Trump’s Spell Has Broken
Since 2016, many writers have, time and again, predicted Donald Trump’s demise. I have always resisted that temptation. It has long been clear to me that Trump had managed to dominate American politics to a remarkable extent, and would not be easy to dislodge.
But all political eras must end eventually, and the Trump Era likely ended last night. The rebuke which the American people have delivered to him is profound. The reasons are many: inflation, corruption, the war of choice with Iran, the wanton cruelty of the administration, and much more. The most important reason is even more simple: Trump made huge promises in 2016, and again in 2024. Nobody believes them anymore.
This does not mean that the furies that Trump is so masterful at channeling will suddenly disappear from American politics. Trump is fading. But Trumpism, the MAGA movement, or perhaps some new form of populist insurgency will likely stay a big part of the political system.
Big Majorities Are Possible
This is the biggest midterm wave in decades. According to current projections, Democrats stand to flip more seats in the Senate than in any election since 2008 and more seats in the House than in any election since 1974. They have flipped Senate seats in Kansas, South Carolina, and Texas, and may well do so in Mississippi. Jon Ossoff, in Georgia, will win his seat by a whopping margin of about 18 points. Democrats also won gubernatorial races everywhere from Alaska to Texas.
The last few presidential elections have all been reasonably close. This makes it tempting to believe that American politics is polarized in the kind of way that Bosnia-Herzegovina is polarized, with rigid voting blocs implacably—and more or less permanently—opposing each other. But in fact there has been a tremendous amount of movement between the blocs. Over the past 20 years, the states that are considered blue, red, or purple have shifted around significantly; last night, to give just one example, James Talarico became the first Democrat to win a Texas Senate seat since 1988. The demographic coalitions of each party have also changed enormously; it was Trump’s unexpected inroad with blacks and Latinos, for example, that helped him pull off his 2024 victory.
All of this suggested that both Democrats and Republicans could in theory build a large majority. Today proves it.
The project of building such a large majority is what Democrats should put front and center over the coming years. Their goal for 2028 shouldn’t just be to win the presidency; it should be to win the presidency in a convincing enough manner to rebuke the whole of the MAGA movement—and (an even harder task) to do so in a way that allows them to build a lasting coalition against the anti-democratic forces in our politics.1
Moderates Outperformed, Moderately
If I had a dollar for every time a journalist or student or audience member asked me whether Democrats need to go full progressive-populist to recapture power, I’d have… a lot of dollars. Even though moderate or mainstream Democrats won over four in five primary battles against more radical challengers in the most competitive races, the rising crop of leftist candidates has dominated the news about this election to a remarkable extent.
The midterms provide a good test of that theory. It is clear that this was a referendum on Donald Trump. This allowed a number of progressives to win in genuine swing states. Anybody who still believes that somebody like AOC could, no matter how unpopular a candidate Republicans field, not possibly win the presidency in 2028 is likely wrong.
At the same time, states which had both senatorial and gubernatorial elections this year strongly suggest that progressives underperformed their more mainstream peers. In Michigan, the most closely watched race, Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive, is predicted to win his Senate race against Mike Rogers by a robust margin of about 7 points. But on the same day in the same state, Jocelyn Benson, a more mainstream Democrat, is predicted to win her governor race against John James by a margin of about 12 points. In Minnesota, Florida, and Maine the story was similar: there, too, more moderate candidates outperformed more progressive ones by a clear margin.
During a blue tsunami, this doesn’t matter much. While a more moderate candidate may have allowed Democrats to flip Florida, progressives were able to capture Senate seats in other key races. But in a typical presidential election, the average difference in performance between a mainstream and a progressive Democrat could very easily make the difference between victory and defeat.
The Task Ahead for Democrats
Democrats will now have healthy majorities in both the House and (remarkably) the Senate. What should they do with those majorities over the next two years, while Donald Trump remains in the White House?
Trump has been inflicting terrible damage on the United States, and the world. His administration has been extreme, irresponsible, and astonishingly corrupt. With his time in the limelight running out and little left to lose, he is likely to do even more extreme things over the course of the coming two years.
Democrats can and must therefore use their control of Congress to accomplish two urgent tasks: They need to stop the administration from inflicting further damage on the United States. And they need to provide the foundations for accountability by holding congressional hearings that help us understand the full scope of these misdeeds.