disagreed with the president. The Republicans, now, need to contend with what they will become after Trump.
Could there have been a lane for Republicans who explicitly ran against the Trump agenda, saying they would work to rein in the executive and hold him accountable? We don’t know. No one really tried.
The attempts at fearmongering – over trans people, or Arab Americans, or Hasan Piker – didn’t work. The fundamentals of Americans’ lives were worse. It was Republicans’ fault, voters decided.
They paid far more for gas because of a war they didn’t support. They dropped their healthcare because they couldn’t afford it after Congress allowed subsidies to expire. They watched as data centers moved into their towns, a physical manifestation of the disruption artificial intelligence could bring to their lives. Trump dismissed their concerns over these issues, claiming they essentially weren’t happening, or were a necessary step toward greater goals. Voters even rebelled against Republican attempts to gerrymander seats more favorable to their party, with major defeats in seats that the party should have easily carried by double digits.
Trump repeatedly told voters to pretend he was on the ballot, believing it would rally his base and help stave off huge losses for Republicans. But, as some voters said today, his presence was clear – and it backfired. In Rochester, New Hampshire, independent voter Rebecca Connors said she voted for Democrats to send a message to Trump that “he’s wreaking havoc”.
“All across the state and all across this country, people are saying, ‘Enough is enough,’” Minnesota Democratic US senator-elect Peggy Flanagan said after her victory. “You just beat Donald Trump. America did too.”
Though eyes will quickly shift toward 2028, Democrats now have an opportunity to seize the power voters have entrusted them with and use it to rebuild their party. The Republicans, though, have even more soul-searching to do, with the midterm results fresh in the rearview mirror.
