Well, that didn’t work out how we’d hoped, did it? But hope isn’t a strategy, nor is it often an accurate reflection of reality – it’s about as effective a plan as crossing your fingers or holding your breath as you drive past a cemetery. Republicans lost because they had bad candidates, a horrible strategy, no recent accomplishments and an unpopular President in the White House.
I wrote last week that rather than living in “late capitalism,” we were actually living in “late democracy.” Late capitalism is a communist fantasy created over a century ago. Late democracy is very real.
Democracy — even in a democratic republic like ours, rather than pure democracy — is contingent. When you try it in the less developed parts of the world, you typically get “one man, one vote, one time.” And by less developed I don’t mean less economically developed — though that generally applies too — as less morally and civically developed. But now that kind of “less developed” describes us too. . . .
Earlier this year, as President Donald Trump and his top advisers stared down increasingly grim polling for Republicans, they devised a strategy for staving off losses in the midterm elections: Put Trump front and center.
The president appeared in taxpayer-funded campaign ads that showed him and U.S. forces in the Iran war, created a new midterm convention to star in, and crisscrossed 20 states to appear in 30 rallies in the campaign’s final weeks.
Democrats would make the elections about him anyway, his advisers reasoned, and at least this way the president could motivate his core supporters to get to the polls in a way no other Republican could.
🚨 UPDATE: After the midterms, Donald Trump just posted that he was elected to do politically difficult but necessary things
"Securing the border is ugly."
"Fighting Iran is costly."
"Backing AI scares people."
"Republicans paid the costs. The benefits will be with us for many generations."
47 himself said at the White House the morning after the shellacking that he’d DO IRAN ALL OVER AGAIN because they can’t have a nuke
Trump obliterated Iran’s nuclear program, and now he’s figuring out how to achieve total victory and get us out. Pray for his swift success 🙏🏻
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) November 5, 2026
Dozens of Honduran migrants gathered before dawn Tuesday at the main bus terminal in San Pedro Sula to launch a new northbound caravan, timing their departure to one of the most consequential days in recent American political history: the 2026 midterm elections, in which Republicans and Democrats battled for control of Congress.
Families carrying backpacks, laborers hauling rolling bags, and adults traveling alone set out on foot along the northern highway. For many, the route ahead — crossing Guatemala, transiting the full length of Mexico, and attempting entry at the U.S. southern border — spans more than 2,000 miles and multiple weeks of walking.
Mass illegal immigration is a human weapon system & the open borders globalists are going to keep using it until there is nothing left of America & every other western nation. If you still cannot see that, if you still believe this is about white supremacy & race, then congratulations. You have given them a victory that will be the undoing of every freeedom you have & everything you are. Mark these words, you may scoff at them now but you may recall them one day when it is too late. It is already too late for people like me. We will be among the first in the firing line. But you still have a role to play. Until you have outlived your usefulness.
— Lara Logan (@laralogan) November 4, 2026
h/t CLink9 and Mauser
A blue dawn is rising across America, as the adoring nation that President Donald Trump inherited two years ago has unequivocally turned against him. From coast to coast, Democratic wins have delivered a shocking rebuke of the White House that even Trump may not be wily enough to counter.
Although votes are still being counted in crucial contests, such as the mayor’s race in Los Angeles, Tuesday’s stunning Democratic sweep has done more than merely turn the House and Senate blue. It suggests a broader cultural shift that’s likely to end America’s brief respite from the grievances and identity politics that dominated Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s presidencies.
A thumping, a shellacking, maybe even a disaster: there’s no shortage of strong words you could choose to describe the midterm defeat that American voters just handed to U.S. President Donald Trump and his Republican Party.
The Democrats will take control of both the House and the Senate, according to projections by the major U.S. TV networks.
But that outcome doesn’t come close to describing the full extent of the blue wave that rolled over states that have been ruby red throughout the Trump era and in some cases, far longer than that.
He still has the veto and executive orders.
As was mostly expected, the Republican Party had a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad night on Tuesday. Democrats took control of the U.S. House and Senate, winning seats in the latter from states like Iowa, South Carolina, and Kansas that President Donald Trump won by double digits two years prior.
The midterm elections have soundly rebuked President Donald Trump, returned control of the Senate and the House of Representatives to the Democrats, and given that party’s 2028 presidential candidate a solid early advantage. Leftist pundits are crowing that “the MAGA movement” is dead, and that is likely true. Not only has Trump’s initiative to restore American greatness fallen well short of its stated goals, but one thing is certain about the people under whose rule America will suffer for the foreseeable future: they will not make America great again. In fact, they will do just the opposite.
US President Donald Trump’s life just got significantly more difficult. Even without the full results of the November 3 US midterm elections available, it is clear his Republicans lost control of both the House and the Senate in the next Congress. Democrats secured majorities in both chambers, flipping multiple seats deep in former Republican strongholds and ending the Grand Old Party’s power trifecta.
November 6, 2018 was a very different world. Democrats won control of the House of Representatives, but the Senate remained in Republican hands. That latter Republican victory crucially handed a Supreme Court seat to Amy Coney Barrett, filled the courts with more conservative judges, and contributed to blocking a host of Democratic policies during the Biden administration.
Contrast that to today. Republicans have failed abysmally, and are on track to lose possibly nine Senate seats, including in South Carolina, Kansas, and Mississippi.
The problem this cycle: Trump has lost touch with the American people.
Yesterday, I asked readers, did France just save America?
And voters promptly and resoundingly responded no.
The Republican Party suffered the worst midterm in 16 years. You may recall that midterm in 2010. The Tea Party rose, Republicans promised to fight Obama and the party gained 63 House seats and 6 seats in the Senate.
h/t Mauser
For Canada, the Democratic Party’s sweep in the U.S. midterm elections Tuesday is a key battle, waged and won.
Don’t call it a successful case of election interference, as the U.S. has alleged. Think of it as an information campaign from north of the border whose message clearly resonated.
The Republican Party’s loss of control over the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives will see the arrival of Democratic lawmakers who won their seats by railing against President Donald Trump’s tariffs and trade policies, among a host of other issues.
Why that sounds like election interference!.
The Donald Trump era in America — a uniquely destructive period of shattered norms, outrageous corruption and state-sponsored cruelty — began a two-year fade to black Tuesday night.
The final results of the American midterm elections weren’t available by the Star’s deadline. But early tallies suggest huge wins for a Democratic Party that, for more than a decade, has proven mostly incapable of standing up to and beating back Trump.
Full on TDS at the Star.
Iran’s chief negotiator in talks with the US has said that Americans have “said NO TO WAR”, after President Donald Trump’s Republican Party suffered a stunning defeat in the midterm elections.
“We endorse this message,” parliament speaker Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf wrote on X.
“If the US [government] betrays their public will to serve international paymasters and blackmailers, it will learn our NO comes with a Nightmare,” he warned.
Trump also blamed the war.
Trump blames Gasoline prices and Iran for Midterms loss 🌊🤣 https://t.co/q8ePvWkg5Z
— Navroop Singh (@TheNavroopSingh) November 4, 2026
Hours after Democrats routed Republicans in the midterm elections, Vice President JD Vance blamed his party’s losses on Americans’ frustration over the U.S. war with Iran, which has driven up oil prices at a time when costs are already high.
“The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night,” Vance said in a lengthy post on X.
“If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so,” Vance wrote. “Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that’s at least honest,” Vance added. “But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.”
One of the things the data analysts on our side obsessed over was "composition"—whether the electorate looked close enough to 2024 for Republicans to win. And despite polls that showed a Democrat blowout, the data kept on telling us the same story: in some states turnout was merely OK, in other states it was downright amazing, and in no state was it catastrophic. There was a genuine sense of optimism on our team: our people were showing up.
So, I asked the smartest data guy I know, does that mean we’re going to shock the world? "No," he told me. "We might do better than the polls suggest. But the data is telling us that a lot of Trump/Vance 2024 voters are pissed and planning to vote for the other guys. Our voters are turning out, but they may not vote for us."
Well, that looks prophetic now. Our voters did show up. In Florida, for example, the electorate was 9 points more Republican than Democrat, just a couple points worse than 2024. Undoubtedly there were places we could have done better on turnout. But the main problem is not turnout. The main problem is that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026.
There will be a lot of infighting and arguing over what happened and why that is. One of the pollsters I really respect told me that our economic messaging wasn’t sharp enough down the stretch. I’m sure that’s true.
But the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone.
Another pollster—one of the smartest people I know in politics, told me yesterday we’d lose the generic ballot by 13 points. I felt negative going into Tuesday, but even I was shocked by this. In his polling, he saw that a lot of Trump 2024 voters were angry and planning to vote for Democrats. He asked those voters who had abandoned us what would cause them to come back on our team. The top four answers, accounting for nearly all of the responses were:
1) End the war
2) Focus on cost of living/inflation
3) Put America First
4) Change our relationship to IsraelOur voters showed up. And the above four reasons are why many of them voted for Democrats. This is according to a pollster who nailed the results. While many spent Monday attacking Rachel Campos Duffy for calling for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, it turns out her political advice was sound. (She’s also a great person.)
In the next few months, there’s going to be a lot of gaslighting. Expect to hear any number of establishment politicians say the solution to our woes is amnesty. I’m open to the idea that we should change enforcement—by focusing more on businesses that hire illegal labor, for instance. But anyone pushing amnesty is lying to you.
The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night.
If you’d like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that’s at least honest.
But everyone knows why we lost. And any honest conversation about where we go from here must start there.
I remain hopeful about our country. To the people who are pissed off and want to say, “I told you so”: you’re right, you did tell us so. Take that energy into electing Republicans who share your worldview. To the people who are just pissed at the results, you should be. Let’s take that anger and get back to the work of saving our country.
— JD Vance (@JDVance) November 4, 2026
