The Republican Party got stomped in the 2026 midterm elections. While the bright spots were few and far between, there were a few who survived the carnage (or thrived despite it) and who have secured their positions in the GOP.
Florida and Tennessee Republicans
There was no bigger shock than the utter decimation of the Texas Republican Party. Democrats swept every statewide election (no Texas Democrat had won a statewide race since 1994) and took control of the state House of Representatives for the first time since 2000. On top of that, Republicans lost control of Ohio and Georgia.
WHITE HOUSE REPORT CARD: ELECTION MARKED REJECTION OF TRUMP AS A MAN, A POLICYMAKER, A COMMANDER IN CHIEF
Florida survived, though, with Republicans defeating Democrats in every statewide election and protecting vulnerable House incumbents. As a result, Florida is now the premier model of GOP governance, the only state among the top 10 most populous to be controlled by a GOP trifecta. The margins in several races were tight, but Florida held the line while Republicans in Texas, Ohio, and Georgia were wiped out in a landslide.
Tennessee Republicans enjoyed an election night largely unaffected by the blue wave. Sen. Bill Hagerty cruised to a double-digit victory, and Republicans won eight of the state’s nine congressional districts, the one exception being a Democratic district that includes Memphis. Marsha Blackburn narrowly won in the governor’s race, but only because a conservative independent candidate leached around 9% of the vote. Tennessee was comfortably, reliably conservative, and now the state is the second-most populous state under Republican control.
Ron DeSantis’s presidential ambitions
Vice President JD Vance has been the consensus GOP candidate for the 2028 presidential nomination ever since Donald Trump won back the White House in 2024. But the wipeout election tainted Vance enough that the question is suddenly open. Enter Ron DeSantis.
DeSantis is primarily responsible for Florida hanging on where states such as Texas fell. DeSantis fueled a surge in GOP registration in Florida both directly through outreach efforts and indirectly through competent governance. His focus on identifying and then solving problems facing Floridians allowed him to always remain on the offensive, and his efforts to cut property taxes through Florida’s Proposition 3 contributed to GOP voter turnout that saved Florida from the same fate as its fellow red states.
DeSantis’s electoral track record is undeniable. In 2018, he won the open Florida governor’s seat despite the nationwide blue wave, and began transforming the state. In 2022, when the predicted GOP wave petered out nationwide, DeSantis won a sweeping reelection and oversaw massive victories across the state. Now, DeSantis helped Florida again survive a Democratic wave through competent governance and shrewd politicking.
DeSantis almost certainly would have been the nominee in 2024 had Trump not run. Florida’s survival has just put him back among the top candidates in 2028.
GOP policies
Republican politicians may not have been popular on the ballot in this cycle, but conservative causes were. So much so, in fact, that many of them were affirmed in deep blue states.
Voters chose through statewide ballot propositions to ban male athletes (including “transgender girls”) from girls’ sports not just in deep-red Nebraska and light-purple Arizona but in deep-blue Colorado and Washington. Voters in Colorado also chose to ban sex change surgeries for “transgender” children, and Arizona’s proposition protecting girls’ sports also forbids schools from allowing boys to use girls’ restrooms and locker rooms in schools. (It also prevents girls from using boys’ restrooms and locker rooms).
Voters in Nevada, despite replacing their Republican governor with a Democrat, chose to pass voter ID through a state constitutional amendment. On the same ballot that Ohio voters chose to elect Democrats statewide, they also enshrined the state’s voter ID laws into the state constitution, making them harder for legislators to change on their own. North Carolina voters elected Democrats to Congress, including a landslide victory for former Gov. Roy Cooper in the open Senate race, while approving voter ID laws that Cooper had previously vetoed and passing constitutional amendments capping taxes. Iowa voters elected Democrats but also changed the state’s constitution to require a two-thirds legislative majority to increase income taxes.
Voters did not like Trump’s economy or many of the candidates the GOP offered up, but they still like GOP policies.
The candidates voters did like
Texas Republicans were wiped out on a statewide level, but some Republicans outperformed the environment down-ballot. Rep. Brandon Gill, a rising star in the GOP for his handling of congressional hearings, was one such winner. Gill won his share of Denton County by 3.5 points while James Talarico won it in the U.S. Senate race by 8.5 points. Gill will be the obvious GOP candidate to run against Talarico at the end of his first term in 2032.
New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte survived her reelection campaign, even as New Hampshire voters handed Democrat Chris Pappas a double-digit win in the state’s U.S. Senate race. Vermont Gov. Phil Scott won reelection by 7 points even as voters statewide reelected Democratic Rep. Becca Balint in the state’s only congressional district by a whopping 35 points.
Just one Republican won statewide in Ohio: Frank LaRose, the former state secretary of state, won the state auditor’s race despite an 8-point Democratic victory in the governor’s race.
There was just one Republican in a Senate race who outperformed the polls: Nebraska Sen. Pete Ricketts, who cruised to a 6-point victory over “independent” left-wing candidate Dan Osborn. Republicans flipped just two House seats held by Democrats as of now, with one being a redistricted seat in Texas. The other was won by Paul LePage in Maine, who defeated Democrat Matt Dunlap in the race to replace Democratic Rep. Jared Golden.
Sen. Susan Collins
Susan Collins lost her Senate race, which will likely end her political career. (Collins is 73, and would be 77 in 2030 when Maine’s other Senate seat would come up for election). However, while Democrats won the governor’s race by 17 points, Collins kept the margin in her race within 7. Collins’s last act was dragging LePage across the finish line, as she outperformed him across his district.
DESANTIS EMERGED FROM THE MIDTERM ELECTIONS UNSCATHED
If that is indeed the end of Collins’s time in our politics, she has cemented a nearly untouchable legacy. She won five statewide elections in Maine to keep a crucial Senate seat in the hands of the GOP. In 2020, when Democrats figured the COVID-19 lockdowns would help them sweep Collins out of office, she won reelection in defiance of the polls and the surge of money Democrats poured in, trouncing Sara Gideon by more than 8 points and outrunning Trump against Joe Biden by 17 points.
Collins infamously stood strong against Democratic smears against both herself and Justice Brett Kavanaugh (as well as harassment from Democratic activists) during the latter’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings. She chose to stand for due process and prevented Democrats from being rewarded for their despicable smears. The Supreme Court victories for conservatives since Kavanaugh’s confirmation can largely be attributed to Collins’s bravery, and the Republican Party will forever owe her a debt of gratitude.
Continue reading...
[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
