The Map Moved

Wow. I hear tsumani but the Democrats performed very strongly in a number of races from Governor to US Senate to US House. It appears they will take control of Congress for two years. There were a few surprising results from these midterms.

Created by A.I.

I had my A.I. assistant list the results that are key:

• Texas: James Talarico beat Ken Paxton for Senate; Gina Hinojosa beat Greg Abbott for governor. No Democrat had won statewide there since 1994.
• South Carolina: Annie Andrews beat Darline Graham for Senate. Democrats had not won a Senate race in the state since 1998.
• Maine: Troy Jackson beat Susan Collins for Senate.
• Kansas: Adam Hamilton beat Roger Marshall for Senate. First Democratic Senate win there since 1932.
• Iowa: Josh Turek beat Ashley Hinson for Senate; Rob Sand flipped the governor’s race.
• Ohio: Sherrod Brown beat Jon Husted for Senate; Amy Acton beat Vivek Ramaswamy for governor. Democrats had not held the governorship since 2006.
• Georgia: Keisha Lance Bottoms won the open governor’s race. Democrats swept the major statewide offices.
• Michigan: Abdul El-Sayed beat Mike Rogers for Senate (Democratic hold). Jocelyn Benson beat John James for governor (Democratic hold).
• House: Kentucky’s 6th District flipped (Zach Dembo over Ralph Alvarado; Trump carried it by about 15 points in 2024). Multiple Pennsylvania seats flipped, including Brian Fitzpatrick’s district and the ones held by Ryan Mackenzie and Rob Bresnahan. Democrats also held or won seats in Florida that Republicans had redrawn earlier in the year to favor themselves.

Texas is the one that still does not sit right. Both the Senate and the governorship went Democratic in the same cycle. Paxton carried baggage. Talarico moderated enough to win. That is the result. Whether he fits the state is a different question, and the election already answered the only one that mattered on Tuesday.

South Carolina feels less surprising in hindsight. Running the late Lindsey Graham’s sister for his old seat may have been the wrong bet.

Georgia was closer to expected than Texas. The state had already elected two Democratic senators. Bottoms will be the first Black woman governor in the country. That is a fact about the result. Her record as mayor of Atlanta is a separate conversation about governing, and this election did not settle it.

Michigan was the one I thought Rogers could take. El-Sayed still won. Jackson in Maine was not a strong candidate on paper. He still beat Collins. In both cases the Republican side did not produce a better alternative.

What happened is still open. Broken promises from the new administration are one possibility. Higher prices tied to the Iran war are another. Momentum on the Democratic side—progressives and Democratic Socialists included—is a third. None of those explain why the map moved where it did.

Ben Shapiro said on Election Day that a Democratic win would bring a resurgence of "wokeness". That is a prediction about the next Congress, not an account of the results. Whether it looks like 2020 is a separate question.

A few other notes. Byron Donalds is the first Black Republican elected governor of Florida, succeeding Ron DeSantis. In Wisconsin, David Crowley will be the first Black governor after defeating Republican Tom Tiffany. Milestones are recorded. Performance is the test.

Trump has said he will work with a Democratic Congress. Whether that relationship can function is the practical question. Further attempts to impeach him are probably a non-starter. He will not be able to govern the way he has since he returned to the Oval Office in 2025.