U.S. Midterms key takeaways: Voters punish Trump, and the GOP suffers historic losses

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, Michi­gan, 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.

Vot­ers na­tion­wide were in the mood for change, ac­cord­ing to The AP Vot­er Poll, which found that rough­ly three-quar­ters of vot­ers feel “an­gry” or “dis­sat­is­fied” with the di­rec­tion of the coun­try.

Among those who had Trump in mind when they cast their vote, about twice as many want­ed to ex­press op­po­si­tion to the Re­pub­li­can pres­i­dent as those who want­ed to sup­port him. Most al­so blamed the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion for high costs: about 6 in 10 say high­er than usu­al prices are “more be­cause of Trump’s poli­cies.”

Trump’s coali­tion was al­so fray­ing: Young vot­ers dra­mat­i­cal­ly shift­ed away from the GOP af­ter warm­ing to Trump in 2024, while the GOP al­so lost ground among Black men and His­pan­ics.

With un­de­ni­able mo­men­tum, De­moc­rats won con­trol of the House and Sen­ate, which will curb Trump’s pow­er af­ter he’s faced few lim­its from a com­pli­ant Re­pub­li­can-con­trolled Con­gress.

Be­yond con­trol of Wash­ing­ton, the ex­tent of these GOP loss­es could shake the very foun­da­tion of the Re­pub­li­can Par­ty — and per­haps the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, too — as the po­lit­i­cal world piv­ots al­most im­me­di­ate­ly in­to a new pres­i­den­tial elec­tion sea­son and Trump be­comes with­out ques­tion a lame duck.

Here are some take­aways from Tues­day’s midterms:

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.

Trump was bet­ting that his base of white work­ing-class vot­ers — and an in­creased share of young peo­ple and vot­ers of col­or — which fu­eled his pres­i­den­tial vic­to­ry in 2024 could save his Re­pub­li­can al­lies if they show up in great num­bers.

He was wrong.

The AP Vot­er Poll in­di­cates a sub­stan­tial shift in young peo­ple and His­pan­ics mov­ing away from Re­pub­li­cans com­pared with Trump’s vic­to­ry just two years ago.

Vot­ers un­der 30 were about even­ly split be­tween Trump and Vice Pres­i­dent Ka­mala Har­ris in 2024. But in this elec­tion, about 7 in 10 vot­ers in that same age group na­tion­al­ly say they sup­port­ed the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic House can­di­date in their area.

Mean­while, Re­pub­li­cans ap­peared to lose ground with Black vot­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly Black men. On­ly about 1 in 10 Black male vot­ers na­tion­al­ly backed the Re­pub­li­can can­di­date in their lo­cal U.S. House race, down from the rough­ly one-quar­ter who sup­port­ed Trump in the last pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, ac­cord­ing to AP Vote­Cast. About 9 in 10 Black vot­ers sup­port­ed the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic House can­di­date, up from the rough­ly 8 in 10 who cast their bal­lot for Har­ris.

It was a sim­i­lar sto­ry for His­pan­ic vot­ers. About one-third of His­pan­ics say they backed the Re­pub­li­can in their lo­cal U.S. House race, while rough­ly 4 in 10 vot­ed for Trump two years ago. About 6 in 10 His­pan­ic vot­ers na­tion­al­ly say they vot­ed for the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date in their lo­cal House race. That’s as about 7 in 10 His­pan­ic vot­ers say Trump’s poli­cies have wors­ened eco­nom­ic con­di­tions in the U.S.

Such shifts will echo in­to the 2028 pres­i­den­tial con­test, which un­of­fi­cial­ly be­gins Wednes­day.

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.

In North Car­oli­na, De­mo­c­ra­t­ic for­mer Gov. Roy Coop­er won the Sen­ate race. Sen. Jon Os­soff eas­i­ly won re­elec­tion in Geor­gia, while Lance Bot­toms won the Geor­gia gov­er­nor­ship. New Hamp­shire De­mo­c­rat Chris Pap­pas won his Sen­ate race, mak­ing him the first open­ly gay man in the Sen­ate. Maine Sen. Su­san Collins lost, leav­ing Re­pub­li­cans with­out any mem­bers of Con­gress in New Eng­land. In Ohio, for­mer Ohio Sen. Sher­rod Brown flipped a GOP-held Sen­ate seat, while for­mer state health of­fi­cial Amy Ac­ton beat close Trump al­ly Vivek Ra­maswamy for gov­er­nor.

The De­mo­c­ra­t­ic romp con­tin­ued in Michi­gan, where De­mo­c­rat Ab­dul El-Sayed won de­spite an ug­ly in­tra­party feud in re­cent days and will soon be­come the first Mus­lim sen­a­tor. In Kansas, vot­ers picked De­mo­c­rat Adam Hamil­ton, a first-time can­di­date who leads the largest Unit­ed Methodist church in the coun­try, over in­cum­bent Re­pub­li­can Sen. Roger Mar­shall — the first time a De­mo­c­rat has won a Sen­ate seat in Kansas in near­ly a cen­tu­ry. And in Texas, long an ob­ject of de­sire for De­moc­rats, 37-year-old state law­mak­er James Ta­lari­co was elect­ed to the Sen­ate, while Hi­no­josa de­feat­ed three-term Gov. Greg Ab­bott.

The most painful blow for Trump may have come in South Car­oli­na, where his hand­picked can­di­date to re­place the late Sen. Lind­sey Gra­ham, his sis­ter Dar­line Gra­ham, was de­feat­ed by De­mo­c­rat An­nie An­drews, a pe­di­a­tri­cian mak­ing her first run for the Sen­ate. An­drews ran un­suc­cess­ful­ly for Con­gress in 2022.

Can­di­date qual­i­ty mat­ters — and Trump picked flawed can­di­dates

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. About half of Geor­gia Sen­ate vot­ers thought Mike Collins’ views were “too ex­treme,” com­pared to about one-third who said the same about Os­soff.

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, Mar­shall was still ex­plain­ing his de­ci­sion as a physi­cian to sue pa­tients for out­stand­ing bills. A slim ma­jor­i­ty of Kansas vot­ers said Mar­shall did not have the right per­son­al char­ac­ter to serve in the U.S. Sen­ate, The AP Vot­er Poll found.

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.

But the pro­gres­sive move­ment al­so had a good night as its high­est-pro­file can­di­date, Ab­dul El-Sayed, de­feat­ed Mike Rogers and won in Michi­gan. El-Sayed is not a mem­ber of the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic So­cial­ists of Amer­i­ca, but he shares some of the move­ment’s goals.

El-Sayed’s win gives pro­gres­sives a le­git­i­mate ar­gu­ment that a far-left leader can win, even in a peren­ni­al bat­tle­ground. Mod­er­ate lead­ers, of course, have ar­gued the op­po­site.

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. —WASH­ING­TON (AP)

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Sto­ry by STEVE PEO­PLES, BILL BAR­ROW and LIN­LEY SANDERS | As­so­ci­at­ed Press