Photo: AP
WASHINGTON (AP): President Donald Trump repeatedly encouraged voters to pretend he was on the midterm ballot. They did. And it’s hard to imagine a worse outcome for the Republican president and his party.
Voters absolutely punished Trump’s allies almost everywhere. Democrats won in swing states like Georgia, New Hampshire and North Carolina and in Republican strongholds of Iowa, Kansas, Texas and even South Carolina. Trump’s controversial mid-decade redistricting plan appeared to backfire. And Republican losses allowed Democrats to make history in Georgia, where Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms became the first Black woman elected governor in U.S. history, while in Texas, Democrat Gina Hinojosa will become its first Latina governor.
The end of the Trump era may be beginning
Tuesday’s electoral beating appeared to be a direct repudiation of Trump, who demanded loyalty across his party and saddled Republicans with his dismal approval ratings, an unpopular war with Iran and surging costs.
Indeed, Trump’s political strength is hitting a new low roughly two years before his final term ends.
The AP Voter Poll confirms that voters are deeply unhappy with Trump, with roughly 6 in 10 saying they disapprove of his job performance. About 70% of voters want Congress to provide more checks and balances on the presidency. And roughly 6 in 10 voters said Trump places a higher priority on his personal interests than the country’s interests.
Democrats won everywhere and will soon control Congress
Since World War II, the House and Senate have flipped from one party to the other in the same midterm just three times: 1946, 1994 and 2006.
Democrats did it again in 2026.
They won virtually everywhere in a truly historic sweep. Democrats won Senate and governor’s races in Georgia, Ohio, Iowa and Texas — the latter three states Trump carried by 11, 13 and 14 percentage points, respectively.
Candidate quality matters
Trump loves to tout his record in picking winners in primary elections. He will not love talking about how those Republican primary winners, many of them deeply flawed, failed in the general election.
Trump-backed Texas Republican Ken Paxton wasn’t able to shake his years of scandals. About two-thirds of Texas voters said Paxton did not have the right personal character to serve as a U.S. senator, according to The AP Voter Poll.
In South Carolina, Trump was a staunch supporter of Graham, who infamously flubbed a foreign policy question on the debate stage. Voters took note. About two-thirds of South Carolina voters said Graham did not have the right experience, The AP Voter Poll found. About 7 in 10 of the voters who doubted Graham’s experience voted for Andrews.
Georgia’s Trump-backed Senate candidate Mike Collins tried to convince voters that Ossoff was too liberal for the Deep South. Voters decided the Republican congressman was, in fact, the extremist in the race after he was linked to multiple white supremacists.
In North Carolina, Trump’s handpicked Republican candidate Michael Whatley lost to Cooper. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump elevated Whatley from his state party chairmanship to the Republican National Committee chairmanship, hailing him as “one of the most capable executives in our country.”
Days before the election in Kansas, these Republicans ultimately couldn’t outrun their own issues — even as they spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to define their Democratic opponents as the extremists.
The Democratic brand still needs work
Trump’s losses do not necessarily mean the Democrats won.
The AP Voter Poll shows that about half of voters have a “very” or “somewhat” unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party, while about 6 in 10 view the GOP negatively.
That leaves the Democratic Party’s major factions — the progressive left flank and the liberal-to-moderate establishment — parsing Tuesday’s outcomes to claim any advantage in Democrats’ tug-of-war over party identity.
The party’s moderate wing had a good night as high-profile leaders like Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore won reelection. Both are considered 2028 presidential prospects.
Trump’s gerrymandering backfires
Trump set off a tempest in Texas when he pushed the most populous Republican-run state to redraw congressional boundaries.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom answered by persuading his state’s voters to respond in kind. Democratic and Republican states followed. Along the way, the U.S. Supreme Court gutted part of the Voting Rights Act, allowing several Southern states to redraw districts that had been majority- or near-majority-Black.
But the Trump-backed gerrymandering push wasn’t going as planned for Republicans, whose redrawn maps spread conservative supporters across more districts.
In Florida, Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz won the state’s 25th District; Democrat Pia Dandiya won the 22nd District and Rep. Kathy Castor won reelection in the 14th District. Republicans had redrawn all three districts this spring with the intent of ensuring GOP victories this fall.
In Texas, Democrats won three redrawn, heavily Latino districts that touch the U.S.-Mexico border. Two Democratic incumbents, Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, withstood GOP challenges. In another, Democratic challenger Bobby Pulido ousted Republican Rep. Monica de la Cruz.
