Democrats swept both chambers of Congress, taking control of the House and Senate in a major setback for Trump and the MAGA movement.
Texas also elected Democrat James Talarico to the Senate, the first Democratic Senator from the state since Lloyd Bentsen in 1988. Similar political convulsions in Maine saw Democrat Troy Jackson defeat Republican Senator Susan Collins in Maine, ending her nearly 30-year Senate career that was considered impregnable. Kansas, which has not elected a Democratic senator since 1932 delivered another stunning upset, sending Adam Hamilton to Washington.
Democrats swept both chambers of Congress, wresting control of the Senate and the House of Representatives in a spectacular voter repudiation of the MAGA boss, his shambolic administration, and policies that have propelled the US into trade wars, shooting wars, and a cost of living crisis on top of racism, bigotry, and xenophobia from the more extreme ranks. Dems also stormed GOP fortresses, capturing governors’ mansions and many local bodies, overturning political assumptions that had survived generations of American elections. In a result that would have seemed fanciful even a few months ago, Democrat Gina Hinojosa defeated three-term Republican Governor Greg Abbott, becoming the first Latina governor of a state that was successively a province of Spanish America, a Mexican territory, and an independent sovereign republic before being annexed into the United States. South Carolina, a Republican bastion, elected Democrat Annie Andrews to the Senate defeating Darlene Graham, sister of four-term Senator Lindsay Graham. Democrats also captured Senate seats in Michigan (Abdul El-Sayed), Ohio (Sherrod Brown) and Iowa (Josh Turek) and New Hampshire, where Chris Pappas became the first openly gay man to be elected to the Senate.
“Dems look like they might get 56 (Senate seats).. Because the shock extended well beyond the Senate, the results were less a blue wave than a political tsunami, sweeping away some of the GOP’s most deeply entrenched assumptions that pre-date Trump, who effectively took the party down with him.
It’s a total, complete rejection of President Trump,” Bill Miller, a top Republican lobbyist in Texas, told BBC, calling it “a disaster of the first magnitude” that nobody saw coming. Georgia elected Keisha Lance Bottoms as the first Black woman governor in American history, while Ohio went to Democrat Amy Acton who defeated Indian-American Trump ally Vivek Ramaswamy . Candidates behind whom Trump put his heart, soul, and body, often telling voters to assume he was on the ballot, were sent packing. The rout shocked and angered even conservatives, many of whom began to turn on Trump. Rs will never get that back for a long time. You ignore primaries for years, anoint a charlatan as not just leader but God, and then mimic his retardation every day for a decade, at some point the chickens come home to roost,” raged Daniel Horowitz, a commentator at the right leaning outlet The Blaze. “It’s on him. It’s not on anybody else.