The people of the United States have delivered a resounding rebuke of President Donald Trump and his policies, smashing the GOP’s grip on both the House and Senate, its hold on governorships across the country, and its control of state legislative bodies from coast to coast.
The Republican effort to gerrymander Black representatives out of their seats , particularly in the South, went down to defeat. In fact, Republican and right-wing control of the South was broken almost totally in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Texas, and Mississippi’s Senate race remains too close to call.
The Senate is under Democratic control, 54–44 , with two seats undecided. One of the undecided races could put Mary Peltola, an Alaska Native , in the seat from Alaska, and the other could put Scott Colom in the seat from Mississippi. He would be the first Black senator from Mississippi since Reconstruction . As of press time, the Alaska race stands at 48.2% for Peltola and 47.9% for Dan Sullivan . In Mississippi, the totals are 462,821 votes for Colom and 462,778 for Cindy Hyde-Smith.
In the House, NBC News projections show 258 seats for the Dems and 177 for the Republicans , giving Democrats their largest House majority in nearly two decades.
Joe Sims, co-chair of the Communist Party USA, said the results reflect a major defeat for the Trump policy of scaring voters with talk about the alleged communist and socialist leanings of Democrats. “He campaigned on those issues because he really had nothing else,” Sims said, “and his policies proved to be a failure.”
The vote was seen by many as much more than just massive opposition to the high prices of groceries and fuel at the pump.
“I’m against the war in Iran and the tariffs, and I voted against Trump for those reasons and because I reject every single thing he stands for,” said Susan DeGroat as she came out of her polling place in Erie, Pa. When asked what those things were, she said, “I hate his attacks on our immigrant neighbors and on LGBTQ people, many of whom are my friends.”
Erie County in Pennsylvania maintained its record as a bellwether by voting for Democrats and against Republicans Tuesday.
African American voters turned out in force to reject the attempt by the MAGA forces to turn the clock back on civil rights. Keisha Lance Bottoms was elected Georgia’s first Black governor and the first Black woman ever elected governor of any U.S. state.
CPUSA Co-Chair Rossana Cambron noted that Latino voters turned out in huge numbers to defeat the MAGA-backed candidates. “They were part of a big united effort that overcame the power of money—the billions spent by the ultra-rich, including Musk , on the effort to buy the election. They could just as well have built a bonfire and thrown their money into it,” she said.
In many locations, centrist forces and progressive forces in the Democratic Party, with the help of the labor movement and its allies, united to back the Democratic candidates. This was particularly true in states like Michigan, where the Senate race was won by Dr. Abdul El-Sayed , who will be the first Muslim to serve in the U.S. Senate. He was backed by progressives, centrists, and the powerful United Auto Workers union.
Progressive forces expect that Democrats will hold hearings on the corruption connected to the Trump administration but warn that the Democrats in control must turn their attention to pushing for issues important to the American people.
Barry Mann, another voter who emerged from the polling place in Erie, said, “I want them to focus on stopping the ICE raids. There are businesses here that are suffering because immigrants have been afraid to come to work and to go out and buy things.”
The New York Times Tuesday described the election results as a “wipeout,” pointing out that it was the strongest rebuke of the Republicans since Herbert Hoover was defeated by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 .
High up on that list of rebukes was the double whammy in Texas, where Republican Gov. Greg Abbott was defeated by Democrat Gina Hinojosa and Attorney General Ken Paxton was defeated by James Talarico, who became the first Texas Democrat elected to the Senate since 1988 . Abbott was a three-term governor seeking a fourth term .
In Maine, Susan Collins, the five-term Republican, was defeated in her bid for reelection to the Senate by Democrat Troy Jackson . Labor, centrist, and progressive Democrats united there to defeat Collins.
In Iowa, Democrats flipped three of the state’s four congressional districts , all of which had been held by Republicans.
These are only a few of the many similar victories across the country yesterday. It was a day that will not be forgotten in the history of politics in the U.S.
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