Voters just delivered a crushing verdict on Donald Trump and the Republican Party. Democrats flipped at least seven Republican Senate seats and took back both chambers of Congress. Republicans lost in Texas, Kansas, Ohio and South Carolina, states Trump won easily two years ago. And in Mississippi, a Republican senator is clinging to her seat by a few dozen votes.
A Senate Map Republicans Thought Was Safe
Democrats flipped Republican Senate seats in Kansas, Iowa, Texas, Ohio, Maine, North Carolina and South Carolina. They also held Georgia and Michigan. That handed Democrats control of the Senate in January.
Kansas had not elected a Democratic senator in nearly a century. Adam Hamilton just did it. In Maine, five-term Republican Susan Collins conceded to Democrat Troy Jackson. In Ohio, Sherrod Brown came back to beat Republican Jon Husted.
Texas Turns Blue
Ken Paxton, the scandal-plagued Republican attorney general, lost the Texas Senate race to Democrat James Talarico. Talarico won by about 12 points with nearly all the vote counted, ending a 38-year Democratic losing streak in statewide races.
It got worse for Texas Republicans. Democrat Gina Hinojosa ousted Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who had been seen as the heavy favorite. Republicans had redrawn Texas House maps to grab five new seats. Instead, they may end up losing one.
The House Is Gone, and So Is the Speaker
Democrats flipped more than two dozen House seats, some in districts Trump won by double digits. They are projected to hold 245 seats to Republicans’ 166. Embattled Republican Rep. Max Miller of Ohio lost his seat.
By Wednesday morning, the Republican leader was gone too. Speaker Mike Johnson told staff he will not run to lead House Republicans in the next Congress. Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan are already fighting over what is left.
Mississippi: 43 Votes
The most stunning race may still be going. In Mississippi, Democrat Scott Colom leads Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith by just 43 votes out of more than 925,000. About 44,000 votes are left to count, and counties have five business days to count absentee and affidavit ballots.
Trump won Mississippi by 20 points. The state has not sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1982. Colom is a 43-year-old district attorney who ran on cost of living and health care. Colom told supporters the results are “all trending in our direction.”
Republicans Panicked in Mississippi
Hyde-Smith brushed off the warning signs. Two weeks out, her campaign called a tightening race a “last-ditch effort” by Washington insiders. Then Republicans rushed in. Trump announced a Mississippi rally for her eight days before the election, and the Senate Leadership Fund spent more than $1 million to save her.
Hyde-Smith has not conceded. On election night she told supporters she was in “a very good lead” and would remain their senator. The race has no runoff. Whoever has the most votes wins.
Trump Blames Everyone but Himself
Trump headlined 30 rallies and told voters to act like he was on the ballot. When his hand-picked candidate in South Carolina, Darline Graham, lost, he reacted mid-interview: “Wow, that’s amazing.”
Then he blamed his absence from the ballot. He told The New York Times he regrets nothing and called his two years back in office the most successful in history.
The Bottom Line
Trump said this election was about him, and voters believed him. They tore through Texas, Kansas and South Carolina, and they have Mississippi on a knife’s edge. The Republican Party just found out what America thinks of MAGA, and it is not close.
Sources: The Guardian; BBC (Anthony Zurcher); NBC News (Scott Wong, Julie Tsirkin, Sahil Kapur, Kyle Stewart); CBS News; Fox News; WDAM (Brooke Parker); WLOX; The Mississippi Independent; NewsNation; The Daily Beast, citing The New York Times; AP.