2025/26/27/28 Primaries & General Elections

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GOP blame game

Vice President JD Vance pinned Republicans’ massive midterm losses on the Iran war that President Donald Trump started. The president said that’s “largely true,” but he would do it again.

👀 Live updates: Trump administration gearing up for aggressive oversight

📈 Soaring stocks: Dow has best post-midterm elections day in 44 years A blue tidal wave Texas. Kansas. South Carolina. Ohio. Democratic candidates flipped seats in one red state after another. And after a decade of dismal showings, the party roared back to life in Middle America. 🥳 ‘It’s about time’: Voters celebrate with tears, cheers and disbelief + Seismic shift: How Mississippi became an unlikely Senate battleground Winners and losers Newly elected Black governors and the religious left have a lot to celebrate, along with Democrats across the country of course. The biggest losers? Trump, Vance and Elon Musk — but there’s a lengthy list. CNN’s Aaron Blake breaks it down. 🌏 Foreign policy: What Trump’s setback could mean for Iran, Israel and Ukraine Lame-duck president Trump enters his final two years in office wounded but determined to retain an iron grip on power. Meanwhile the jockeying of potential GOP candidates for 2028 has already begun. ▶️ Watch: Trump boasts about ballroom in first speech after midterms For CNN subscribers A wide swath of the electorate — including women, young voters and independents — shifted their votes toward the Democrats in this midterm election. Here’s what the data shows. 💸 Why the big swing? It was the economy all along + Analysis: Trump is forced to face a damning reality

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At What Cost? (Matt Ramey / AP)

View in browser Democrats were jubilant last night, and for good reason: Few midterms in modern American history have produced such a thorough repudiation of a party as the Republicans experienced in this election. But celebrations have a pesky way of being followed by hangovers. For Democrats, the cause of their morning-after headache is affordability. Across the country, Democratic candidates campaigned and won by railing against Donald Trump’s handling of the economy. When they take control of Congress in January, however, they’ll find themselves with few direct levers to bring down prices. We don’t need to guess what happens to politicians who campaign on affordability and don’t deliver. We saw it last night. Democrats can hardly be blamed for placing affordability concerns at the center of their campaign, alongside discussion of rampant corruption. This was good electoral politics—you want to run against your opponents’ weakness—and also good republican politics: It’s healthy for candidates to respond to voters’ concerns. The price of orange juice is up nearly 25 percent since Trump returned to office. The price of the candy that trick-or-treaters received on Halloween has risen 71 percent in five years. The average national price of a gallon of gas was more than $4 on Election Day for the first time in history. These price increases are a drag on many Americans’ budgets. Real wages—the difference between nominal wage growth and inflation—have declined over the past year, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers released this week. For the Democrats, this has been a perverse political godsend. Long the undisputed party of workers, the Democratic Party has recently developed a reputation among voters for caring more about elites and cultural issues than basic economics. Trump demonstrated the power of focusing on inflation in 2024, when he assailed President Biden and Vice President Harris over rising prices. Trump never demonstrated any sort of plan for how he’d bring prices down, but his emphasis on the matter—along with Democrats’ muddled messaging about it—helped him overcome voters’ deep hesitations about his character. Since taking office, though, his lack of any vision for whipping inflation has been obvious. He has not pursued policies to fight high costs. He has demanded, in vain, that the Federal Reserve lower interest rates, which would be inflationary. He has mocked and dismissed the concept of affordability as a “hoax.” And although presidents typically have very limited short-term power to affect an economy, he found a way to make inflation worse by launching an ill-advised war in Iran, which he now has no idea how to end. This made Republicans very vulnerable in the midterms. But even with impressive wins in both the Senate and the House, Democrats will have few ways to bring prices down. On corruption, by some measures the top issue in the election, Democrats have room to hold Trump and his administration accountable using investigative powers. But on affordability, rhetoric and doomed bills designed to send a message are almost all they can offer. If reliable methods of bringing prices down in the short term existed, Republicans in Congress would have tried them this year. With unified Democratic control, Congress will be able to pass legislation, but Trump has already vowed to become “Mr. Veto.” Democrats can and will attempt to pressure Trump to end the conflict with Iran, but as the United States has seen repeatedly this century, starting a war is a lot easier than getting out of one. “People are impatient. They want answers now. They’re economically insecure,” Gina Raimondo told me in an interview last week. Raimondo, the commerce secretary under Biden, is often mentioned as a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate. “If we’re sitting here in a year and a half and we haven’t done a damn thing about cost and prices, people might say, Well, forget about you; I’m going to try the other guy.” Any parallel with voter rejection of Trump is imperfect. A president tends to shoulder more blame from voters than Congress does, a dynamic that is likely to be exacerbated with Trump, who is compelled to dominate attention, although it is sometimes to his disadvantage. But even if voters don’t blame Democrats specifically, they may still feel disillusioned with all politicians’ inability to bring quick change. That points to another risk for Democrats in 2028: not that people who voted blue in the midterms will turn against them, but that they will tune out entirely, just as the many disaffected Trump voters who opted not to vote in 2026, rather than flipping to Democrats, did. The fact that party leaders are aware of these challenges doesn’t give them any easier answers to the affordability conundrum. Democrats had no choice but to campaign on high costs, but they may still pay a price for it. Related: The simple message that produced a Democratic landslide America’s latest inflation check-in doesn’t look good for Trump.

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Midterm elections crack open political map, putting conservative states back in play

For a decade, the political map has been largely stagnant, locked into the same half-dozen or so political backgrounds, reflecting a polarized, evenly divided country. On Tuesday, voters took a wrecking ball to that map, electing Democrats in states that were long considered reliably Republican. Read More.

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How Trump and Republicans lost the 2026 midterm elections, according to The AP Voter Poll

After more than a decade with Donald Trump at the epicenter of U.S. politics, most voters appear exhausted and exasperated by him, according to The AP Voter Poll, a survey of midterm voters in all 50 states. Read More.

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Dems shatter GOP statehouse control

Data: Axios research; Map: Andrew Pantazi/Axios Democrats are on track to control most state legislative chambers, ending 16 years of Republican dominance over America's statehouses, Axios' Andrew Pantazi reports. Tuesday's midterm results have dramatically expanded Democrats' power to increase minimum wages, protect abortion access and set voting rules ahead of 2028. 😳 Democrats are set to flip 12 legislative chambers, dismantle five Republican state trifectas (both statehouse chambers plus governorship), and shatter 11 GOP supermajorities, per AP. If current leads hold, 75% of Americans will live in a state with a Democratic governor, and 53% will live in Democratic trifectas. As it stands, Democrats will control the governor's office and both chambers in five of the seven 2024 presidential battlegrounds: Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. They have also broken Republican one-party rule in the sixth (Georgia) and flipped the House in the seventh (North Carolina). 🫏 Democrats flipped five GOP-held governorships (Georgia, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio and Texas) and lead in Alaska. Republicans haven't flipped any, despite targeting Arizona, Michigan, Oregon and Wisconsin. Kansas, where Democrat Cindy Holscher is leading by about half a point, remains uncalled. The bottom line: Republicans spent 16 years building a statehouse majority. Democrats erased it in one night — and they now have two years to show voters what they'll do with it. Go deeper.

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Scott Colom and Black Mississippians stand on the cusp of Senate history as vote count stretches on

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Democrat Scott Colom hasn’t won Mississippi’s U.S. Senate race, but the local prosecutor was welcomed as a historic figure Friday as he strolled through the Farish Street business district where civil rights leaders once organized.

https://apnews.com/article/colom-hydesmith-mississippi-senate-trump-vote-counting-db496a9cf7157312587242048fa9efe9?

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🐊 GOP eyes the "alligator people"

Photo illustration: Brendan Lynch. Photos: Alex Wong and Eloisa Lopez / Getty Images

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is positioning himself for a presidential run. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is running away from the idea of his own campaign for the White House. Why it matters: The political posturing of the two Florida Republicans — or the efforts to draft either for 2028 — underscores the sudden volatility of the way-too-early GOP preprimary campaign to succeed President Trump. 👀 Before Tuesday's midterm Republican wipeout, the party's 2028 primary looked like a relatively easy coronation for Vice President Vance (if he runs, as expected). Now there's a nascent movement to kneecap Vance and promote other possible opponents. Zoom in: As Trump's home base, Florida was bound to take center stage in the conversation. But two things distinguish Florida from other states: DeSantis and Rubio have national profiles rooted in their own prior presidential campaigns, in 2024 and 20216, respectively. 🟥 Florida was the lone red-wall state that the national blue wave couldn't top, which DeSantis has been happy to emphasize repeatedly since Tuesday. "The alligator people are stirring," said one national Republican consultant with extensive Florida experience, referring to the Sunshine State's official reptile. Zoom out: The differences between DeSantis and Rubio are vast when it comes to their political futures and styles. DeSantis is hungry. Rubio isn't. DeSantis terms-out of the governor's office in January and is looking for work. He hasn't made an official decision on whether to run for president — but he has stoked speculation with a media blitz that began with an Election Day appearance on Stephen A. Smith's podcast. Rubio repeatedly has said he plans to stay put in the Trump administration and serve out the rest of his term, until January 2029. He also said in May that he wouldn't run against Vance, and hasn't changed his position publicly. ☎️ The intrigue: During the somber election watch party at the White House on Tuesday night, Rubio's phone "blew up" with supporters urging him to reconsider running for president, according to a source familiar with the scene. "There was this sense of 'We lost the Latino vote, you can get it back, etc.,'" said the source. "To some people, Rubio seemed to entertain the idea for the first time. Or he didn't shut it down fast enough." Two days later, two publications reported that Rubio was actively considering resigning to lay the groundwork to run for president. Rubio denied it to the New York Times, and longtime associates of Rubio's told Axios that the reporting was bogus. "Now if Vance doesn't run or if POTUS tells him to step aside so Marco can run, does he? Maybe. I don't see that. But maybe," said one insider. That same night, Vance got feedback from one supporter who said he shouldn't run. And some GOP donors said they would back DeSantis, according to The Wall Street Journal. 🔮 What's next: There's no debate about whether DeSantis is considering a bid. He is. DeSantis's postelection appearance on CNN with Jake Tapper was a sign he learned a lesson from his 2024 presidential campaign: Earning free media by sitting for more podcast and TV interviews is crucial. Asked whether he plans to run again, DeSantis wouldn't say. But he emphasized that "I haven't planned anything because I just think this is a very uncertain time. But last night should be a wakeup call for our party." "We really got blasted into oblivion," DeSantis added. "And Florida is kind of the last one standing." — Marc Caputo

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🤔 MAGA castoffs plot Libertarian spoiler bid

An unusual coalition wants to recruit outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie as the Libertarian Party's 2028 presidential nominee, betting that MAGA fractures can turn a third-party candidacy into a spoiler for the Republican nominee.

🥊 Why it matters: Organizers see a fighter in Massie, a frequent critic of Trump who pushed hard on releasing the Epstein files and lost a bitter primary rather than quietly walking away.

• Massie raised almost $10 million in the process and has a large online donor list and base.
• 🪖 For his parting act in Congress, Massie is pushing an impeachment vote against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Driving the news: For months, Libertarian Party operatives and MAGA defectors have been privately and publicly encouraging Massie to run under a rebranded party.

• "Libertarian Jesus is Ron Paul, and one of our saints is Thomas Massie," Larry Sharpe, a perennial Libertarian candidate and longtime third-party operative, told us. Sharpe has spoken with Massie several times about a potential presidential run.
• Aside from playing GOP spoiler, organizers believe the Libertarian Party's existing ballot access and infrastructure could help them win 5% of the national vote — which would qualify its next presidential nominee for federal funding.
• Massie didn't respond to several requests for comment.

🖼️ The big picture: The plan is for libertarians to claim dibs on the "America First" agenda, mainly focusing on anti-war sentiment.

• Organizers believe they can build consensus among supporters of the MAGA wing that's closer to Tucker Carlson, former Trump official Joe Kent and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), as well as disillusioned "Make America Healthy Again" activists and populist-inclined voters on the right and left.
• "A party that would speak clearly about the disaster of the war in Iran, that would speak clearly about the mistake to continue to give military aid, taxpayer-funded military aid, to Israel — that would perk up a lot of ears among young people," said James Fishback, a former GOP gubernatorial candidate in Florida who met with the organizers in October.
• "The idea is if one can take 5, 10, 15% of the vote from one of these parties, then that party has to listen and cave to interest of the people," Bret Weinstein, a lead organizer of this effort, said on his podcast last week.

Read more.

— Brittany Gibson