How the rejection of Trump produced a biblical downpour on Republicans

From the weakest to the strongest Republican candidates, from purple to ruby-red terrain, hardly anyone in the GOP escaped untouched by last week’s ferocious roar from American voters.

It was a night when, to paraphrase the Bible, the electoral rain fell on the just and the unjust alike.

Tactical campaign decisions and financial advantages, or even candidate quality cannot explain movement of this magnitude and consistency; change this big flows only from a current broad and deep enough to cut through the entire country.

That current wasn’t hard to identity: towering discontent with President Donald Trump’s tumultuous second term.

In the Voter Poll conducted by SSRS for CNN and a consortium of other news organizations, as of the Friday after the elections, just 37% of voters approved of Trump’s performance as president, while 63% disapproved. That was a significantly greater level of disapproval than Trump faced in 2018 — or that Barack Obama in 2010, George W. Bush in 2006 and Bill Clinton in 1994 confronted in midterm elections that also routed their parties.

As the veteran Democratic pollster Celinda Lake told me in October, across her more than four decades in politics, Trump is now facing “the broadest sense we’ve had that a president has failed. It is broader than it was in 2018 for him, or even for George W. Bush in 2006.”

That wave of discontent surged over the walls that Republican had hoped would contain it — their advantages in money and the map of states and districts being contested.

Democrats made dramatic breakthroughs in House, Senate, governor and state legislative races in every region. Voter polls showed them recording significant gains among the big voter groups that moved toward Trump in 2024 — including Latinos and young adults — while also improving among the electorate’s key swing groups (such as independents and college-educated White men) and benefiting from robust turnout among their traditional core supporters. Democrats seized multiple Senate seats in states that had only elected Republicans for decades.

Unusually strong Democratic candidates (such as Senate victors Adam Hamilton in Kansas and James Talarico in Texas, or House winners Cait Conley in New York and Bobby Pulido in Texas) and unusually weak Republican candidates (including losing Senate nominees Roger Marshall in Kansas, Darline Graham in South Carolina and Ken Paxton in Texas) help explain some of those seismic shifts.

But Democrats won plenty of races with only average candidates, and undeniably talented Republicans like New York’s Mike Lawler, Pennsylvania’s Brian Fitzpatrick and Iowa’s Ashley Hinson were swept away with the laggards, too. The problem for those Republicans was that the name on the back of the jersey didn’t matter as much to furious voters as the red color of the front.

The impact of that consensus was immediately evident in every race and every county that we flagged as markers for how the election might go.

The early signals

The headwinds facing Republicans were clear in two of the East Coast states we thought would provide the best early gauge of how high the wave would grow. In the VA-2 House race, Democrat Elaine Luria comfortably ousted Republican Jen Kiggans in a contest that showed the party on track for a solid night. Democrat Shannon Taylor narrowly edged Republican Rob Wittman in VA-1, a district Trump carried by 5 points in 2024. That was an early sign that the wave was reaching deeper into Republican territory.

In Pennsylvania, Democrats comfortably flipped seats at each level of difficulty. Double-digit wins for Democrat Bob Brooks against Republican Rep. Ryan Mackenzie in PA-7 and Janelle Stelson over Republican Rep. Scott Perry in PA-10 showed dramatic movement in two seats Trump won by 5 points or less. Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti’s nearly 9-point victory over Republican Rob Bresnahan in PA-8, a blue-collar northeastern Pennsylvania district Trump carried by 9 points, was an early sign of deeper distress for the GOP.

Most striking was Democrat Bob Harvie’s comfortable 5-point victory over Brian Fitzpatrick, who had defied all previous efforts to dislodge him from PA-1, a suburban Philadelphia district that usually voted blue for president. That was an early marker that even Republicans who had tried to build a reputation somewhat independent of Trump could not survive the powerful undertow of discontent with his second term.

The same message was evident in Democrat Rebecca Bennett’s resounding double-digit win over Republican Tom Kean Jr. in NJ-7 and Conley’s solid 4-point victory over Lawler, a skilled and tenacious opponent, in the NY-17 seat stretching from affluent Westchester County into the Hudson Valley.

But the force of the Trump undertow that would define the night first became fully apparent in the fall of Republican Sen. Susan Collins in Maine. In 2020, during Trump’s first term, Collins was the only GOP Senate incumbent or challenger who won in a state where the exit polls showed more voters disapproved than approved of Trump’s job performance.

The Voter Poll showed Collins on Tuesday again succeeded in attracting more voters who disapproved of Trump than almost any other Republican. But compared with 2020, more Maine voters this time disapproved of Trump (63%), and considerably more of those disapprovers supported Democrat Troy Jackson (80%) than backed her opponent in 2020 (71%). That tide of discontent with Trump’s performance carried Jackson to a comfortable 6-point win, even though 56% of voters said they did not believe the rough-hewn candidate had the right temperament for the job.

Collins was a tall tree in the political forest. Once it became clear that the current was strong enough to dislodge even her durable roots, it seemed clear that other Republicans with shallower attachments would be swept away as well.

The pattern extends

Moving west and south, Democrats won, almost always easily, the other races we identified as signaling a good night for the party, including ousting House Republicans in WI-3, IA-1 and IA-3, and winning the open seat Iowa governor race, as well as the governor and Senate contests in Ohio.

Most striking: Democrats across the Midwest ousted four House Republicans in strongly pro-Trump districts that we believed would fall only in a true tsunami: Ann Wagner and Victoria Spartz in the white-collar seats MO-2 and IN-5, and Michael Turner and Mike Carey in the more blue-collar seats of OH-10 and OH-15. Hamilton’s success in becoming the first Democrat elected to the Senate from Kansas since 1932 also pushed the night firmly into tsunami territory.

In the South, Democrats won all the races they needed to for a good night (such as the reelection victories by Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff, Democratic Rep. Don Davis in NC-1 and Democratic House incumbents who beat gerrymanders in FL-14 and FL-25), as well as tougher contests such as Keisha Lance Bottoms’ history-making triumph in the Georgia governor race.

But, as in the Midwest, Southern Democrats also scored some truly historic wins. The headline so far was Annie Andrews’ Senate win in South Carolina (a state Trump won by nearly 18 points just two years ago). Democrats also notched tsunami-level wins in North Carolina House seats — including narrowly beating Richard Hudson, the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, in NC-9, a district Trump carried by almost 16 points. A win for Democrat Scott Colom in the Mississippi Senate race, which appears within reach as final ballots are tallied, would mark an even greater historic breakthrough for the party.

Texas was where all these trends converged most powerfully. Democrats posted solid wins by defending incumbents Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez, in TX-28 and TX-34, two heavily Hispanic South Texas districts that Republicans gerrymandered to weaken them. They won even tougher races in two other heavily Hispanic districts when sheriff’s deputy Johnny Garcia easily held the open seat of TX-35 and Pulido, a charismatic Tejano singer, routed Monica De La Cruz in TX-15-a district Trump had carried by almost 18 points. Democrats moved their gains into historic territory with Katy Stout’s victory in TX-23, a district that few considered within reach until recently.

Any win for James Talarico against Paxton in the Texas Senate race would have marked a very good night for Democrats, who had not captured a Senate seat there since 1988. But Talarico’s 12-point,1.2 million-vote advantage pushed the result deep into historic territory.

As impressive as Talarico’s victory was, even more remarkable was Gina Hinojosa’s win over three-term Republican Governor Greg Abbott. While Talarico was well-funded, Hinojosa was overwhelmingly outspent. And while Paxton was a deeply flawed opponent, Abbott had been a dominant force in Texas politics for years. Yet Hinojosa crushed Abbott by about 700,000 votes to become the state’s first Latina governor — and record a victory that stands as the textbook definition of historic.

The common themes

Democrats posted a similar record across the West. They won all the races we identified as the minimum for a good night (including flipping Republican-held House seats in CA-22, CO-8 and AZ-1). They won several tougher races (including flipping MT-1, AZ-6, and CO-5). And they barreled into historic territory by capturing the NV-2 House district (which Trump carried by 14 points), with a plausible remaining chance to flip CO-4, another double-digit Trump district. The Alaska governor and Senate contests, both of which would represent significant breakthroughs for Democrats, probably won’t be settled until mid-November; Democrats are favored strongly in the former and narrowly in the latter.

Our pre-election list of counties to watch fell out in a similar pattern. Democrats notched gains in each of the major groupings that we identified: urban centers, traditionally White suburbs, racially diverse suburbs, mostly working-class White counties we dubbed “blue-collar bellwethers,” Latino enclaves and rural redoubts. Measuring the swing in voting behavior compared with 2024 showed virtually every congressional district moving toward the Democrats. In states including North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Iowa, Kansas and Texas, virtually (or literally) every county moved toward the Democrats compared with 2024 in their Senate or governor races or both, according to the analysis of the Decision Desk HQ political website.

The Voter Poll conducted by SSRS for CNN and a consortium of news organizations underscored how the disenchantment with Trump drove those shifts. Beyond Trump’s 63% disapproval rating, a stunning 62% said he prioritized his personal interests over the country’s; 64% said he had the wrong priorities; 66% said his policies had hurt, not helped, the economy. Strong majorities of voters expressing each of those views backed Democrats.

The breadth of Trump’s decline hurt Republicans as much as the depth. During his first term, even as most voters nationally disapproved of his performance, Trump retained majority support in most Republican-leaning states — which helped the GOP oust several red-state Democratic senators in 2018.

But this year, a majority of voters disapproved of Trump’s performance in every state where Democrats flipped a Republican-held Senate seat; his disapproval ranged from 55% in South Carolina, to 57% in Ohio, Iowa and Kansas, 59% in Texas, 62% in North Carolina and 63% in Maine. At least 85% of the voters who disapproved of Trump supported the Democratic Senate candidate in each of those states except Maine. That left those GOP candidates in too deep a hole to escape. (In the national House poll, 86% of voters who disapproved of Trump voted Democratic, a number similar to the levels for Obama, Bush and Clinton, though slightly below the mark for Trump in 2018.)

And even in those previously Republican-leaning states, many of Trump’s specific initiatives faced majority opposition. Between 52% to 56% of voters in Florida, Georgia, Arizona and even Texas felt his immigration enforcement efforts had gone too far. (Two-thirds of Texas Hispanics felt that way.) Between 61% to 66% of voters in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — the sort of blue-collar behemoths long considered most receptive to a protectionist trade agenda — said his tariffs had hurt the local economy. (Even majorities of non-college White voters in those states viewed the tariffs as harmful.) At least three-fifths of voters in Texas, South Carolina, Nevada and Georgia said Trump was wrong to attack Iran.

All this discontent converged to produce last Tuesday’s historic repudiation of Trump and the GOP. When all races are called, Democrats could reach their biggest House majority since 2009 — or even since 1991. Democrats also could reach at least 55 Senate seats —something either party has done only three times since 2000.

It’s too early to say these breakthroughs have provided Democrats a lasting edge in the 50-50 stalemate that has defined the competition between the two parties for almost the entire 21st century. Predictions of realignment from each side after even big wins in recent years have all been frustrated.

But last week’s results represented an earthquake big enough to potentially reset the playing field. The Democratic wins will elevate to national leadership a diverse array of younger leaders that will bring new vitality into a party that many voters in recent years have seen as “doddering,” in the words of Democratic pollster Paul Maslin.

And while the big Democratic wins in Texas, Ohio, Iowa, Kansas and potentially even Mississippi would undoubtedly be harder to replicate with the larger and more blue-collar electorate of a presidential year, they at least open new pathways for the party to an Electoral College majority beyond the handful of swing states that have dominated recent presidential campaigns.

If nothing else, the results shattered the hardening belief in both parties that Republicans had constructed impregnable fortifications across the 25 states that have voted for Trump in all three of his presidential runs. Those defenses haven’t crumbled, but they have cracked — and created the openings for new possibilities beyond the past quarter century’s unending trench warfare between two electoral coalitions that are utterly inimical in their vision for the country, but have been almost exactly equal in size.