Trumper’s Remorse: Voters Look at the Last Two Years, Ask for a Redo

Even the most forgiving retailers tend to draw a line on a return policy of 90 days. Come after that, you’re out of luck. But voters across America on Tuesday took a look at what they purchased two Novembers ago and said: “How about two years; would you accept that? The merchandise is a little battered, but the tags are intact.”

After months of political fighting both substantive and surreal, with debates over ideology and assessments of buttocks, American voters Tuesday delivered as strong a rebuff to a Republican president as has been delivered in four decades, turning the House of Representatives and Senate over to Democrats and essentially saying “you see if you can stop him.”

Democrats won in swing states and they won in red states; they won in states where Trump had been ascendant and states where Republicans never gave up control.

From Maine to Texas, Kansas to South Carolina — hell, as of this writing even Mississippi was in play — as new Democratic Senators sprung up everywhere. They won so often cable news pundits ran out of water metaphors for a blue wave.

Democrats gained, as of this writing, a whopping 41 seats in the House, far more than the three they needed to win control. But it was the Senate — where a flip was far from assured and in fact unlikely just weeks ago — where the most drama abided.

A need for four flips was filled, then it soon turned into five, then six. States where Democrats hadn’t won a Senate seat in 38 years (Texas) or in 94 (Kansas). States where Trump won by double digits (Ohio) and states where Strom Thurmond presided for half a century (South Carolina).

And, maybe most unlikely, states where Democrats hadn’t beaten a Susan Collins in 30 years (Maine).
As of this writing, Democrats had flipped seven Senate seats with an eye on an eighth in Alaska and a ninth in Mississippi. They were holding on to all of the blue seats, with Michigan the last one in play. (Abdul El-Sayed held a three-point leader over Mike Rogers, as of this writing.)

There have been major shifts like his before, most notably in 1994 for Republicans and 2008 for Democrats. But both of those events occurred because of a galvanizing personality in the winning party — Newt Gingrich in 1994 and Barack Obama in 2008. What was remarkable about this sweep is that it didn’t come from one central charismatic figure but a slew of grassroots personalities who understood their individual constituencies, state-by-state: James Talarico and Josh Turek and Annie Andrews and Adam Hamilton. (Also, speaking of Talarico and Hamilton: it’s nice Democrats finally figured out what the Republicans did decades ago: overtly Christian candidates play.)

And, of course, there was the Trump remorse. There was a political figure who mobilized the electorate — just in the negative. How fittingly 2026 that the figure the candidate who influenced voters was one people hated, Donald Trump and ICE and Iran and the fact that prices still seem to be going up while the only thing the president is bringing down is the East Wing.

Perhaps the best modern comp with all this is to 1986. That Election Day 40 years ago, Democrats also scored like this in the midterms — also in the second term of a fading Republican icon, netting eight seats against Ronald Reagan.

This election season has been one of the most entertaining, if also the most divisive in recent memory, as a showman president disliked even by his own party paved the way to a series of colorful showdowns.

Books can be written about all the dynamics, but fights over Middle East policy roiled and at times threatened to break apart the Democratic party — right up until the final days with Haley Stevens’ shocking defection in Michigan. And yet somehow it all led to history — the first openly gay male senator in New Hampshire’s Chris Pappas, the first Black female governor in Keisha Lance Bottoms.

Meanwhile, Republicans tried to look toward the future while grappling with the Donald Trump present, accepting his campaign bids even as they kept him out of nearly all of their ads. (Democrats, on the other hand, were all too happy to tether their opponents to the president.)

And through it all the president himself often seemed to distract himself with random talk on a campaign trail where he was only ambivalently wanted.

The Democrats will have some mountains ahead, not least including schisms in their own party; how will the Darializa Chevalier and Melat Kiros types in the House play with the mainstream types led by new speaker Hakeem Jeffries, and in the Senate how will Peggy Flanagan and Abdul El-Sayed, should his lead hold, meld with Midwestern personalities like Turek and Hamilton and majority leader Chuck Schumer.

They will also have to decide how much to lean into inquiries and investigations, as this is not what voters sent them to Washington for — it’s the economy, stupid, as Bill Clinton’s (and James Carville’s) words continue to redound.

But the bigger questions lie with Republicans, who now must decide in the minority how to oppose Democrats — and how much to genuflect to a man they have spent much of the past decade paying fealty to, now newly irrelevant. Perhaps the person most confused today, strategically: J.D. Vance. What or whom exactly is he supposed to be defending, and how does he find a path to the 2028 primaries intact?

All those questions await in January. On this November day Democrats only care about one: “Would you like that as cash or credit?”