The big winner in the midterms on Tuesday night was the Democratic Party. And the big loser of the 2026 midterms was President Donald J. Trump. It’s impossible not to draw that conclusion given the blowout victory the Democrats won in both the House and Senate on Tuesday.
While some races remain to be called, it is clear that the Democrats will have solid majorities in both houses of Congress, including winning Senate seats in formerly deep-red states like South Carolina, Kansas and Texas, which were considered, earlier in the year, virtually unachievable for Democrats.
But make no mistake, this is more of a collapse of the Republican Party than it is an affirmative vote for the Democrats. This is a vote against the war in Iran as it’s being conducted, against high gas prices — which are seen as a direct result of that war — and against the overall perception among voters that there are two sets of rules for how government works: one for the rich and elites and another for ordinary working people.
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What remains unknown is whether the Democrats, having elected a number of progressives like James Talarico in Texas, will be able to govern coherently and consistently in the Senate, and to a lesser extent in the House, with an agenda that is sympathetic to or actually aligned with the democratic socialists. Will these Democrats be able to coherently address the challenges that the Republicans and Trump have been unable to address in the last two years?
The fear is great that the way Democrats will paper over these profound differences between their establishment wing and their far-left progressive wing will be not with policy but with investigations. And if that is the case, the degree of paralysis we’ve already seen in the last two years in Congress will only become a more stark reality.
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The opportunity for the Republicans and the president to try to govern constructively with the Democrats is clear and obvious. Voters are making it abundantly clear that President Trump’s approach of simply demonizing the opposition is not an acceptable or appropriate way to govern. That is why he is the biggest loser of Tuesday night, and it’s also why the Democrats are the biggest winners.
The message to both parties is clear: Govern constructively, and if you don’t, it’s at your peril. The same swing against the Republicans we’ve just witnessed can happen in two short years to Democrats if they do not heed this judgment.
Republicans, too, need to govern with Democrats and respond responsibly to public concerns about the Iran war, corruption and inflation. And if they don’t, again, it’s at their peril.
Many people in our country currently see politics as a bloodsport. What the American people said on Tuesday is that they are less concerned with partisan labels than with getting things done.
Hopefully, going forward, the big winner will be the American people. But that’s by no means certain.
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