Archives for 2026

Nate Cohn: “This was an electoral tsunami: a complete collapse of the Republican coalition and the largest victory by either party in half a century.”

“When all the vote is in and counted, Democrats will win the national popular vote in all House races combined by 13 percentage points, according to our estimates. That would be the largest margin of victory since the post-Watergate elections in 1974 and 1976.”

“And by one measure, it’s even larger: Democrats could flip as many as seven Senate seats that leaned Republican by more than 10 points in the previous presidential election.”

“There’s simply no modern precedent for either party to do so well in states that had leaned so heavily toward the other side.”

“For months, election deniers claimed without evidence that the vote would be rigged. Now they appear to be accepting crushing defeats,” Wired reports.

The Atlantic: “Collins betrayed no hint of concern. Around 9:40 p.m., she made a long, beaming pass through the party. As Journey’s ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’ filled the room, Collins accepted hugs and handshakes, small gifts and words of encouragement. She peered at the laptop screen of a Republican staffer who showed her a rosy analysis of the latest returns. Maine counts its votes at an agonizing pace, and as Collins worked the crowd, it was still possible for Republicans to believe she might defy the odds one more time.”

“Collins’s stroll around the ballroom was, in retrospect, not a victory lap but a farewell. She would not return to the party. Shortly after midnight, she called the Democrat Troy Jackson to congratulate him on his win. By that late hour, the ballroom throng had thinned to just a few dozen people, and Collins made no concession speech.”

Idrees Kahloon: “How did the GOP’s situation get so bad? A moralizing account might say that Trump is getting just deserts for his precedent-breaking behavior in office—the great personal enrichment, the weaponization of the justice system against his enemies, the dismantling of agencies without congressional consent. But this assumes too much about the propriety of American voters—who, after all, returned the president to office after he had tried to overturn his election loss in 2020.”

“The more obvious explanation for Republicans’ poor performance is economic. Having come to office by exploiting discontent with inflation under Joe Biden, Trump seemed to think that the same rules would not apply to him while in office.”

Dan Pfeiffer: “It was ten years in the making, but Donald Trump finally got the electoral ass-kicking that he deserved. Voters of all stripes from every region of the country rejected the President, his agenda, and his party.”

“2026 was not a normal midterm. It was bigger than 2018, 2010, 2006, and 1994. Democrats are on track to win the largest popular vote margin since 1974 — the first midterm after Watergate (which is fitting on many levels).”

“Democrats took the House and flipped the Senate. Republicans lost everywhere. Democrats flipped states that Trump won by more than 15 points and won districts that were never supposed to be competitive. We elected a Black woman governor of Georgia, a Latina in Texas. Democrats swept the statewide offices in Georgia and Texas and now have governing trifectas in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan.”

Paul Krugman: “What happened last night was no ordinary election. It was a mass affirmation that most Americans still believe in our nation’s basic values, and a mass rejection of a movement that wants to destroy everything our nation stands for. And no, it wasn’t just economic dissatisfaction.”

“Yes, Trumpflation created by tariffs and the Iran debacle helped. But an election swung by public anger over high prices looks like 2024, when Trump won the popular vote by 1.5 percentage points. Last night Democrats appear to have won the popular vote by 13 -14 percentage points.”