“Tuesday’s Blue Wave was powered by voters of color,” Time reports.
“That’s a key takeaway strategists in both parties are clocking as they pore through the results. In a memo… soon to circulate among the Democratic National Committee’s bigwigs, two of the Democratic Party’s veteran strategists argue that the blowout would not have been possible without that crucial realignment, one that has enormous consequences for 2028’s presidential field.”
“Tuesday’s election was great for Democrats. It was bad for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and some of the White House’s most ambitious national security projects,” Axios reports.
“Republicans have relied on a simple-majority funding mechanism known as reconciliation to pay for marquee projects like Golden Dome. That option is now a long shot over the next few months, and impossible after that.”
“Outrage over the Iran war, well beyond the half-year mark, is sure to turbocharge a long list of congressional inquiries.”
“Democrats in Congress gained the power Tuesday night to more forcefully investigate President Trump and rein in his agenda, setting up confrontations that are likely to define the final two years of his presidency,” the Los Angeles Times reports.
“As party leaders on Wednesday celebrated retaking the House and Senate, they vowed to put Trump and his administration on the defensive with subpoenas and hearings, a role that voters made clear they want them to play. But they also said the top priority would be the issue that carried them to power: making life more affordable.”
Said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY): “We are going to work hard to drive costs down with the president or without him, period.”
“Democrats seized control of the Texas House in Tuesday’s midterms for the first time in more than two decades, capping a night in which voters ousted Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and left Republicans reeling in a state that has long anchored national GOP politics,” Texas Tribune reports.
“With Gina Hinojosa headed to the governor’s mansion, Democrats have broken the Republican trifecta that has governed Texas since 2003, the year the GOP took control of the lower chamber. Republicans held onto the state Senate, denying Democrats a trifecta of their own, but the party will have more power to set the state’s agenda than it has had since the mid-1990s.”
“Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress, a majority of governorships and more in a massive midterm rebuke of President Trump. In doing so, they pulled off a feat that has bedeviled them for years: uniting around a message—affordability,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
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“The Democratic surge on Tuesday netted at least 330 state legislative seats, from New Hampshire to Arizona, giving the Democrats full control of 22 state governments and making them the majority in a dozen statehouse chambers where they had been the minority party,” the New York Times reports.
“And while Washington remains divided, Democrats will have the power to make policy on health care, voting and taxation in state capitals that for years have been far beyond their control, such as Texas, Georgia and North Carolina.”
“In Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Nevada, Democrats will hold both statehouse chambers as well as the governorship. The party was on the verge of the same ‘trifecta’ in Arizona as well.”
“Nikki Haley tells Republicans its not the time to whine after they took a historic thumping during the midterm elections Tuesday,” The Wrap reports.
Said Haley: “To my fellow Republicans, this is not the time to whine, complain, or point fingers. You can’t blame media, you can’t blame academia, you can’t blame Hollywood. All of those have been against us for years before, and we’ve won. The bottom line is, Republicans didn’t listen to the American people; they listened to Washington, D.C.”
“To call it a wave, I don’t think would be fully accurate. It’s the political equivalent of a meteor strike that went all around the United States, blue states, red states, everything in between.”
— Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), quoted by Politico.
Politico: “Voters between the ages 18-29 supported Democrats this cycle 70% to 28% — an overwhelming margin of more than 40 points and a 32-point shift from 2024… That trend was even more pronounced among young men, whom President Donald Trump targeted in 2024 and won with 56% of support. In Tuesday’s elections, the figures flipped: 58% of young men supported a Democratic House candidate.”
“The results represent a homecoming for Democrats of a group the party once considered among its most reliable voting blocs.”
“Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said Wednesday he thinks Republicans will take back the House in two years despite a Democratic blowout in this year’s midterms,” NewsNation reports.
Said Johnson: “This Democrat House majority will be led by the most radical and extreme leftists in American history. However, Republicans will never stop fighting to defend the Constitution and protect the foundations that have made America the greatest nation in the history of the world.”
New York Times: “Since President Trump was elected in 2024 along with GOP. House and Senate majorities, Republicans on Capitol Hill have defined their role mainly as empowering him and beating back Democratic resistance. That has allowed the executive branch to act with near impunity, steamrolling Congress on spending, tariffs and war powers.”
“Now, with Democrats set to take firm control of both chambers in a rebuke to Mr. Trump and the Republicans who ceded much of their power to him, the legislative branch is poised to reassert itself in multiple ways — notably on spending and oversight. Democrats say they are determined to investigate and push back against the president and his administration.”
Wired: “From top officials like Pete Hegseth to White House aides to right-wing pundits, the race is on to find someone besides Donald Trump to blame for the Republicans’ catastrophic losses.”
Punchbowl News: “The Democratic hammer is about to come down hard on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.”
“Democrats have long made clear they will make the lightning-rod Defense chief an early target should they retake both chambers. Now that they have, probing Hegseth’s Pentagon will only be the beginning of Democrats’ sweeping oversight blitz.”
Axios: Key Pentagon priorities in peril after Democratic sweep.
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Los Angeles Times: “The sweeping wins were driven by a rare coalition of voters across nearly all walks of American life, in cities and countryside, from the rural Midwest and Deep South to a traditionally conservative mid-Atlantic. Not since voters were repulsed by President Nixon after the Watergate scandal half a century ago has the popular vote swung so decisively in a single election cycle.”
“The wave was so comprehensive that it handed Democrats wins that for decades have been unthinkable — flipping Senate seats in Kansas, South Carolina and Texas — and gained a majority of governors’ seats for the first time in a generation.”
Punchbowl News: “House Democrats are well-positioned to reach 260 seats when the counting from Tuesday is all said and done. We think the Democratic floor is roughly 250. Their ceiling stretches into the low 260s.”
“This majority could exceed the 2008 high-water mark.”
CNBC: “Trump on Wednesday morning made his first on-camera remarks after the GOP’s resounding defeat, focusing on construction projects he has made a priority, including the partially built White House ballroom and a new helipad on the South Lawn.”
“He did not mention or acknowledge the election drubbing in his remarks until reporters asked for his thoughts.”
Bloomberg: Trump hails White House ballroom after suffering midterm wipeout.
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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