The United States Mid Term Elections

Overnight we have seen the United States House of Representatives shift to become majority Democrat, and key states have shifted to ensure that there is also a Senate majority Democrat, and also a set of Governor races also shift to form a solid majority of Democrats which is surprisingly important come the 2028 Presidential election and Electoral College results certification.

A number of key mayoralties and other down-ticket races also had a strong showing by the Democrats.

It’s the Democrats best overall result since 1976.

This enables a greater ability for the Democrats to hold Trump and his administration to account. But not much more.

We have of course waited with reasonable expectation for the Trump era to be defeated many times before, and been profoundly wrong. Shouldn’t have won in 2016. Should have been jailed in 2020. Then 2024 in invited Trump back into power after he tried to overturn the election, was convicted of fraud, was convicted of sexual violation, and was revealed to have possessed and leaked classified information after he was out of office. He and his team simply became more powerful than ever.

His supporters viewed him as a magical superhero, and that it was in all their interests to join with him and reap the rewards.

The result since 2024 has been nothing short of catastrophic, revealing gaping holes in the United States’ constitutional order, weaknesses in its democratic system and a void in any remaining sense of the moral compass of the United States.

The corruption on display, coupled with a lack of concern for the lives of ordinary people, is breathtaking.

We now have reason to believe a majority have finally had the veil lifted from their eyes, allowing them to see the incompetence, grift and megalomania for what it is.

What is also growing, finally after 3 decades of waiting, is the response-echo to the Tea Party of the late 1990s and its evolution into the full Make America Great Again movement: the Democratic Socialists of America.

There are strong active DSA candidates, some successful, in states where leftist activism is strong and in this 2026 season successful: Californian cities, New York city, Pennsylvania, Colorado, and Michigan. Notably at Senate level its only electoral success is Michigan, by a whisker. There are also strong DSA activist groups now in Florida.

But it is a basic mistake to presume that DSA candidates would be successful in states without well established liberal bases already. Don’t get carried away.

None of those winners are states that prospective 2028 Democratic nominees need to win to achieve electoral college victory in 2028. Democrats that have now won Senate seats in marginal seats are principled but centrist: Talarico in Texas, Ossoff in Georgia, Peltola in Alaska. In those states and others DCA is just a massive electoral liability.

The mid-term wave to the Democrats just buys time for the Democrats to have the internal contest that they haven’t had yet about what the DSA really want compared to what the winning majority of US states can agree and support.

We’re not leading up to the 1967 Democratic Convention chaos, but before the 2027 Convention the US Democrats need to have it out with each other if they really are to achieve a true change in who holds power across the entire country.

Even with the Republicans fielding many weak candidates, and a deeply unpopular President, and a weak economy, and jobs and investment heading for precisely the same mess as the railroad tycoons of the late 19th century, the 2026 blue wave was good but modest.

The new Democratic House and Senate will not take their places until January 2027. So this ain’t over even in with the revival they’ve had.

Even when they do, we need to remember that you have to go back 59 years to 1967 to the last time Democrats had enough seats in the Senate to override a Presidential veto of legislation. It is far more important to keep gaining more Senate seats, hold the ones they have picked up, and form and test legislation which clearly foreshadows what a 2028 Democratic President would implement.

That means we are a long, long way from the end of the reign of Trump, or MAGA, or the Republican Senate.

The instructive lesson from the Trump era essentially goes back to the Tea Party formation: Trump built upon that base to give a completely new reimagining of what the political solutions to the issues of the United States were.

So with over a decade of hindsight the mirror now reflects the other way: how will Democrats build upon this historic change to completely reimagine the political solutions for the United States? They have less than two years to answer that question definitively.

The win is good. Take the wins for what they are. Open a cold one.

But now the really hard internal Democratic Party work begins.