Wednesday, November 4, 2026 · Morning Edition

Today

By StaffNews Desk

Good morning. The 2026 midterms delivered a landslide. Republicans were swept out of power in the House in a landslide and lost control of the Senate, as Democrats flipped Senate seats in South Carolina, Iowa, Texas, Maine, North Carolina, Ohio, and Kansas — the South Carolina pickup taking Lindsey Graham's old seat. Only Mississippi and Alaska remain too close to call, with winners possibly days away.

The administration owns this. Trump's hand-picked candidates were wiped out, and Trumpism is running out of gas. The party he cannibalized must now decide whether it can escape him — and with the midterms over, the 2028 presidential race is already underway, even as Trump jokes about a third term the Constitution's two-term limit forbids. On election day itself he ran a stunt, deceitfully claiming the US would end aid to Israel.

Voters delivered a mandate for change — a mandate to fight Trump and deliver for the working class, not to squander it on bipartisan deal-making. The pressure to collaborate with capital starts immediately: in the lame-duck Congress, Senate Democrats must decide whether to advance a bipartisan permitting reform bill or hold off until next year.

The energy came from below. In Austin, the crowd at Talarico's victory party watched the returns and celebrated taking back Texas, while election-night coverage featured labor and left figures including UAW president Shawn Fain and Mahmoud Khalil. Capital did not win everything: in Inglewood, SoFi Stadium owner Stan Kroenke may dodge a ticket-tax change, but his push to remove billboard ads is failing.