OPINION:
As we have noted before, the Democrats had a good election cycle. They had a clear advantage in enthusiasm and turnout and won a batch of races that seemed beyond their reach.
It looks as if they will win about 255 seats in the House — a net gain of about 40 seats — and net seven or eight seats in the Senate.
For comparative purposes, that is a bit more modest than the waves in 1994, when 54 House seats and eight Senate seats changed parties; 2006, when 31 House seats and seven Senate seats changed parties; or 2010, when 63 House seats and seven Senate seats changed parties.
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It is, however, better than the postwar average of 29 House and six Senate seats taken by the non-incumbent party in the sixth year of a presidency. There will no doubt be quite a bit of analysis of the elections from people who get paid to fret over details, but the irreducible, central fact is that the Democrats simply turned out more of their voters.
The cohort that voted in these elections was split about 54% to 46% in favor of the Democrats. That compares with 2024, when the voting cohort was more evenly split, at 52% to 48% in favor of Republicans.
With the caveat that a presidential election and an off-year election draw electorates of different sizes and composition, dropping 10 to 12 points in 24 months will usually lead to defeat — and in this instance, it did.
Did the Republicans suffer some erosion among Hispanic voters? Yes, about 36% of Hispanics voted for Republicans this go-around, compared with 48% in 2024. That 36% is exactly the same as the Republican share of the Hispanic vote in 2020.
Did the Republicans suffer some erosion among young people? Yes, a little more than a quarter, 27%, of voters younger than 30 voted for Republicans this time, compared with 46% in 2024 and 36% in 2020. Did Black voters revert to the mean? Yes, they did, with 9% voting for the Republicans, down from 14% in 2024 and pretty close to the 8% in 2020.
Despite this, the Republicans had a productive, albeit painful, election cycle. Detaching emotionally from the current administration and turning attention to the next elections could have been a six- or seven-year process spread across three election cycles. It was mostly done in one cycle.
Work remains to be done. A day or two after the elections, the president rather blithely noted that the elections had nothing to do with him and that he anticipated making no changes in his operation. That is an odd response to electoral rejection, but maybe it is the right one for this president.
As Vice President J.D. Vance confirmed in a rather unusual X post, the original sin of this campaign cycle was the conflict in Iran. Still, it was not the only failure. The redistricting effort was poorly conceived and poorly executed, and it backfired, especially in North Carolina. The Republicans had some pretty sketchy candidates. The small-donor effort failed entirely as the party became even more reliant on big-money donors. That is not sustainable.
We are left with a divided government and an electorate that is angrier than usual — 39% said their vote this time was motivated by anger — as we careen toward the 2028 presidential campaign.
The Democrats will need an agenda beyond opposing President Trump. The democratic socialists are not likely to be the answer there. Despite everything, 56% of voters in the exit polls support capitalism, compared with just 33% who support socialism.
It seems reasonable to assume that Mr. Trump will make the necessary deals with the congressional Democrats to ensure that his family is not subject to excessive risk, judicial or otherwise. That, of course, poses a risk to those who might bear the costs of such deals.
The good news is that the 2028 campaign will increasingly set the mood music in Washington and influence which policies are pursued and discarded.
The reality and genius of the American system is that, despite disappointment with specific elections, material voter concerns do not really go away until they are either addressed or conditions change. The will of voters always finds an outlet.
Finally, the other good news is that the new majority is almost always subject to overreach. It cannot help it. The kinds of people who want to rule their fellow citizens are, almost by definition, prone to overreach.
This is going to be especially tricky terrain for the Democrats, who, despite the election results, have a lower approval rating — 29% — than Republicans, at 38%.
• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor at The Washington Times.
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