Blue-nami
By Carl M. Cannon
Real Clear Wire
An agitated, animated electorate swept Democrats to control of both houses of Congress Tuesday in a monumental midterm election rebuke to a Republican president who had urged crowds at his rallies, “Pretend I’m on the ballot!”
It wasn’t a winning argument. If anything, it backfired.
Even in states and congressional districts that hadn’t sent a Democrat to Washington in decades, President Trump’s rallying cry didn’t work. Many of the MAGA faithful stayed home, while Democrats appalled by his presidency and his persona – and independents disillusioned by his policies – turned out in droves.
The blue wave crested in all parts of the country and in the state capitals, too, where Democrats will now serve as governors in nine of the 10 most populous states in the country.
Even observers who predicted a “blue wave” was coming express surprise at the magnitude of the Democrats’ showing, producing historic victories in Senate races in Kansas and running in a statistical tie in Mississippi, of all places. There, under-funded African American lawyer Scott Colom ran a spirited, humorous, and aspirational campaign against Sen. Hyde-Smith in a race that was too close to call going into the morning hours.
Democrats needed to flip only three seats in the House of Representatives to gain the majority. They were on schedule to net more than 10 times that number.
“Today begins the great American comeback,” House speaker-in-waiting Hakeem Jeffries said Tuesday night. “The American people have spoken all across the land. They want a Congress that is going to deliver for the American people – and that is what House Democrats will do as soon as we get back into session in January.”
To capture the U.S. Senate, Democrats needed to pick up seats in four states. They reached that number in the Eastern time zone. The first pickups came in the Carolinas. North Carolina was not a surprise, although the size of popular Gov. Roy Cooper’s win over Michael Whatley (he won 58.4%-39.5%) was eye-opening. But the real shock to Republicans was South Carolina, where Dr. Annie Andrews defeated Lindsey Graham’s sister Darline Graham Nordone by 4 percentage points. South Carolina is a state Trump carried by 18 points only two years ago – and it hasn’t voted for a Democratic senator since 1998. But it did so Tuesday.
In neither Florida nor Georgia was there a change of party in the Senate; and moving up the Eastern seaboard, Democrats held serve in Virginia, New Jersey, and New Hampshire. In Maine, Republican Sen. Susan Collins tried gamely to defy the gale winds – as she has done before – but conceded the race to Troy Jackson shortly after the clock struck midnight.
The next GOP domino to fall was Ohio, where former Sen. Sherrod Brown was recruited by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer to attempt a comeback. The gambit worked, as Brown defeated Sen. Jon Husted in a close race. Husted’s chances were not helped by Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who lost his race – and compromised his reputation – by airing a widely condemned attack ad on Amy Acton, who last night became Ohio’s first female governor.
So Ohio made it four Senate pickups for the Democrats, with the great middle of the country looming. Here there was even worse news for Republicans.
In Texas, where Democrats hadn’t won any statewide election since 1994, James Talarico annihilated Ken Paxton by more than a million votes. Not only that, Gina Hinojosa beat two-term Gov. Greg Abbott in a landslide. Trump carried Texas easily all three times he ran and in the process shepherded large swaths of Hispanic voters into the Republican column. Talarico and Hinojosa reversed that trend Tuesday, while sending a Mexican American woman to the governor’s mansion.
In much-watched Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed kept Michigan in Democratic hands in a contentious race that produced another first: a practicing Muslim in the U.S. Senate.
And it was the Farm Belt that made the 2026 midterms an official landslide. Kansas, which hadn’t elected a Republican since 1932, broke decisively for Adam Hamilton, a political newcomer and Methodist pastor who defeated Sen. Roger Marshall. Iowa completed the Heartland exacta as Josh Turek defeated Ashley Hinson. In Nebraska, independent Dan Osborn was giving Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts a run in a race too close to call.
The signs that the night would turn into a Democratic Party rout came early in the evening. In Indiana and Kentucky, two GOP strongholds in the American Heartland where the polls closed at 6 p.m., J.D. Ford took a big early lead and ultimately prevailed over Rep. Victoria Spatz, who won by 19 percentage points two years ago – while Trump was carrying the district by 17 points. And in Kentucky’s 6th congressional district, which Trump won by 16 points two years ago, Democrat Zach Dembo defeated Republican Ralph Alvarado.
Democrats were understandably giddy at the election returns, while Republicans sounded chastened. Appearing on CNN, former Obama administration official Van Jones compared it to his birthday, Christmas morning, and Easter Sunday all rolled into it. “It’s a repudiation of Trumpism,” Jones said.
“There’s a political science term for what’s happening right now,” Scott Jennings quipped by way of reply: “a real country ass-whuppin’.”
Trump loyalists were quick to blame the Iran war, which wasn’t much of a defense – Trump started the war – but the exit polls showed widespread antipathy for other Trump administration policies, and the man himself.
Certainly, the U.S.-Iran conflict is unpopular, particularly because it caused a spike in gasoline and energy prices, and voters freely said so. But that wasn’t all. The economy was cited as the most important issue – and voters gave Trump a thumbs-down on his handling of the economy. Asked whether they had voted in House races: (a) to support Trump; (b) to oppose Trump; or (c) Trump played no factor, those who said they voted to oppose Trump outnumbered his supporters 3-1. In another survey, 71% of voters said Congress was “not doing enough” to keep Trump in check. By a margin of 61%-39% voters thought Trump put a higher priority on his own interests as opposed to the nation’s interest.
This was a man who promised when he campaigned in 2024 that mortgage rates would be lowered to 2% if he were returned to the Oval Office, that he would end the Russia-Ukraine war in a single day, and that he would “end inflation on Day One.”
Trump’s forays into micromanaging his party backfired rather spectacularly. North Carolina has become a “purple” swing state. Republican Sen. Thom Tillis narrowly won North Carolina six years ago, but was one of four GOP senators personally elbowed into retirement by Trump. Whatley, Trump’s handpicked choice, lost handily as did two others he chose: Ken Paxton in Texas and Darline Graham in South Carolina.
The trade wars Trump launched also didn’t play well – they were blamed for farmers’ woes in the Midwest. Official corruption and insider dealing were also an issue voters told pollsters was on their minds – and not in a passive way. Three-fourths of the electorate described themselves as “angry” (38%) or “dissatisfied” (37%) with the political leadership in Washington.
Even the key promises Trump kept, most notably to close the southern U.S. border, caused headaches for him and Republican candidates: The violent excesses of ICE agents, which led to the deaths of two protesters in Minnesota and controversial shootings of Hispanic immigrants in Maine and Texas, galvanized liberals and alienated Latinos.
The president himself spent the late hours of the night calling reporters to lash out at Fox News, of all entities, and the GOP candidates themselves. “I wasn’t on the Ballot,” he posted on social media, “and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!”
This was a singularly idiosyncratic take on what happened, but it underscored the status of a Republican senator who was not on the ballot Tuesday: Sen. John Thune will soon relinquish his position as Senate Majority Leader. But Thune will have the satisfaction of knowing that he did a solid favor for his party by resisting Trump’s incessant pressure to get rid of the Senate filibuster. He and his dwindled band of Republicans will be happy to have it come January.
Carl M. Cannon is the Washington bureau chief for RealClearPolitics and executive editor of RealClearMedia Group. Reach him at ccannon@realclearpolitics.com or on X @CarlCannon.