Voters have forcefully rejected President Donald Trump and Republicans, electing Democrats in GOP strongholds nationwide for the first time in decades and turning the GOP’s deepest fears into reality.
As generational-level losses stacked up across the country and in the deepest of red seats, Republicans accepted what is on track to be a historic midterm defeat — a long-feared “blue wave” that had started washing across the nation.
“Massacre,” Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.), who is retiring, said in an interview.
The extent of the washout became clear soon after polls closed: Republicans lost a South Carolina Senate seat for the first time in nearly 30 years. Democrats nipped on the heels of House incumbents in deep red Florida districts. And the man in charge of the party’s House reelection effort was at grave risk of losing his own seat.
By 11:30 p.m., Democrats had already flipped eight GOP House seats — itself enough to win a majority if Republicans can’t make gains elsewhere — and many in the party feared dozens more could follow as voters registered their dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump.
Voters in Texas, a ruby-red state for a generation, elected at least two Democrats to statewide office, flipping the Senate seat and the governor’s mansion. And Kansas Democrats flipped a Senate seat for the first time in nearly a century.
As the defeats continued, Republicans — long afraid of a president who has maintained an ironclad grip on the party — said Trump was to blame for their poor electoral performance.
“President Trump hasn’t exactly done any Republicans favors across the country,” Joe Straus, a former Texas state House speaker, said on a POLITICO election night broadcast. “They haven’t done themselves favors, frankly, by following so closely along.”
Some didn’t mention the president by name, but it was still clear he was the one taking the blame.
“Voters all across America have spoken, and this is a wake-up call for all conservatives,” said Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), arguing the GOP needed to “start governing on the core principles they campaigned on.”
Trump, meanwhile, denied the results were his cross to bear.
“I wasn’t on the ballot,” he said during POLITICO’s election night livestream. “I said, ’Say you’re on the ballot, think about me being on the ballot.’ But they didn’t agree and they didn’t like the candidates in most cases.”
Many of the political professionals charged with getting GOP candidates elected in this environment said the results could be potentially historic in nature. One operative predicted a “tsunami,” while another deemed it “the worst electoral defeat in my lifetime and likely in history.”
At an ill-fated victory party for Senate candidate Michael Whatley in North Carolina, staff were already packing up the room less than two hours after polls closed. Returns showed Democrat Roy Cooper on track to win by as many as 20 points in a race that was supposed to have been tooth-and-nail.
Standing in the room, one North Carolina Republican openly pondered what many others in the party had long avoided saying openly — that it was finally time to think about life after Trump.
“Trump has done some excellent things, and I appreciate that. But it can’t be the party of Trump forever,” said Jonathan Fletcher, a former GOP county chair. “If the Republican Party is going to be serious about winning, we have to be serious about winning people in the middle.”
Nearly every state, district and county shows movement toward Democrats, from counties that Trump won three times to blue strongholds where Democrats are improving their margins. County-level data shows Democrats doing on average more than 8 points better than Kamala Harris did in the 2024 presidential race.
That is putting Democrats in reach of flipping seats in places that Trump won by double digits two years ago. Democrat Annie Andrews won South Carolina, which had gone for Trump by nearly 18 points. Democrats’ House flips included Kentucky’s 6th District, which Trump won by 15. And seats that Republicans had drawn to be friendlier to them in Florida and Texas largely didn’t flip in their favor.
The losses threatened to pile up even after Republican candidates, committees and super PACs spent massive sums in an effort to retain control of Congress — including more than $380 million from President Donald Trump’s political operation.
Many Republicans said the war in Iran, which sent voters’ gas prices soaring, and continued frustration with the economy drove frustration with a party that won on those same issues in 2024.
On top of that some quickly vented about substandard candidates — such as Darline Graham in the South Carolina Senate race and Ken Paxton in the Texas Senate contest.
“Not only were folks upset about the war, inflation and gas prices, but add to that the fact they think he was making them eat a shit sandwich in Darline, and they just had enough,” said Mick Mulvaney, a former Trump White House chief of staff and South Carolina congressman.
Trump said on Truth Social his own absence from the ballot for the drastic Republican underperformance — even after barnstorming the country begging Republicans to “vote like I’m on the ballot.”
“I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!” Trump posted shortly after 10:30 p.m.
Other Republicans were ready to blame Trump’s own decisions.
“Republicans got their asses kicked tonight because of the Iran war — plain and simple. Everything else is just noise and spin,” said a person close to the White House.
Meanwhile, power in Washington was already shifting. The likely next chair of the House Oversight Committee, who has been gearing up for massive probes into the Trump administration, issued a two-word statement Tuesday addressed to administration officials and the “Trump Crime Family.”
“Lawyer up,” Rep. Robert Garcia of California said.
Amanda Chu, Will Steakin, Erin Doherty, Lauren Fedor, Ashley Ahn and Lisa Kashinsky contributed to this report.
