Democrats Just Made History

It will be some time before every race is finalized, but at this point the overall picture is clear: the most optimistic assessments of the Democrats’ chances were the closest to the truth. The 2026 midterms were not a wave, but a tsunami. MAGA was crushed on the rocks in nearly every case where victory was remotely possible for Democrats, and in some cases where it seemed impossible even just twenty four hours ago.

Let’s talk about the specifics.

State races

The area where Democrats truly did the impossible was not in congressional races at all, but in state races.

Democrats began the evening with 24 governor’s seats. They have gained four so far, meaning that they will end up with at least 28 total, a majority of the country. They have so far gained two more state trifectas, in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

Most shocking of all, Greg Abbott conceded his defeat to Gina Hinojosa in Texas. Texas will have a Democratic governor, a Democratic senator, and currently lead in multiple executive branch offices that are up for election.

Georgia, Ohio, and Iowa all had their governor’s seats flipped by Democrats. Keisha Lance Bottoms will be the first woman and the first black person to serve as governor of Georgia, and the first black woman to serve as governor anywhere in this country.

Do not underestimate this victory. Taking the governor’s seat in Texas alone will have Earth-shattering implications for the politics of this country.

State governments in our system are in many ways far more muscular, far more impactful on the lives of ordinary people, than the federal government. The federal government itself relies on state governments to administer a wide range of its laws and policies. Short of the federal executive branch itself, there are few institutions more powerful than state executive branches. The powers available to state trifectas are second only to a truly united federal trifecta, and in many cases they are far more nimble than actually existing federal trifectas.

For decades, Republicans have steadily gained power at the state and local levels, and in doing so, they have more effectively reshaped the character of our country than any Republican president in that period could. Democrats cannot squander this opportunity. They need to pass pro-democracy reforms, like proportional representation in at least one of their state chambers, ranked choice or runoffs for their executives and single-seat legislators, and state voting rights acts to dismantle the tools of voter suppression. They need to rebuild their hobbled social safety nets. They need to invest in the capacity of the state executive branch to build and to deliver for their constituents in general.

And they need to sandbag the machinery of mass deportation and authoritarian consolidation.

The House

According to the most up to date information as of the time of writing, Democrats are on track to have a House majority numbering in the 250s rather than the 220s. A majority was expected. A majority this big, though? That sends a very clear message. Even in its current, highly gerrymandered state, the House is by far the most democratically representative body in the federal government. A big majority there actually lines up with a big majority of the national popular vote. And a big enough majority of the latter renders gerrymandering moot.

The best way to defeat an attempted authoritarian consolidation is to send as strong a rebuke at the ballot box as you possibly can. This House majority does exactly that. Try as they might, you cannot deny this House majority the way you can deny the numbers in a poll, which are imperfect tools of measurement at best.

Almost as much as fearing that we would not wrest concrete levers of power out of the hands of the fascists, I worried about a too-tepid response on the part of voters. I am worried no longer. Voters are furious about what is being done in their name.

There are concrete benefits to this outcome as well. A mere majority already confers a great deal—veto over any budget or legislation, the power to issue subpoenas and hold hearings under oath, the power to impeach federal officials. But a bigger majority means that there are a larger number of jurisdictions with Democrats holding the advantages of an incumbent in two years’ time. They may not have the six years that Jon Ossoff had to turn his narrow runoff victory in 2020 into a crushing reelection in 2026, but any time you can get in office to work a constituency is a chance to consolidate gains.

The Senate

I dared not dream of a Senate majority larger than 52. But as I write this, the AP has already called 53 seats. I am skeptical it will end with that, at this point. Democrats will unquestionably get the largest majority they have had—and very possibly that either party has had—since the 111th Congress ended in January of 2011.

They have so far won in Texas, in Ohio, in Kansas, in Iowa, in North Carolina, and in South Carolina. 

I cannot understate the significance of this. Every single Senate seat pried away from the fascists is enormously important. A 49 seat Senate minority would still have been a considerable improvement over the 119th Congress. A 50-50 Senate would have been extremely valuable. A 53, 55, 56 seat majority? It’s a true game changer.

Every one of the seats gained this week will still be held by Democrats in 2029. The performance of Democrats in state races this year implies the very real possibility of actually expanding this enormous majority in 2028, when Democrats will have 15 Senate seats up for election while Republicans will have 19.

But in 2027, from the moment the new Congress is seated, the new Senate majority can veto any Trump appointment it wishes to. Indeed, that is precisely what they should do: no new judges, no new executive appointments, for two years. There is no reason whatsoever to give an inch. The Trump administration is already smashing the executive branch and attempting to subvert the courts to its will. The notion that blocking appointments will cripple the functioning of these institutions does not pass the laugh test.

A Senate majority this big also puts actual removal tantalizingly close to being within reach. House Democrats must interpret this stunning electoral rebuke as a mandate to impeach Trump administration officials for their rampant lawbreaking. And Senate Democrats must implement a secret ballot in the impeachment trial, in order to improve their chances of peeling off enough Republican votes. Secrecy can only be guaranteed for as long as they hold the majority, but that may well be long enough, especially with a majority this big. If they can remove even one official, it will give Congress the kind of teeth it has not had in a very, very long time. 

The end of the beginning

Trump is not finished. This 2026 election cycle is not even truly finished. The votes must all be counted and certified, of course, but we will also have to endure the next two months of efforts by the administration to reverse these results.

The magnitude of their defeat will make this even harder than it would otherwise have been. They will very likely fail. But we cannot underestimate them and we cannot rest on our laurels. They will fail because we will fight them and win, just as we fought them at the ballot box and won.

But even after the 120th Congress is seated, the crisis will not pass. There are hard limits on what Congress can do to stop an out of control president if it lacks 67 senators willing to remove him, even with a secret ballot. Congress and state governments will need to use every tool available to mitigate the abuse and hold these people accountable for their actions. But even in the best case, even if those tools are used with an unrealistically high level of effectiveness, there will undoubtedly be many, many more people who are kidnapped, hurt, deported, or killed. There will be more corruption, more cruelty.

And then, when all is said and done, even if voters show up in 2028 the way they showed up in 2026, we will have years and years of work ahead of us to fix what has been broken.

It’s not over. But today, the future is looking far brighter than it did yesterday.

Let’s savor that for one day day.

And then let’s get back to work.

Featured Image is Gina Hinojosa and Keisha Lance Bottoms