The Republicans' crushing defeat was above all a rejection of Trump himself, his administration, his war in Iran alongside Israel, and institutionalized corruption. He failed to address voters' overriding concern: the cost of living.
By Piotr Smolar
Tsunami, blue wave, citizen revolt, lesson in dignity or political earthquake – whatever the expression, what matters is the new political reality in the United States. After two years of democracy being pushed to the brink by a government with authoritarian tendencies, voters used the midterms on Tuesday, November 3, to deliver a historic rebuke to Donald Trump and the Republicans. "It's a point in time," Trump said with a sigh after midnight, live on Fox News. "There was a mood in the air (...). I shouldn't feel guilty." The opposite is true: this defeat is very much his own.
The final polls were right: Anger and frustration have reshaped the entire electoral map. The hundreds of millions of dollars conservative donors poured in, including Elon Musk's spending in the Texas Senate race, proved useless. Democrats easily won the House of Representatives, though the scale of that victory was not yet clear on Wednesday morning. They also flipped the Senate, an outcome that seemed highly unlikely just a few months ago.
The personification of that triumph is former seminarian James Talarico, 37, the new Democratic senator from Texas. He achieved a staggering result in this conservative stronghold, taking a 12-point lead over Attorney General Ken Paxton. His spirited and sharp victory speech celebrated the defeat of the "politics of division." Democratic pastor Adam Hamilton's victory in Kansas – a first for a Democrat since 1932 – demonstrates the breadth of the overall victory.
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