Republicans wake up to a new reality and brace for a new Washington

Republicans braced for a day of recriminations Wednesday as they woke to a midterm rout in states across the nation, with Democrats reclaiming both the Senate and House by stunningly wide margins.

In private calls and texts, Republicans lamented strategies they now viewed as inadequate — like the southern redistricting gambit — or politically damaging, like launching the war in Iran.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump spent the latter half of election night trying to distance himself from his party’s electoral debacle, after weeks of urging voters to go to the polls as if he were on the ballot.

“I don’t like to consider it a defeat for me; I wasn’t on the ballot,” Trump said late Tuesday on Fox News. “No matter how good the president is, you lose.”

Frustrated by high prices, corruption and yet another war in the Middle East, voters sent Republicans a message by choosing Democrats in Kansas, Texas, Maine, Ohio, Iowa and South Carolina. The wins weren’t endorsements of a broad Democratic agenda, which remains in flux, as much as they were rebukes to the Republican Party that’s controlled every branch of the federal government for the past two years.

In early January, Democrats will control at least 54 Senate seats: The Alaska and Mississippi races were still too close to call early Wednesday. Mississippi hasn’t elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1982.

In the House, Democrats will hold at least 228 seats to the Republicans’ 139. These majorities will give Democrats the power to block Trump’s legislative proposals, judicial nominees and Cabinet picks — and to investigate the inner workings of the Trump administration.

“Against all odds, we Democrats have won the Senate and we have five words for the American people: Relief is on the way,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) told reporters just before midnight Tuesday.

The top House Democrat, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York), was poised to become the first Black speaker of the House. In his election night remarks, he vowed to focus on affordability and accountability.

Exit polling conducted by the Associated Press and the major television networks showed double-digit swings toward the Democrats among Latinos, Catholic voters and voters younger than 30.

Latinos had largely supported Trump during his 2024 presidential campaign, but polls show many grew exasperated with persistent inflation, worsened in part by the Iran war, and a mass deportation agenda that they said went too far. Those frustrations helped fuel Democrats’ success in Texas, where they won both the Senate race and the race for governor, denying incumbent Gov. Greg Abbott (R) a fourth term.

Republicans also suffered from a collapse in turnout, as fewer of their supporters showed up on Election Day than four years ago, according to preliminary turnout data. Sixty percent of voters said they disapproved of Trump, and 81 percent of them voted for Democrats, according to preliminary results from the NORC Civic Health & Elections Project survey, which was sponsored by The Washington Post and other organizations.

Voters named the economy, health care and the war with Iran as their top issues, the survey showed. Just 12 percent said their family was getting ahead, while 29 percent said they were falling behind. Democrats had a 12-point advantage with voters who named the economy and jobs as their top concern; those voters made up a majority of the electorate. Two years ago, such voters favored Trump by 20 points.

Voters without college degrees, who favored Trump by more than a dozen points in 2024, went for Democrats this year by about 49 percent to 47 percent. Democrats also narrowly won with men, who voted for Trump by 55 percent to 43 percent in 2024.

The president does not have any public events on his schedule for Wednesday. He spent election night watching the results with Cabinet officials and advisers in the East Room of the White House.

As the Democratic wins piled up on Tuesday night, Trump posted a statement denying responsibility for the rout on his Truth Social site.

“I wasn’t on the Ballot,” it said, “and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!”