A Grand Old Bloodbath
The average political party, after a crushing electoral defeat, would try to understand what went wrong. It would engage in serious introspection, reconnect with voters, reevaluate its policies and messaging, and plan a course correction.
But the Republican Party is not an average political party, and Donald Trump is not an average politician.
Amid a series of brutal losses and stunning upsets last week—from New Jersey and Georgia to Pennsylvania—Trump and the GOP seem uninterested in examining their failures. Their reaction has been tone-deaf and out of touch, aiming to save face rather than address what might be the first signs of a blue wave.
To be sure, Tuesday was nothing short of a humiliating defeat for the GOP, and no amount of denialism from partisans can change that reality. Vice President JD Vance’s self-soothing is illustrative.
“I think it’s idiotic to overreact to a couple of elections in blue states,” he posted on X.
Vance was apparently consigned to the kids’ table during Trump’s breakfast with Republicans that morning. The president confided the results showed the GOP was “getting killed.” Vance also may not have realized his own half-brother lost his bid for Cincinnati mayor in a landslide. He was trounced by a Democrat in Ohio—a state that’s not considered blue.
Still, these results were part of broader shifts observed across the nation.
In New Jersey and Virginia, Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger did not just win. The pair demolished their Republican challengers.
Virtually every major MAGA figure came out to support Trump-endorsed Republican candidate Jack Ciattarelli to push him over the line in what was supposed to be a close race against Sherrill, one that some expected to run late into the night. Instead, Sherill steamrolled Ciattarelli, beating him by double digits. Tremors of a broader shift were felt elsewhere in the Garden State.
Last year, Trump defeated Kamala Harris in Passaic County, with 50 percent of the vote to her 47 percent. On Tuesday, Sherrill beat Ciattarelli in Passaic, 57.1 percent to 42.2 percent, while also flipping four other counties that had gone for Trump last November, including Morris County. There, Democrat Marisa Sweeney won her race for a state assembly seat that has not been held by a Democrat since 1977.
In Virginia, Spanberger swept Republican Winsome Earle-Sears while Democrats expanded their majority in the Virginia House of Delegates from 51 to 64. The Democratic Party also overcame massive Republican spending on the race for attorney general, with Jay Jones defeating incumbent Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares. Many observers expected Jones to founder after it came to light that he had texted a colleague three years ago that “Gilbert gets two bullets to the head,” referring to then-Virginia GOP House Speaker Todd Gilbert. Jones also spoke of wishing to see his children dead. It turned out, however, that anger among Virginia voters toward the Trump administration overshadowed the scandal that Republicans had hoped would sink Jones.
The government shutdown effectively worked like a pressure cooker that quietly increased in lethality and finally exploded on Tuesday. “I’ve seen so many federal families lose their jobs, lose their income, lose their certainty here,” Karina Valdez, who voted at the Barcroft Sports & Fitness Center in Arlington, told the Associated Press.
Even reliably red regions witnessed stunning upsets, like Democrat Nicole Cole’s triumph over Republican Bobby Orrock in Spotsylvania County. Orrock was the longest-serving member of the House of Delegates. Since 1989, Orrock had won reelection by consistently large margins. On Tuesday, he lost to Cole by about 1,300 votes. Notably, Spanberger also comfortably won Spotsylvania even though she had failed to win the county three times during her successful runs in Virginia’s 7th congressional district.
In Georgia, Democrats flipped two seats on the Public Service Commission. It was the party’s first non-federal statewide win in nearly two decades. Democrats also broke the GOP supermajority in Mississippi with a series of state Senate wins. In Pennsylvania, voters kept three Supreme Court judges who were first elected as Democrats. But that was not all.
For the first time since 2019, Democrats regained the majority on the Luzerne County Council—a Trump stronghold in Pennsylvania. They also unseated the Republican mayor of Beaver County, which has backed GOP presidential candidates for the last 113 years. Democrats won seats on Pennsylvania’s Superior Court and on its Commonwealth Court, and scored commanding victories in Erie, Lehigh, Northampton, and Bucks counties—all of which have served as bellwethers in presidential elections. Perhaps most remarkably, Democrats managed to oust an incumbent Republican district attorney in Bucks, winning a seat that has not gone to a Democrat since the 1800s.
In New York, Zohran Mamdani defeated former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who ran as an Independent, and Republican Curtis Sliwa to be the next mayor of the Big Apple. Trump had endorsed Cuomo in the race and warned that he would cut federal funding to New York in the event of a Mamdani win, characterizing him as a “communist.” However, Trump swiftly walked back his threats and softened his tone following Mamdani’s victory. He reportedly praised the 34-year-old as a “talented politician” and said that he would “help him a little bit maybe.” Also in New York, Democrats took control of the Onondaga County legislature, a feat they have not accomplished in nearly 50 years.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Proposition 50, which would allow Democrats to redraw congressional districts to their advantage, also passed with overwhelming approval from voters. Newsom’s redistricting push occurred in response to Trump’s efforts to redraw the congressional map in Texas, indicating that Trump’s strategy is already backfiring, as it has clearly provided Democrats with ammunition they can use to fire up voters.
Given the pounding incurred by the GOP, you would expect a sober response from a party interested in avoiding a repeat performance in the coming midterms. Instead, the party took the line that all is well in America, and insists we are on the edge of a new dawn of prosperity.
To farmers who say they are losing everything, Trump offered, “don’t worry about it,” and encouraged them to consider “buying a bigger tractor.” To voters who are angry about the specter of rising healthcare premiums, Trump said that, yes, they are probably going up, but it is “not my fault,” even though he is the president and Republicans control Congress. And to voters who say that they cannot afford basic goods anymore, from groceries to utilities, as the cost of living surges, Trump said that he no longer wants to “hear about the affordability” crisis because prices are down. “It’s a con job,” he told the press. “Affordability, they call it. It was a con job by the Democrats.”
A recent CNN poll found that 61 percent of respondents said that Trump’s policies have “worsened economic conditions in the country.” That number is higher now under Trump than it ever was under Joe Biden. Fully 75 percent said that Trump is focused “not enough” on this issue. Batting away these ugly numbers as fake news won’t work. Tuesday left no doubt that these figures accurately reflect the sentiments of American voters. Even pro-Trump pollsters like Mark Mitchell and Rich Baris of Rasmussen Reports and Big Data Poll, respectively, have been unable to defend Trump’s response so far.
“Wrong tactic,” Mitchell posted on X. “This is ‘old man yells at cloud.’”
Voters made it clear on Tuesday that they trust politicians less than their own eyes, and all they see right now are their diminishing prospects for a better life as a ballroom for billionaires is built where the East Wing of the White House once stood. Survey after survey ahead of Tuesday’s elections showed that Americans feel that the country is on the wrong track and blame Trump and the GOP for it. The cause of the bloodbath is not a mystery. It was like watching an oncoming train chug slowly toward someone standing on tracks who was adamant that no such train existed.
Republicans can follow Trump’s lead and adopt this strategy of denial, just as the previous administration did, but it will likely lead to even more disastrous results when next year’s midterms arrive, and beyond that.