Forty-five minutes before the first polls closed on Tuesday, Greg Gutfeld was still doing what Fox News does best, acknowledging reality just long enough to replace it with a culture-war hallucination. “Gas prices are so high, I’m going to vote for the party that wanted to trans my kids,” he joked on “The Five,” adding that he didn’t see Democratic wins on the horizon. “There is no blue wave materializing,” Clay Travis, the Outkick founder and Fox contributor, posted at 3 p.m. EST, adding that Republicans were surging in Florida and the polls were about to be proven wrong yet again. 

Then the polls closed, and MAGA’s delusions were pulverized. The country that right-wing media had spent two years describing as angry, ascendant and permanently realigned voted in an avalanche that crushed years of manufactured MAGA hype. American voters told the president to take his $5,000 “Trump Dividend” checks and shove them. Elon Musk, who moved to Texas to get away from Democrats and then spent a reported $150 million to deliver the Lone Star State for Republicans, saw his early Tuesday post urging people to vote red disappear from his profile by Wednesday. 

The country woke up to results that few expected — and a long list of historic firsts. Georgia elected Keisha Lance Bottoms, the first Black woman governor in American history. Michigan sent Dr. Abdul El-Sayed to Washington as the first Muslim senator. New Hampshire elected Chris Pappas as the first openly gay man in the Senate. New Mexico made Deb Haaland the first Native American woman governor, and Peggy Flanagan became Minnesota’s first Native American woman senator. Texas elected Gina Hinojosa over three-term Gov. Greg Abbott — the state’s first Latina governor and its first Democratic governor in more than three decades. Ohio got its first woman governor in Dr. Amy Acton. South Carolina tapped Dr. Annie Andrews as its first elected woman senator. Democrats won a Senate seat in Kansas for the first time in 94 years. While votes are still being counted in key races, solid majorities in both the Senate and House are assured, and Democrats are set to make Hakeem Jeffries the country’s first Black speaker. 

Even the New York Post, Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid and a loyal Trump house organ, refused to mince words on its front page: “Trump suffers historic rebuke as Dems romp in midterms,” with “BLUE TSUNAMI” blaring beneath it. On “Fox and Friends” Wednesday morning, Ainsley Earhart warned viewers that “your wallet and your way of life” are now in the crosshairs. 

It is no surprise that Trump 2.0, stripped of its previous establishment Republican guardrails like Mike Pence and Mitch McConnell, has culminated in such total structural collapse. The deeper truth the conservative media apparatus could never say out loud is that MAGA was always a Trump-specific phenomenon. It does not transfer to his imitators, and it only ever worked when the economy let voters treat Trump as entertainment. Right-wing media spent years confusing its ability to dominate a conversation with its ability to represent a country. When Tuesday’s returns exposed the difference, its leading voices reached for almost everything except accountability. They blamed immigration. They blamed insufficient restrictions on voting. They blamed each other. Alex Jones even decided Trump might secretly be a Democrat.

For the network’s election night coverage, Fox News seated former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio between two of Trump’s former press secretaries, Kayleigh McEnany and Karoline Leavitt, and he told them to their faces that they were “missing the plot.” He said, “The American people are looking at a war they do not believe in, and they did not authorize. They’re looking at prices that are making it impossible for middle-class people, let alone working-class people, to live.” 

Trump, watching at the White House, raged on Truth Social — “Why does FoxNews have deBlasio” — and seethed at the panel’s lone liberal: “I can’t stand Jessica Tarlov’s voice — DUMB AS A ROCK, but it’s the voice that gets me.” After Gutfeld read the president’s text on air — which is as good a diagram as exists of what Fox News is now: a suggestion box the president monitors live — Tarlov answered on X, not on Truth Social: “Reality is a tricky thing,” and the president “should get better at dealing with it.” 

On Newsmax, things were somehow worse. Political strategist Dick Morris argued that Trump’s problem was effectively excessive success: He had solved the major problems that would otherwise motivate Republican voters. The influencer ecosystem, meanwhile, went straight for the circular firing squad, and every faction picked a different target. 

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Jones, livestreaming as the returns buried his movement, said Trump himself is the plant: “I think he’s a Democrat. I’m 100% at war with Trump. He’s not that r*tarded. He did this on purpose. I think he’s the ultimate Democrat sleeper cell and he works for them.” Benny Johnson and Libs of TikTok reached for the great replacement theory, and Fox’s Lawrence Jones supplied the broadcast version, surveying Texas and concluding, “Texas, there is a lesson here. Don’t be so welcoming.” 

So much for celebrating people voting with their feet and the U-Hauls leaving California. 

Laura Loomer went straight doomer: “America is over and so is the American Dream.” Others blamed Sen. John Thune for failing to pass the SAVE Act and shrink the electorate further, as though the answer to such a broad repudiation were fewer voters. The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro posted the “everything is fine” fire GIF — “Just checking in to see how things are goi—” — and the Federalist’s Sean Davis answered with the hot-dog-suit meme, the one where the man in the costume insists everyone else is the problem.

The recriminations got personal fast. Rep. Nancy Mace told Fox’s Mark Levin to “STFU,” blamed his “beloved” war for the losses and called the night “devastating . . . for the hard-working American who can’t afford to buy a home, or fill their tank with gas or put food on the table.” Levin returned fire: Mace was a “washed up political loser” and “one of the most mentally unhinged POS to ever be in Congress.” She was angry, he said, “because you’ll actually have to now work for a living . . . Good riddance, crackpot.” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis gloated that with governors’ races lost in Texas and Ohio and Georgia, the Sunshine State would stand alone among the ten most populous states with a Republican governor. And Katie Miller — podcaster, administration wife, professional MAGA explainer — told CBS’s Norah O’Donnell that she had not voted at all. “I did not vote in Virginia because in Virginia when you vote, you dox your own address, and so I prefer my own safety and security over giving that up.” 

In the end, the movement’s loudest voices spent the cycle performing for each other. Some of them couldn’t even be bothered to vote.

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Ever since the Covid-19 pandemic, America has been in a funk. The whole country has seemed to be in a sour mood, unhappy with everything, feeling as if the world has gone off its axis and life is out of balance. The trauma of that experience was probably far deeper and more injurious than we wanted to admit, so we just sort of sleepwalked as events cascaded around us, feeling emotionally distanced and impotent. 

We finally woke up and shook it off. For the first time in six years, the American people took back control of their own destiny and issued a stunning, overwhelming rebuke to the Republican Party, which had fallen back into power during that period of national somnolence and took a wrecking ball, figuratively and literally, to the country. America, it seems, decided to save itself. 

The historic landslide Democratic victory in Tuesday’s midterms elections is far more thorough than even the most positive polls had indicated. Analysts assured us that while it looked likely the party would gain at least a House majority, the so-called real victory would be if Democrats reduced the margins in red states, which would serve as a warning to Republicans that they had gone too far. Nobody really expected that Democrats would actually win in places like South Carolina, Kansas, Iowa or perhaps even Mississippi, where, as I write this, Democrat Scott Colom has a 43-vote lead over GOP incumbent Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith. 

Political polarization was assumed to be set in stone; the GOP’s redistricting gambit and the Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act meant that Democrats could not expect to flip more than a handful of seats, and the party was facing one of the most inauspicious midterm Senate maps in recent memory. At this moment, they are expected to end up with 245 to 255 seats in the House and possibly 55 seats in the Senate, an unthinkable outcome as recently as yesterday morning. 

It will be a while before we see the final tally, but the results are so obviously decisive that even Donald Trump cannot fatuously claim that this election was stolen. All the threats against election workers and plans to contest the outcome are empty in the face of such a victory. It is finally, once and for all, clear that the country does not want the insanity and chaos that Trump has wrought. 

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According to voter polls — formerly known as exit polls — the top issue for voters was the cost of living, as expected. Reversing the tariffs and putting an end to the war with Iran would be the obvious ways to begin to alleviate some of the stress, followed by restoration of funding for healthcare and other vital safety net programs. Rolling back Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy would go a long way as well. But the president Trump has already promised to be “Mr. Veto,” so the prospect for a new era of bipartisan comity with the White House does not look good. 

It’s always possible that congressional Republicans will feel chastised enough that they will work with Democrats to create veto-proof majorities on those issues, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. The best the Democrats can hope for is that Trump decides he needs to do something positive for his legacy besides building his ballroom and renaming the Atlantic Ocean, and he agrees to compromise on something. I wouldn’t hold my breath on that either. But that doesn’t mean Democrats shouldn’t pass the legislation — and make Trump and Republicans block it. 

As great as it is that Democrats will decisively control both houses of Congress, that big tent brings with it some perennial problems that are likely to manifest themselves again. The red state-blue state divide represents a structural problem that has always been around, and it has been a specific problem for Democrats going back to at least the time of Franklin Roosevelt. Progress is hard to attain when, to maintain a majority, your coalition must include some who are opposed to it. During Roosevelt’s long presidency, the Democratic coalition included powerful southerners who controlled many congressional committees, and they would simply not pass anything that included civil rights or equitable federal programs. By the end of the 1930s, they had successfully joined with northern Republicans to block much of what remained of the New Deal agenda. 

Eventually, as we know, most of that bloc migrated to the GOP, but until fairly recently it’s always been a somewhat fluid dynamic with a few conservative states in the heartland, the West, Southwest and even the South that would elect conservative Democrats. In the last Congress, we dealt with West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema in the Senate, and it was like pulling teeth to get legislation passed as they used their leverage to extract concessions and block progressive initiatives. 

In the not too distant past, Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., cosponsored tax cuts, supported the Iraq War resolution and even delivered a keynote speech at the 2004 Republican National Convention. Centrist senators Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, along with the conservative Blue Dog Caucus in the House, successfully blocked progressive provisions of the Affordable Care Act. There were other so-called mavericks throughout the 1990s and 2000s who would join with the GOP or leverage their position to thwart liberal initiatives.

I only bring this up to remind people that with the addition of these red state legislators will come a whole set of problems. But given the alternative, they are good problems to have. While the pundits have already begun their ritual of handwringing over the possibility of progressives “overreading the mandate,” the reality is that everyone else understands that the most important priority for Democrats, as a now powerful force of opposition, is to put a check on Trump and begin the critically important process of oversight and accountability. One suspects that on this issue there will likely be unity among all the factions. MS NOW reports that their voter poll showed that 90% of voters said that government corruption was a crucial or major factor in their House vote. That also tracks with the findings of a recent Gallup poll. I would say that’s a pretty clear mandate and a good place to start. 

Whatever problems await the Democrats, and there will be many, this was the result we have needed ever since Trump first won the presidency 10 years ago. The damage he has caused in this decade of destruction is immeasurable, but maybe, just maybe, we have finally reached the beginning of the end of our long national nightmare, and we can begin the process of renewal and reformation.

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Democrat Abdul El-Sayed is projected to defeat Republican Mike Rogers for Michigan‘s open U.S. Senate seat, a closely watched race that capped off a massive night for progressives. 

The Associated Press called the race shortly after 2 a.m. Wednesday morning with El-Sayed leading by about seven points. 

The candidates were competing to replace retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, whose departure created one of the most consequential open-seat contests of the midterm elections. El-Sayed, a former Detroit health director, campaigned on expanding access to health care and lowering costs, while Rogers, a former congressman and House Intelligence Committee chairman, emphasized manufacturing jobs, tax cuts and his alignment with President Donald Trump.

The race took an unexpected turn just two days before Election Day when Democratic Rep. Haley Stevens, who narrowly lost the party’s August primary to El-Sayed, endorsed Rogers during an appearance at a Detroit church.

The endorsement stunned Michigan Democrats, prompting condemnation from party leaders and resignations among Stevens’ staff. Stevens cited disagreements with El-Sayed over Israel and his campaign’s direction, while Democrats accused her of undermining their nominee in a critical Senate contest.

El-Sayed sought to move past the controversy, urging supporters to focus on voting. His campaign reported raising $2.4 million on Sunday, while Michigan Democratic officials said the endorsement had prompted an increase in volunteers. Rogers, meanwhile, highlighted Stevens’ support in the campaign’s final days.

More than 2.3 million Michigan voters had already cast ballots by Monday, according to The Associated Press, raising questions about how much the late-breaking controversy could influence the outcome.

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Ten years ago, watching the dawning of the Trump era on Fox News felt appropriate somehow. Notice that I didn’t say it felt right; after all, we were sinking into an anti-Enlightenment Age propped up by Rupert Murdoch’s propaganda machine. Nothing about any of that felt right.

Still, once the phrase “President-elect Donald Trump” became as inevitable as Thanos, and Fox’s anchors giggled like ascendant supervillains, staring into that snarling maw seemed like the responsible thing to do.

Training my focus on CNN and MS NOW in time to catch 2026’s predicted blue wave promised to be just as illuminating. Back in 2016, while everyone else on CNN struggled to make sense of what was happening, commentator Van Jones somberly characterized the results as “whitelash against a changing country.”

Shortly after Trump was inaugurated, he turned against CNN full force, branding it and every other outlet denying favorable coverage as fake news. Trump’s 2024 victory further endangered any media outlets outside of the right-wing echo chamber, as he hit news organizations with obscenely ridiculous legal complaints to force them to bend the knee.

So we’ll pardon Jones for his deliciously petty reaction to what Jake Tapper, the emcee of CNN’s “Election Night in America” telecast, awkwardly described as a “blue-nami.” By the time the Democrats took control of the House and Senate, the previously funereal Anderson Cooper was gleefully eager to hear what Jones had to say. And his colleague did not disappoint, delivering what may have been the night’s most satisfying monologue.

“If you join a cult, at some point the cult leader takes you to Jonestown and tries to get you to drink the Kool-Aid,” he observed as chastened GOP pundit Scott Jennings sat inches away. “This is Jonestown for the Republican Party. They drank the Kool-Aid, and they have candidates that are dropping like flies across the country because they did not stand up to this guy when he was doing things that were wrong . . .

“You join a cult, at some point, you go to Jonestown,” Jones repeated in closing. “That’s where you are tonight, Republicans.” Then he pretended to pass a cup to his Trumpian counterpart.

Election night news coverage is a stressful affair in the best of times. In 2026, CNN and MS NOW, the channel formerly known as MSNBC, entered the fray as battered underdogs. MS NOW is now owned by Versant, a group of cable channels spun off from NBCUniversal. CNN, part of Warner Bros. Discovery, will soon be owned by Skydance and its Trump-allied owner David Ellison.

Neither newsroom can claim relief over what’s on the horizon, which is why Cooper led CNN’s coverage with the air of an undertaker greeting democracy’s mourners. America’s major news outlets have been taking it on the chin with the rest of us — including Cooper, a former “60 Minutes” correspondent who fled Bari Weiss’ CBS takeover only for Ellison to come for his cable news shire anyway. Blue wave or not, CNN’s future is uncertain.

So although MS NOW may be scrappier and looser these days, at least its reporters and pundits aren’t working through an institutional existential crisis. That fatigue showed up in how CNN’s Magic Wall wrangler, John King, lived cautiously from moment to moment, allowing only a mild display of wonder as he shifted between the largely scarlet 2024 map and the much bluer 2026 version.

“What’s happening right now?” King wondered. “What’s the right word? Is it a rebuke? Is it repudiation? Is it shellacking? Is it a spanking? I mean, at the moment, this is the collapse of the president’s party on live television as you watch it play out.”

And for the first time in a decade of watching election nights, it was a joy to experience — like learning how to hope again.

Peddling optimism isn’t the job of any journalistic organization, of course. But knowing what CNN’s newsroom is contending with regardless of this election outcome makes their composure especially admirable. The CNN team had a 10-ton weight pressing down on them and still managed to convey the sense of celebration presumably gripping most of its viewers.

Most people tune out election night noise regardless of whether the vote goes in their favor, perhaps gleaning what they can from the flashy graphics and chyrons. This gave MS NOW’s Ali Velshi an advantage at the network’s Big Board now that his former co-worker Steve Kornacki has moved over to NBC. Both have earned fandoms by injecting levity into managing each election’s data flood.  On Tuesday night, Kornacki inspired a meme simply by being captured on his new network’s Kornacki Cam as he walked down a hall.

But Velshi kept his version of his predecessor’s two-step going, buzzing around on MS NOW’s Big Board with a hummingbird’s energy. “Annie Andrews is outperforming, and Darlene Graham is underperforming,” he rapidly blurted, breaking down the Democratic challenger’s road to her unexpected win in South Carolina over the late Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham’s sister, before turning to the camera with a delightfully bemused look to say, “This is a totally weird conversation that we are having. Right?” It’s true. After years of polls overstating the Democrats’ chances, it did feel strange to have underestimated how much they’d win. 

Still, Rachel Maddow‘s ebullience from the moment MS NOW’s coverage began was tough to beat. Before a single result came in, she cheerfully offered, “So far, the one thing we can definitively say is that Americans like our democracy, and they are enjoying using it in record numbers in this cycle.”

Once Democrats claimed majorities in the House and Senate a few hours later, she let loose. In calling the race for Pennsylvania’s 8th congressional district for Democratic Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti, Maddow couldn’t resist calling her Republican opponent, Rob Bresnahan, a “sometime ghost hunter” as her colleagues snickered in the background. 

This is an understandable reaction to voters’ referendum on the president’s unpopular and economically detrimental policies. Americans, regardless of partisan stance, are struggling to afford the basics. But as Chris Hayes pointed to the shock of so many Democratic upsets, he noted that high prices aren’t the only thing forcing this drastic change. “The rot that is coming from the top of the country is very, very, very clearly on voters’ minds,” he said.

So if Jones wants to indulge in a little grave dancing, so be it.

It was even better to see other correspondents take stock of all the history made on Tuesday night. New Hampshire voters chose a Democrat, Chris Pappas, to join the U.S. Senate, making him the first out gay man elected to the chamber.

Voters turned Texas blue and elected four Black governors – including former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who became the first woman and the first Black person to be elected governor in Georgia, and the first female Black governor in our country’s history.

Once that state’s contest for governor was called for Bottoms, MS NOW’s team tapped Symone Sanders-Townsend to contextualize what that meant for voters and Black women. Sanders-Townsend reminded us that when Trump calls Georgia to gripe, it will be Bottoms on the other end of the line. She’ll also be the one to ensure the 2028 election is certified for the rightful winner.

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But when Sanders-Townsend’s colleagues asked her to share how Bottoms’ victory made her feel, her reaction hit home. “After the 2024 presidential election, for myself and Black women all over this country, it felt like a repudiation of us,” she said, holding back tears. “…There were Black women, myself included, that felt like, ‘Well, maybe America just does not want us.'”

So to Sanders-Townsend, and all the other Black women disappointed by their fellow citizens in 2024, Bottoms’ victory said, “Georgia wanted Keisha.”

That moment didn’t diminish Jones’ take on what this election night meant to him. “This is like Christmas and a birthday and an Easter bunny and Halloween!” he said. “This is the repudiation of Trumpism that people have been hoping for, seeing American democracy stand up.”

But by allowing herself to cry on camera, Sanders-Townsend broadcast a different kind of signal. She let us know that on this night, and for the first time in a long time, it was OK to ease into some sense of relief. And that’s better than the fleeting pleasure of retaliatory pettiness, well-earned though it may be.

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Sen. Susan Collins, the five-term Republican from Maine, called her opponent Troy Jackson, a former logger and state senate president, to concede Tuesday night. The Associated Press called the election just after midnight, with Jackson leading by about six percentage points.

Despite nearly 30 years in the Senate, Collins has been seen as one of the most vulnerable Republican incumbents, a smaller pebble in the blue avalanche that wiped out MAGA candidates in the midterm elections. She was the lone Senate Republican to represent a state that former Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris carried in the 2024 election. She lost despite her efforts to distance herself from President Donald Trump. Her campaign claims she has never voted for the president and reportedly refused his help with her run. 

That hasn’t stopped her from often playing a key role in Trump’s agenda, casting a critical vote in Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. Kavanaugh would later join the majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade and ended the constitutional right to an abortion. Indeed, Collins’ position on reproductive rights seems to have played a key role in her defeat. Collins received support from Trump despite her efforts, according to reporting from ProPublica earlier this year, which revealed how an FBI anti-corruption squad was investigating Collins before Trump killed the case.

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As for Jackson, he first ran for office in 2000 as a Republican for the Maine House of Representatives, but lost. He ran again as an independent two years later and won, becoming the first non-Democrat to represent the area since the late ‘70s. 

Before delegates at a state convention chose Jackson in July, Collins was originally running against oyster farmer Graham Platner, who won the Democratic primary with support from progressive leaders. But controversies surrounding Platner continued to pile up, and he finally withdrew from the race on July 10 following sexual assault allegations.

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Pretend I’m on the ballot, the president of the United States repeatedly told American voters over the last several weeks. Millions of voters did exactly that. Be careful what you wish for, my dude. 

The astonishing results of the 2026 midterm elections do not just represent a rebuke or a political setback for Donald Trump. Those neutral-sounding terms of art are not remotely adequate. This was a historic smackdown, a massive, crushing defeat on a scale suffered by no incumbent president in living memory. It represents this nation’s collective awakening — admittedly rather late in the game — to this individual’s uniquely poisonous effects on our public life and civil society.

Many larger political questions will emerge from this epic defeat, which will see any and all surviving elected Republicans (not that there are many) scurrying for cover and trying to establish as much distance as possible from Trump. They will lose his number. They will profess that they were never convinced MAGA believers, or that they secretly disagreed with the ICE reign of terror, with the war in Iran, with the disastrous tariffs, with the ideological assault on liberal democracy. 

Is JD Vance still a plausible 2028 presidential contender, having hitched his wagon to this tyrant, who has now been thoroughly pantsed in public and exposed as a pathetic loser? Will Pete Hegseth get even one more opportunity for podcaster-style flexing before the defanged Pentagon press corps? Let’s give Marco Rubio an infinitesimal amount of credit for creeping quietly through the corridors of power and staying out of the headlines. Whether his neocon mouse act is enough to survive the Trumpocalypse moment remains to be seen. 

In his inimitable style, Trump is already blaming others for this defeat. He has accused Texas Gov. Greg Abbott — who lost his seat to Democrat Gina Hinojosa in one of Tuesday night’s numerous shockers — of being a RINO sellout. As impossible as it is to talk about honor with these people, that is an act of dishonorable treachery, given how eagerly Abbott has crawled and begged and prostrated himself before the Trumpian throne. 

Then again, in an ass-backward way, Trump has a point. He didn’t do this all by himself; no one could have managed that. He loaded up the pipe with bigotry and xenophobia and fear and insane conspiracy theories, and adult Republican humans who used to believe in wrong-headed but somewhat sane political doctrines inhaled it all eagerly, persuading themselves that the resulting high would insulate them from the failure of their ideas. It only made the problem worse — all the problems, really — and they should have seen that coming.

The president corrupted and enslaved a historic American political party with a complicated but illustrious history, the party of Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan. I’m not the biggest fan of that party either, but it has certainly had its moments, including the first woman to serve in both houses of Congress and the first Black man elected to the U.S. Senate. Trump insisted that it surrender everything to him — its principles, its history and its soul, if political parties have such a thing — and as in every fable about making a deal with the devil, now it has been destroyed.

We don’t know how this election would have turned out in the unimaginable alternate universe where Trump stayed out of it. But he didn’t. He forced Sen. John Cornyn out of the race in Texas, in favor of Ken Paxton. Look what happened. He picked Darline Graham to replace her late brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham, in South Carolina. Look what happened. He picked Mike Collins to run against Sen. Jon Ossoff in Georgia, and Michael Whatley to run against former Gov. Roy Cooper in North Carolina. Look what happened. He praised Ohio Sen. Jon Husted’s rear end and embraced gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s noxious campaign ad. Look what happened there, too.

And that’s without considering the supposedly ingenious MAGA strategy of redistricting congressional seats in one state after another, with the objective of locking in a permanent Republican majority. How will that play out over the longer term? That’s impossible to say, but in 2026 it seems to have unleashed an extraordinary backlash. Forget all the hand-wringing about purple districts and swing districts; the congressional map is a nationwide wipeout. As I write this, the New York Times is predicting a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives of 256 seats. That may or may not hold up, but however this ends, it’s likely to be the biggest midterm swing in more than 30 years. 

Are there still die-hard MAGA Republicans in deep-red exurbs or rural districts who will continue to profess fealty to Trump in the wake of this catastrophe, and perhaps even maintain that it’s all some kind of grand misunderstanding? Yeah, sure. Any cult movement has its true believers and willing sacrifices. Years after his resignation, the postmistress in the rural town where I spent summers as a kid never took down the portrait of Richard Nixon. Then she retired and moved away, someone else took the job and Nixon’s picture wound up out back, in the dumpster. 

That’s about where we are. Trump has always been poisonous. Republicans are finally learning that the hard way.

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The signs were there from the outset. About 30 minutes after the polls in Kentucky’s 6th Congressional District closed at 6 p.m., the first numbers from rural counties began trickling in. It was no surprise that they favored Republican Ralph Alvarado over Democrat Zach Dembo. The district was reliably Democratic until 2012, when Andy Barr, a Republican who is now running to replace Mitch McConnell in the Senate, eked out a win. Since then, the GOP has gerrymandered the district to all but ensure it stayed in the fold. 

The real story, though, could be found in the margins. Alvarado was underperforming Barr’s 2024 results by around 20 percentage points — a staggering drop, indicating that a significant number of Republicans had either stayed home or decided to take a chance on Dembo. Off the Democratic map for the last 14 years, by 9:15 p.m., when it was reported that Alvarado had conceded, the district had become a microcosm of what was unfolding nationwide.

The blue landslide, long predicted by pundits but mentioned with fingers crossed by Democrats, was becoming an avalanche.

Further south in Georgia, an earlier-than-expected call for Jon Ossoff buoyed Democratic hopes, followed by a pickup in the North Carolina Senate race, which saw Gov. Roy Cooper projected to defeat former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley. Democrats even put up a fight in ruby-red Florida’s statewide races, with David Jolly, the nominee for governor, and Angie Nixon, the democratic socialist Senate candidate, running ahead of their opponents until the conservative Panhandle’s votes were counted.

Then came South Carolina, where Darline Graham, who was foisted upon the state’s Republican Party by Donald Trump to succeed her brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham, after his death, went down to an historic defeat. The Palmetto State hasn’t seen a Democrat elected to the Senate since 1998. 

Amy Acton, Ohio’s Democratic nominee for governor, routed her opponent Vivek Ramaswamy after he released a widely condemned ad that weaponized a horrific part of her childhood. In Texas, James Talarico is projected for a stunning win over scandal-plagued Ken Paxton, and Gina Hinojosa ousted the incumbent Greg Abbott from the governor’s mansion. 

Other elections around the country — Senate races in Michigan, Kansas and Iowa; pivotal House contests and gubernatorial races — appear to be trending for Democrats.

For a decade, the party has wondered when, or if, a reckoning would arrive for Trump and MAGA. That moment has arrived.

Again and again, Republicans have followed the president over the cliff, no more so than during the past 22 months. In 2024, Trump expanded on the coalition that had carried him to success in 2016 by making inroads with Black men, Latinos and young voters. It was a success that, at least in part, led Republicans to launch a national gerrymandering scheme largely thwarted by Democrats, as well as an unfavorable economic climate of the president’s own making. 

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But Trump also made the grievous error of attacking the very communities that helped return him to the White House. The combination of his assaults on voting rights and Black history, as well as the Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act, ensured that Black voters turned out overwhelmingly for Democrats. After more than a year of ICE raids, mass deportations and threats against naturalized citizens, Latinos have swung to the Democrats en masse, playing a decisive role in Talarico’s win. Trump’s attacks on civil rights, immigrants’ rights and the social safety net have cut across demographic groups, and have had a strong negative impact on young voters. Drunk on his own power, the president has spent the better part of two years splintering his own coalition — and giving Democrats an opening they were happy to exploit.

The monumental defeat suffered by Republicans offers a sobering lesson for Democrats — to not forget what brought them to this night of victory. 

The message voters are sending is loud and clear: They want fighters, leaders who are willing to throw out conventional wisdom and do battle for working-class interests. That’s what Ossoff sensed last fall, when he was considered to be the nation’s most endangered Democrat. Instead of playing it safe, he staked his candidacy on affordability issues, particularly subsidies for the Affordable Care Act. In the midst of the longest government shutdown on record, Ossoff held firm: He would not vote to reopen the federal government unless the tax credits were restored.

Other Democratic candidates got the message. Dr. Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan proved steadfast in linking the billions in federal funding that continue to subsidize Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza to skyrocketing consumer prices on the homefront. Another physician, Dr. Annie Andrews, who defeated Graham, unabashedly campaigned on creating a healthcare public option and gun control measures in South Carolina — and won. 

Right now, Democrats are feeling the wind at their backs. But after the excitement fades from tonight’s successes, they will realize they are now facing an even bigger challenge: To stay true to the mandate they have been given by voters, grudgingly in some cases, and to not, as they have done so often in the past, slip on the proverbial banana peel that is always waiting for them around the corner. 

Throughout his campaign for the Senate, Paxton was fond of saying, “If we lose Texas, we lose America.” Tonight, Democrats put Texas solidly in their column — and America is still standing.

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James Talarico, the charismatic Texas state representative who campaigned by talking extensively about his Christian faith, has defeated state Attorney General Ken Paxton, who was Donald Trump’s hand-picked choice, in Tuesday’s most high-profile U.S. Senate race. Late on Tuesday evening, Talarico led by more than a million votes, and the Associated Press called the race just before 11 p.m. Eastern time.

This marks the first time a Democrat has won a statewide race in Texas since 1994, and another such result, perhaps even more surprising, followed almost immediately. Democrat Gina Hinojosa has won the Texas governor’s race, according to the AP, beating Republican incumbent Gov. Greg Abbott by more than 700,000 votes.

The big blue wave of 2026 has featured numerous surprising results, including the upset victory by Democrat Annie Andrews over Republican Sen. Darline Graham in South Carolina’s Senate race. But these dramatic and unexpected Democratic wins in Texas stand out. The Senate campaign between Talarico and Paxton became one of the most expensive state-level races in American history, and according to CNN analyst David Axelrod, Hinojosa was outspent 10 to one by Abbott. Talarico’s campaign also became a major target for Democratic donors and an opportunity to vent their frustration and anger with Trump’s second presidential term. 

A combined $573 million were spent by Talarico and Paxton, as well as their defeated primary opponents, over the course of this campaign. Much of that spending was the result of Elon Musk, the world’s richest man. The CEO of SpaceX and Tesla pumped an estimated $474 million into this race, virtually all of it to support Paxton, setting a new record for a single donor in a political campaign. Most of that money was funneled through went to Musk’s personal super PAC, but around $168 million went to the Senate Leadership Fund. Another $10 million went to the pro-Paxton Lone Star Liberty PAC, which spammed voters with AI-generated robocalls attacking Talarico. Meanwhile, Talarico’s campaign and Democratic PACs raised about $133 million.

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Although Talarico, like other Democrats, focused on affordability and fighting corruption, he also sought to challenge the dominant view that only Republicans can be devout Christians. His campaign attracted various right-wing conspiracy theories, including claims that he was an emasculated “secret vegan” who suffered from mental illness. Democrats worried that this viral misinformation might overshadow numerous allegations about Paxton, including a Wall Street Journal report that he partied in Dubai with two fugitives from U.S. justice and a woman who wasn’t his wife.

Although Talarico has led in recent public polls, the size of his victory was unexpected. At this writing, it appears almost certain that Democrats will win the Senate, having already flipped seats in both South Carolina and North Carolina, where former Gov. Roy Cooper easily won the open seat held by outgoing Republican Sen. Thom Tillis. Democrats also lead the Senate races in Iowa, Maine and Ohio, although those races remain undecided.

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Dr. Annie Andrews will be the first Democratic senator from South Carolina since 1998, according to AP projections. In a stunning upset, she defeated the incumbent Republican Darline Graham, who was hand-picked by Donald Trump to succeed her brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham, following his death in July. 

A pediatrician, Andrews positioned herself as an antidote to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s MAHA agenda. Her campaign launch video hinged on measles outbreaks and the harm of anti-vax sentiments at the highest levels of public health. She described Kennedy as the “brain worm guy” and slammed Trump’s Cabinet as uniquely unsuited to their positions. 

The race was never supposed to be close. South Carolina is about as red as you can imagine. The haven of cheap gas and fireworks hasn’t elected any Democrat to statewide office since 2006. Trump carried the state by 17 points in 2024.

Unlike her sibling, who shifted from staunch Trump critic to late-in-life ally, Graham was joined at the hip to the Trump administration from the outset. The president’s high disapproval ratings worked to turn the typical GOP lay-up into a closely contested race. 

But Graham, a novice politician, did herself no favors. She flubbed softball questions around foreign affairs on the debate stage, a strong suit of her hawkish brother. Her dismal poll numbers pushed Trump to rally for Graham repeatedly in the state, cementing even stronger associations between the Republican nominee and Trump’s unpopular policies. 

High early turnout among Black voters in the state also spelled trouble for Graham. The community, which is largely Democratic, turned out in high relative numbers and helped swing the race toward Andrews. 

The Democratic candidate worked to avoid the associations with national party leaders that hamstrung Graham, refraining from appearances with prominent Democrats in the race’s final weeks. Andrews painted herself as a pragmatist, willing to work with national Republicans to score wins for South Carolinians. Late last month, Andrews received a shocking bipartisan endorsement from two former governors of South Carolina. Republican David Beasley joined Democrat Jim Hodges to support Andrews over Trump-backed Graham, saying Andrews was the only candidate focused on “making things better.”

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Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms defeated Republican billionaire Rick Jackson in Georgia‘s gubernatorial election Tuesday, becoming the first Black woman elected governor in American history and ending more than two decades of Republican control of the state’s highest office.

The contest pitted two sharply different candidates to succeed term-limited Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, whose departure opened the governor’s office for the first time in eight years.

Bottoms, a former Atlanta mayor and adviser to President Joe Biden, campaigned on expanding access to health care, improving public education and addressing the rising cost of living. Jackson, a billionaire health care executive and political newcomer, emphasized cutting taxes, reducing government spending and bringing his private-sector experience to state government.

Jackson invested more than $200 million of his own money into the campaign, making his bid one of the most expensive self-funded gubernatorial campaigns in American history.

The election also ended Republicans’ decades-long control of Georgia’s governorship. The last Democrat elected governor was Roy Barnes in 1998. Barnes lost his reelection bid to Republican Sonny Perdue in 2002, and Republicans have held the office since Perdue took office in January 2003.

Georgia’s changing political landscape added another dimension to the contest. Once a reliably Republican state in presidential elections, Georgia narrowly backed Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 before returning to President Donald Trump in 2024. Democrats also captured both U.S. Senate seats in 2021, with Raphael Warnock subsequently winning a full term in 2022.

On Tuesday, Georgia voters also reelected Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, demonstrating the state’s continued willingness to support Democrats in statewide contests.

Bottoms is the first Black governor elected in Georgia, the first woman to hold the state’s highest office and the first Black woman elected governor anywhere in the United States. She is also the first Democrat to win Georgia’s governorship in 28 years, breaking a Republican winning streak dating back to 2002.

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Sen. Jon Ossoff easily defeated a challenge from Republican Rep. Mike Collins to hold on to his Georgia Senate seat on Tuesday, according to AP projections.

After Donald Trump carried the state in 2024, early forecasts predicted tough sledding for Ossoff. But during a brutal government shutdown — the longest on record — the senator signaled he was willing to stake his candidacy on protecting Affordable Care Act subsidies, and he proved an adept campaigner who was hyper-focused on Georgia issues. Ossoff focused his stump speeches around affordability, skyrocketing inflation and foreign entanglements, hammering Trump for his costly war with Iran.  

For his part, Collins’ candidacy was hamstrung by controversies involving his payroll and affiliation with alleged white nationalists.

Frequently floated as a 2028 contender, Ossoff adopted a fighter’s stance at his campaign events. Like feisty Michigan candidate Abdul El-Sayed, the senator took every opportunity to land a jab against Republicans, occasionally causing some monocle-popping among centrist commentators still holding on to the idea of the dignity of the presidential office. In August, he drew jeers and applause for making light of the rumors surrounding Trump aide Natalie Harp.

“So [Trump] doesn’t want to do this job,” Ossoff said . “He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar.”

Ossoff, for his part, has said he has “zero interest in running for president.” His victory speech, which will come later tonight, will be studied by pundits seeking to divine his intentions.

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President Donald Trump fumed at Fox News on Election Day, accusing the conservative network of turning against him, giving Democrats too much airtime and driving away its own viewers.

“FoxNews Ratings are way down (27%!) because they’re spending too much time covering the Trump Deranged Dumocrats!” Trump wrote Tuesday on Truth Social. “All of those people who used to watch Fox, and no longer do, get it. It’s them, not me.”

Trump insisted his own popularity remained strong, claiming his numbers were “better than they have ever been” and citing a CNN poll that he said showed overwhelming Republican support for him.

The president also accused Fox News of deliberately undermining him through its polling.

“The FoxNews Poll, always the worst, is so insulting with the questions they ask,” Trump wrote. “Every question is a hit job, and every answer is ‘BULLS***!'”

His grievances extended beyond the network’s programming. Trump questioned why Fox Corp. was financially supporting Democratic politicians and organizations, naming House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Reps. Jamie Raskin, Ted Lieu and Pete Aguilar, along with several Democratic campaign committees. He did not provide figures to substantiate his allegations.

Trump also singled out Jessica Tarlov, the Democratic strategist and co-host of Fox News’ “The Five,” with a personal insult while watching the network’s election coverage, a complaint he brought up in previous posts.

“I can’t stand Jessica Tarlov’s voice — DUMB AS A ROCK, but it’s the voice that gets me,” Trump wrote, adding that he would change channels until she was off the air.

Fox News has experienced a ratings decline, although Trump’s explanation for the drop is unsubstantiated. Nielsen data showed the network’s total-day audience fell 27% in October compared with the previous year, according to TheWrap. Fox nevertheless remained the most-watched cable news network.

Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch attributed the decline to viewer fatigue during an earnings call Monday.

Trump, however, insisted the network’s coverage of him was responsible.

“They’re way down, not because of me, but because they are AGAINST me!” he wrote. “This happened once before, and Fox almost collapsed. It’s happening again!”

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Among all the gruesome details of allegations both old and new of rape and sexual abuse, there’s one four-word phrase in the new congressional report on Jeffrey Epstein that says a lot about why Donald Trump seems especially unhinged these days: “No statute of limitations.” Led by Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee released their findings on the president’s long and close relationship with the deceased sex offender. The report, citing testimony from 11 women, “indicates that Trump abused, assaulted, and even raped numerous women alongside, and in coordination with, the most infamous sex trafficker in history.”

The media response to the allegations was muted, despite compelling new evidence about the extent of Epstein’s sex trafficking ring, suggesting more powerful men were involved than have faced legal repercussions. Perhaps the report was overshadowed by the midterm elections. Or maybe there’s a sense this is “old news” and won’t move the needle. But if Raskin has his way, we’ll all look back to this release as the opening chapter in a season of accountability not just for Trump, but also for various administration figures and MAGA cronies who have enjoyed the legal shield of a Republican congressional majority.

Democrats are expected to win control of the House, and perhaps even the Senate, in the midterm elections. If they do, Raskin and investigators will have a lot more power to investigate not just Trump and the White House, but also various Republican donors, right-wing business interests and other MAGA-aligned power players who have been taking full advantage of the atmosphere of corruption the president has created. The Epstein report is likely just the beginning. As the Washington Post noted on Monday, Democrats “are laying the groundwork for an array of inquiries into President Donald Trump, his family and his administration.” Various business and political leaders are meeting with their lawyers, worried about what Democrats could uncover with this new power. 

“I haven’t seen this much investigative activity in anticipation of a change in control of a house of Congress ever,” Michael Bopp, who runs a congressional investigations division for the law firm Gibson Dunn, told the Post. 

There are plenty of signs that it’s dawning on people around Trump that he will be out of office in two short years and that, as the latest Epstein report indicates, the statute of limitations has not run out on many possible crimes committed under the White House’s protection. A recent Zeteo profile of Stephen Miller showed that the White House deputy chief of staff is worried about going to prison if a Democrat wins the presidency in 2028. Congressional Democrats keep talking about impeaching Pete Hegseth, and the defense secretary is clearly anxious, reportedly making calls and begging Sen. Marsha Blackburn to appoint him to her Senate seat if, as expected, she wins the Tennessee governor’s race this week. Having a Senate seat would not only prevent impeachment; it could make prosecuting him for alleged war crimes much harder as well. 

In October Elissa Slotkin of Michigan set off a massive panic on the right when she suggested that there should be a focus on “signature cases” against “people who enabled” Trump. The Michigan senator wanted a “deterrence message” for anyone considering working for Trump, letting them know that committing crimes or otherwise assisting in illegal or corrupt activity might result in “a ton of problems” for them that aren’t worth the risk of legal liability. Fox News and other outlets tried to spin this as Slotkin threatening the mass arrest of young staffers, but the hysteria belies their real worry: Democrats might be able to compile enough evidence that prison is a real threat for many of the people working for Trump. 

Slotkin’s remarks clearly rattled the White House. Since then, Trump has repeatedly put out word that his underlings should not have to worry about obeying the law because mass pardons are on their way. A few days after Slotkin’s warning, sources inside the White House told the Washington Sun that administration lawyers are looking at “blanket pardons for all employees involved in particular policy areas, such as deportations, war or trade.” 

Still, the White House is facing serious staffing issues. A September report from the Partnership for Public Service found that people Trump hires quickly leave. Not only have there been a record number of resignations, nearly half of the quitters worked less than a year for Trump. 

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On Monday, Trump himself also told the New York Post that widespread pardons are on the table, not just for his staff, but for allies like Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Musk has good reason to be worried. His brief tenure running DOGE has raised a whole host of questions about what laws were broken by him or by staff carrying out his orders. He’s also under suspicion of messing with Ukraine’s Starlink access, crippling its defenses against the invading Russian military. This may explain why Musk spent nearly half a billion dollars — more than any single donor in history — trying to tilt the elections in the GOP’s favor. 

Trump and his family members should also be sweating. Trump has often interpreted the Supreme Court’s grant of presidential immunity as all-encompassing, but as Raskin told the New Yorker, he doesn’t see it that way at all. He outlined how the president has made billions in office, roughly $1 million a hour, and that there’s a great deal to learn about where that money is coming from. The Supreme Court’s decision technically only covers crimes committed during the commission of official presidential duties. By definition, Trump’s external money-making enterprises aren’t that. His children are deeply involved in the family business as well. And as the Epstein report made sure to note, some of the crimes Trump and his associates have been accused of committing with his old friend Epstein carry no statute of limitations.

It’s tempting to wave all this off as inconsequential, because Trump and his cronies were able to escape severe ramifications the last time around. But to dismiss this talk would be a mistake, in no small part because Democrats need their feet held to the fire. The corruption this time around is far worse than it was in Trump’s first term, more flagrant as the air of lawlessness led to a level of carelessness that creates more prosecutable evidence. The next Democrat in office may not be like Joe Biden, who shied away from aggressive prosecution of Trump and his allies. Some of the politicians whose names are being bandied around — like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York or Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia — have been highly focused weeding out MAGA corruption. 

Then there’s the matter of political will. Before now, it was hard to drum up sufficient political support for accountability because voters simply didn’t care enough about corruption. But as the New York Times reported last week, the issue is a rising source concern for voters. Democrats, for one thing, are doing a better job of linking Trump’s self-dealing to the economic problems of ordinary people. For another, the Epstein scandal has broken into national consciousness, and even Republicans are struggling to sufficiently explain why Trump, despite signing a bill to release all Justice Department files related to the case, is refusing to do so.

With these winds at their back, Democrats have a much better chance of being able to conduct thorough investigations — and pursue criminal consequences for those found to have broken the law. 

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Move over, Haley Stevens: There’s a new competitor for the most pathetic reaction to plummeting political fortunes. Elon Musk, the former Trump administration member and the world’s richest man, has seen the midterm election forecast for conservative candidates, and he’s responded by petulantly playing with his toys.

The X owner started “Anakin-posting” on Monday. The purely online phenomenon finds far-right and MAGA nerds recasting Star Wars’ Anakin Skywalker, the man who will become Darth Vader, as a tragic hero and paragon of traditional values. A typical post uses generative AI to reframe the “Star Wars” films’ genocidal space monk as a masculine, hyper-conservative, attentive father. Musk’s post shows Anakin, as played by actor Hayden Christensen, sitting on a throne surrounded by his children, Luke and Leia, and his wife, Padme. The AI illustration has pulled liberally from all three trilogies, placing the adult faces of Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher on the children. Natalie Portman’s Padme appears to be wearing her makeup and crown from “Black Swan.” The Sith first family is surrounded by 1970s-era storm troopers and 2010s imperial guards.  

“This is what they stole from us,” Musk captioned the computer-generated photo of his sci-fi fan fiction.

For the unfamiliar, Anakin was a member of an order of space knights. As a young man, he began having prophetic dreams of his wife dying in childbirth. Consumed by ambition and anger, and desperate to avoid the fate he envisioned, he was manipulated by several elderly politicians into betraying his chivalric order, killing many of his fellow knights and slaughtering an entire school full of squires for fear of retribution. Unable to save his wife, and grievously injured from a battle with his former mentor, he became a running dog of a fascist empire that aimed to rule the entire galaxy. 

Right-wing young men have warped that story through the established MAGA lens of “returning to tradition,” picturing a world where having the conviction to kill a bunch of toddlers is celebrated. 

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The typical example of “Anakin-posting” expresses rage at a stagnant economy or lack of prospects by sharing images of Christensen’s Anakin looking stoic. MAGA influencers like Jack Posobiec have added a dash of intergalactic racism, sharing images of a young Anakin surrounded by literal aliens to hint at a pro-segregationist message. Others have reimagined Anakin’s mentors as chiding liberal scolds, grafting pink hair and a keffiyeh onto Obi-Wan Kenobi. In the pathetic galaxy of Gen Z men, anything from mid-century magazine ads to a Disney-owned sci-fi epic for children can be a stand in for their cultural grievances. 

Enough time has passed between the prequels and the present that Anakin can be presented as a brooding badass. The primary criticism of the movies at the time concerned Christensen’s portrayal of Anakin as a whiny child throwing a deadly tantrum. The knotty and boring political intrigue subplots of the films have been forgotten, making it easy to gloss over Anakin being a stooge for politicians playing a game beyond his ken.

Musk, in particular, does have reasons to empathize with the “Star Wars” villain. After believing he had found a way to reshape the government toward his own ends via DOGE, he was booted when the program proved deeply unpopular. Seeing visions of a blue wave washout, he used his financial superpower to try and avoid what appears to be an oncoming loss. Separated from the levers of power and now half a billion dollars poorer, Musk has been forced to play-act a scenario where he won. His image-generating toy gave him the happy ending that politics, relationships and wealth couldn’t.

But all the AI bots can’t undo the facts of Anakin’s story. He was ultimately killed by the evil emperor he served, dying in front of the son he abandoned. His “return to tradition” was a last-minute awakening, when he was forced to confront all the harm he had done and the miserable life he had led. Now there’s something for Musk to aspire to. 

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Across the country, voters are making their way to the polls in the climax of a vitriolic midterm election cycle set against the backdrop of an electorate souring on Donald Trump and Republicans. Inflation is up, consumer confidence is down, gas and diesel prices are through the roof, largely due to the president’s war of choice in Iran. The cruelty of his MAGA agenda has roiled the country and left a bad taste even in the mouths of some of his erstwhile supporters. 

Each election is billed as being consequential; this one lives up to the hype. As we await the results, it’s worth taking note of several questions:

How big will the blue wave be?

A tsunami, a trickle — or something in the middle? All are possible, but signs are pointing to significant Democratic gains, likely up to 25 seats in the House, as well as a Senate majority. Dr. Abdul El-Sayed looks increasingly likely to win in Michigan, and James Talarico has Democratic hopes up in Texas. Senate races in Maine, Kansas, Iowa and Alaska are in play, and it’s worth keeping an eye on South Carolina, Mississippi and Louisiana as well.

One sign will come at 6 p.m. when polls close in Kentucky’s 6th Congressional District, where Democrat Zach Dembo is facing off against Republican Ralph Alvarado. Once a Democratic stronghold, the seat went Republican in 2012 and, despite a close call in 2018, has remained in GOP hands since. Although the district has been gerrymandered to favor Republicans, the energy on the ground is with Dembo. If he posts and maintains a healthy lead, look for significant Democratic gains to unfold throughout the night.

What effect did redistricting have on the GOP’s chances?

The midterms will be the first test of the GOP’s redistricting strategy, which saw the party redraw congressional districts in Florida, Texas and other states, partly in response to the gains Trump made with Black and Latino voters in 2024. But polls show those margins have been largely erased as the electorate has turned on the president after nearly two tumultuous years in office, while Democratic legislatures in California and Virginia have imposed their own gerrymanders. According to a Politico poll, the GOP increasingly sees the coalition that returned Trump to office as “crumbling,” and may have gained little or nothing from all this adventurous map-drawing.

Will progressives be bolstered or chastened?

The size of the blue wave could well come to be seen as a measure of progressives’ influence and power within the Democratic Party. Losses — or even narrow wins — by progressive candidates could be used as more evidence by the party’s establishment wing of the need to tack toward the middle ahead of the 2028 presidential election. Larger wins — and victories in unexpected places, such as Michigan’s 7th Congressional District where William Lawrence, co-founder of the Sunrise Movement, stands a real chance of unseating incumbent Republican Tom Barrett — would provide rocket fuel to the movement. 

Progressive groups are already on the offensive, getting a head start on spinning tonight’s election results, particularly in anticipation of a narrow El-Sayed win in Michigan. “Expect to hear narrow victories cited as evidence of weak electability,” a Progressive Change Campaign Committee memo obtained by Politico reads. “But a candidate’s first winning margin is not their electoral ceiling.”

Will the Haley Stevens drama matter in Michigan?

Haley Stevens, the Democratic congresswoman who narrowly lost to El-Sayed in Michigan’s Senate primary, has brought the drama in the race’s closing days. As late as Saturday night, she pledged to colleagues and friends that she was backing El-Sayed, only to turn up hours later at a church service with his Republican opponent Mike Rogers, and endorse the former congressman in a video. The cold-dish move has virtually drowned out El-Sayed’s closing message, with Stevens being formally kicked out of the Michigan Democratic Party.

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The question now is if any of it will matter, especially in light of a New York Times/Siena poll taken before Stevens’ move that showed El-Sayed leading Rogers by 11 points. Michigan Republicans seem to think it won’t, telling Politico they wish the congresswoman had crossed the aisle earlier. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report agrees, moving the race in their ratings to “Leans Democratic,” a shift that was already in the works before Stevens detonated her bomb. 

Still, the results in the state’s Democratic primary were far narrower than the polls showed, with El-Sayed besting Stevens by only 1%, or 14,893 votes. 

Will Elon Musk get his money’s worth?

The New York Times reported yesterday that the world’s first trillionaire has dropped a staggering $474 million this election cycle, an historic first. The amount has been spread out across a variety of groups, PACs and funds, but it doesn’t include the “dark-money donations” the Times reports he has also made. Most of the $168 million he contributed to the Senate Leadership Fund has served to shore up Ken Paxton, the GOP nominee for Senate in Texas, who is locked in a tight race with Talarico.

Musk has a lot riding on Tuesday’s results. Beyond the simple math of whether he got enough bang for his buck, there is also the issue of what will surely face him in the event of a Democratic congressional majority: investigations. If the blue wave materializes, Musk can expect congressional inquiries of his activities, including his reported interventions in Russia’s war against Ukraine and his leadership of DOGE during the early months of Trump’s second administration. 

Where will the surprises be?

Each election brings surprises. Think not one but both of Georgia’s Senate seats going to Democrats in 2020, or Republicans making big gains in New York two years later. 

This is the year we could hear the echo of Georgia’s 2020 election results in another Southern state. Despite boasting large Black populations, Senate seats in South Carolina, Mississippi and Louisiana have long been out of reach for Democrats. But there is now a path to victory for the party’s candidates in each of those states.

In South Carolina, the GOP incumbent Darline Graham, who was appointed to the seat at Donald Trump’s command following the death of her brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham, has proven to be a lackluster candidate, alarming even some Republicans with her performance in debates and on the stump. Democrat Annie Andrews has run a more nimble campaign, and between Graham’s performance and the national state of affairs, she appears to have narrowed the gap.

Mississippi’s incumbent GOP Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith has also run a lazy campaign, expecting to coast to victory. But the national political environment under Trump, coupled with campaign gaffes, large Black turnout in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision to gut the Voting Rights Act and clever campaigning by Scott Colom, her Democratic opponent, have helped to put the race in play. 

Louisiana is also a wild card. The state, which is one-third African American, has also seen a surge in early voting among Black residents, and according to a recent poll, the race between Republican Julia Letlow and Democrat Jamie Davis, who is Black, is tied.

Polls are not predictive. The political history of these states continues to favor Republicans, but any of them could deliver one of 2026’s electoral surprises. If that happens, it will signal that the blue wave has become a blue tsunami.

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Two great box sets being released for the holiday season from Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers and The Who showcase different approaches to exploring an artist’s back catalog with strong results on both sides. “Origins 1971-1978” chronicles not just the Heartbreakers’ first two albums but also documents the journey that brought them there, while “The Who By Numbers 50th Anniversary Edition” documents the band’s seventh album in a more traditional box set presentation. Both of the releases successfully accomplish their goals and deliver a worthwhile experience for interested listeners, but follow different paths to reach their respective sonic destinations.

In the case of the Petty box set, the records at its heart are the newly mixed and remastered editions of the first two albums: the eponymous first release and record number two, “You’re Gonna Get It!” Then there’s “Live from the Record Plant,” originally broadcast on KSAN-FM in 1977, a DVD of the band’s appearance on the BBC’s “Old Grey Whistle Test,” and finally (and most importantly for this release) a disc of unheard tracks: “No Sleep Til L.A.” and “The Cut Out Bin.” (On the LP edition of the box, the latter two are separate albums, but on the CD-only version, the two are consolidated.) 

Rounding out the set is a Blu-Ray with hi-res stereo, Dolby Atmos and 5.1 immersive mixes, and importantly, a full-color 46-page “fanzine” called “Heart Attack” that serves as the liner notes for this box, with photographs, essays, interviews and commentary from members of the surviving Heartbreakers. There are other editions with additional advanced artifacts like posters or simulated Polaroids — my favorite is probably the “Punk to New Wave” trading cards — but if you’re in the target market for those kinds of fun treats, you’ve probably already ordered your copy.

What’s notable about the unreleased music featured on “No Sleep Til L.A.” and “The Cut Out Bin” is that it isn’t just a simple compilation of demos and rough takes in a logical order of some kind, but instead is deliberately curated into the shape of an album. It’s intended to convey the journey Petty and the band took to get to the place where they’re going into the studio to record that first record, capturing tracks from the Mudcrutch era (Petty’s pre-Heartbreakers band that also featured future Heartbreakers Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench) as early as 1971 and then as the Heartbreakers in their early days, learning to work in the studio in L.A. and in Tulsa, where their label Shelter Records sent them to learn how to make a record instead of running the meter on a L.A. studio. 

The outtake record isn’t trying to fabricate something that doesn’t exist or inject fiction into the Heartbreakers legend, but rather, to show you how the band evolved from a bunch of kids in Florida who picked up and went out to L.A. to seek their rock ‘n’ roll fortunes on a wing and a prayer into a band that would end up being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It’s expanding the legacy, not rewriting history. 

“It’s not Tom Petty good.” That’s how Adria Petty, who oversees Petty Legacy, the business concern that’s handling her late father’s catalog, told Salon as she described the standards against which decisions were made about what to include and not to include in the outtakes record. “Could this be any band? If so, it’s not in there . . . it’s gotta be something that really adds to the canon or we’re just detracting from the canon.” 

And the collection absolutely burnishes the canon. It’s hard to listen to the selection of music and understand how any music business professional didn’t think this band had serious potential. There’s so many standout tracks: “Parade of Loons,” which opens the record, from the great rock ‘n’ roll tradition of writing a song from the perspective of watching the craziness unfolding around you is borderline new wave, but it also isn’t — it’s easy to understand why an industry struggling to understand the new guard needed to figure out where these new guys fit, exactly — and perusing some of the photos included in “Heart Attack” you can extend some grace on that front, because — as Adria Petty laughed, “These are not guys you want to date your daughter, you know?” But as you learn from some of the news clips included in the booklet, Petty did not want to be co-opted into anyone’s movement or limited by any genre.

“You’re Gonna Learn” is reggae-influenced at a time when that wasn’t a widely known, let alone embraced, genre in American rock, and they manage to pull it off without embarrassing themselves. “Up In Mississippi Tonight” could be an outtake from “Exile on Main Street.” There are also a couple of earnest and successful Dylan homages: “Wild Eyes” and “I Can’t Fight It.” If you’re going to borrow, borrow from the best (and from a guy you’re going to be on the road backing in 10 years).

Then there’s “Unheard Kind of Hero.” This is a song that Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench had previously mentioned as a song he saw the band perform before he was in it, and how he was astounded that a band in Gainesville, Florida, was writing original material like that. In “Heart Attack,” Tench offers, “I was following Mudcrutch around because they were so good, and they played a lot of really cool covers and they played some stuff of their own,” he remembers. And when he heard “Hero,” he asked a friend working for the band who sang it originally. When he was told it was an original, his reaction was, “OK, good lord. Because if you listen to that, whether he was 17 or 19 when he wrote it, the storytelling in it is the beginning.”

The box set is configured to bring the listener into the story, opening with the outtakes before taking you to the officially released albums, then live radio show and then, finally, the 1977 “Old Grey Whistle Test” performance. But I’d like to make the case that you should begin with the OGWT performance because it is utterly electrifying. Anglophiles are already familiar, but in case you’re not, the “Old Grey Whistle Test” is a legendary BBC music program that was the opposite to “Top of the Pops” in that its focus was on albums as opposed to hit singles. But this isn’t an OGWT where a band plays a couple of songs; this was one of their special editions where the band gets the full show. So this is a 40-minute performance by a band that was already famous and well-liked in the U.K., a status they were still fighting to achieve back home.

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They’re dressed in black (Benmont Tench rocking a red shirt underneath his suit jacket), Petty looking more like a gunslinger, Ray-Ban aviators and studded guitar strap, Stan Lynch singing harmony vocals over Petty’s shoulder, Mike Campbell dropping guitar riffs and solos without breaking a sweat, Ron Blair sharing the center mic for harmony vocals but otherwise staying low-key back against the drum riser. It’s a time machine back to 1977, with camera work more evolved than we’re used to seeing because it was a TV show about music, not a variety show that featured a band. The colors are a little over-saturated, but people who are used to watching archival rock ‘n’ roll clips won’t be phased. The most jarring element is whenever the camera cuts to the audience, who look like they’d rather be anywhere else. A U.K. source shared that this was because this wasn’t an audience of Tom Petty fans but rather random people who’d put in for tickets and wouldn’t have been encouraged to be enthusiastic. Petty gets his revenge, though, at the last number. (No spoilers!)

“The Who By Numbers” was released in 1975, but this is still being declared a 50th anniversary artifact. It features 92 unreleased audio tracks, a recording of the band live in Swansea in 1976, the requisite Atmos and stereo mixes, and a video of the full concert of The Who at the Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan, in 1975. 

Also included is what has become a trademark for the band’s reissue sets, a gorgeous full-color 100-page book of liner notes, interviews, lyrics, photographs and other assorted documentation. Even if you buy the CD box, you’re still getting the full-sized book because they put the CDs into an album-sized enclosure. The archivist this time is Andy Neill, one of the two names you want to see behind a Who reissue. 

The Who box sets are intended to be complete documents of individual records. So there’s the disc of the remastered album (which sounds fantastic), then the initial Townshend demos. Townshend was approaching 30 when he began work on the songs for “By Numbers,” and he was in the middle of a number of personal dilemmas, as well as struggling with his and the band’s place within rock ‘n’ roll: “I felt detached from my own songs,” he confesses. He also rued the fact that he felt he owed his best material to the band, instead of being able to pursue more of a solo career, which all of his bandmates had done. Townshend’s “Who Came First” came out in 1972, but there hadn’t been anything since.

The demos are lovely, ethereal sketches, documenting Townshend breathing life into his creations for the first time. There are two demos of “Keep Me Turning,” which didn’t make the cut and we wouldn’t hear until it appeared on “Rough Mix,” the warm and affectionate project he recorded with Ronnie Lane of the Faces two years later. A fun game is to take the Townshend demo of “Slip Kid,” where he’s kind of half-speaking, half-singing, and then compare it to Daltrey’s delivery on the finished version, which is the one song from this record that was built on the original demo. (This is a release that you’ll want the good headphones for.) The highlight is probably “How Many Friends,” which is the heartbreaker on the album; Daltrey’s read of it nails the pathos, but this version makes you wish that Pete maybe hung onto it for himself.

Up next is “Tracking Sessions,” which are initial loose takes with the whole band, but not finished vocals. It’s basically how the band taught themselves the new material, and it includes listings like “Ramport Jam” where they (sans Keith Moon, still making his way back to the U.K. after hanging out in L.A. and working on his solo record) fart around on a variety of instrumentals and a Faces song. This lasted about half an hour, but we’re getting only eight minutes; given the nature of the release, just give the fans the entire unedited mess. Throughout the sessions, you hear the band members making jokes and laughing; you hear Glyn Johns in the control room offering his thoughts; you hear Pete Townshend complaining about not being able to obtain a suitable breakfast. This stuff is gold. 

There are also lovely early run-throughs of “Imagine A Man” with a solo Townshend on acoustic and Nicky Hopkins on piano, and similarly, “They Are All In Love” (a song that Daltrey did not initially want to sing) is also offered solo Pete. A prototype of “Blue Red and Gray” is here as well, thanks to Glyn Johns’ insistence: “I find that the hardest thing for me to do as a writer is to express optimism, general warmth and a feeling of good will to all men in a song,” Townshend said. “It feels trite and I hate it. That song, ‘I Love Every Minute Of The Day’ . . . is a prime example. Glyn Johns wanted it on the album; I cringed when he picked it. He heard it on a cassette and said, ‘What’s that?’ I said, ‘Nothing.’ He said, ‘No. Play it.’ I said, ‘Really, it’s nothing. Just me playing a ukulele.’ But he insisted on doing it. I said, ‘What? That fu*king thing. Here’s me, wanting to commit suicide, and you’re going to put that thing on the record’.”

Disc 4 is billed “Early Mixes & Guide Vocals” and is by nature more structured than the Tracking Sessions. The songs are taking shape now. Entwistle offers his approach to his “Success Story,” Pete sings the lead on “However Much I Booze,” there’s a version of “Squeezebox” that the liner notes state is “accented by tambourine” but sounds like the cowbell on the “SNL” “Don’t Fear The Reaper” sketch, and “Dreaming From The Waist” is a fantastic illustration of why Pete Townshend needed Roger Daltrey to sing most of his songs.  

As a way to track the evolution of the song from start to finish, the inclusion of all of these different versions is an established and useful presentation device, but given their formative nature, it’s not likely that you’re going to go back to them with regularity. But that’s not why this record exists. Whereas the Tom Petty box set is intended to show you how they got to the first two albums, this release is trying to show you why this was the record between “Quadrophenia” and “Who Are You.” 

But it’s probably more accurate to state that “The Who By Numbers” was the record between the “Tommy” movie and “Who Are You,” which isn’t a small distinction; the “Tommy” movie made the band into a larger and different flavor of rock star, one that brought in the girls because of shirtless golden god Daltrey and delivered your average punters who might not have found their way past the tunes they’d heard on the radio. And it’s not unimportant to note that the “Tommy” movie brought the band the kind of money they hadn’t yet seen. 

That’s part of the cri de coeur you hear on “By Numbers.” It’s by no means the main thread, but it absolutely underpins Townshend’s personal anxieties. He’s annoyed that his bandmates are off doing their own thing. He’s perturbed that he doesn’t have the time or material to make another solo record because he has to offer his best songs to The Who (and conversely, it’s kind of hilarious that he then seems panicked when he presented Daltrey with the songs he’d written for the record and ended up shocked that Rog picked “the more personal ones”.) NOTE: Daltrey is not responsible for the abomination that is “Squeeze Box,” that we have to blame on Ronnie Lane, who was enchanted by it. 

The Swansea show from 1976 here isn’t complete, but it is Keith Moon’s last proper show before a U.K. audience. (It was recorded with the intention of being released as a live album, and one of the original tapes went missing at some point in the 1990s, which is why the first two songs are missing.) “My Wife” will sound familiar to anyone who owns the “Maximum RnB” box set, “Squeezebox” is palatable because of Townshend’s giant power chords, “I’m Free” (introduced by Moon, who dedicates it to the occupants of the prison across the street from the venue) sounds more like the version from the “Tommy” soundtrack, and there’s a hilarious comedic bit over “Bellboy.”

 

But it’s the last live artifact here that’s a truly delightful surprise. It’s on the last disc with the Atmos remixes, and at first I feared it would be poor-quality footage added simply because it existed. But it’s far, far better than that. It is the complete show from the Pontiac Silverdome in December of 1975, cleaned up and remastered. This show set the record for the largest ever indoor rock concert attendance of 76,896, which would be broken by Led Zeppelin in the same place two years later. Because of the size of both the venue and the crowd, a large screen was set up to project closed-circuit video, a thing we’d think absolutely nothing of now, but at the time was a revolutionary development. 

There were four cameras, and they do a more than decent job of capturing the action but don’t expect any fancy camerawork or closeups of guitar solos. The sound is in mono — as the liner notes point out, “the sound was captured via a direct line mono feed from the PA — no attempt was made to professionally record the concert for synching purposes.” Part of the “Join Together” / “Road Runner” / “My Generation” medley ended up in “The Kids Are Alright,” but this is the first official release of this footage.

You know what? The sound quality is more than adequate, and where it falls down the electricity coming off of that stage in this performance makes up for a multitude of sins. Roger is in Woodstock buckskin fringe, and even this primitive setup can capture that those trousers were, shall we say, form-fitting. (Wait for “Magic Bus,” which swings so much harder and better than it did later.) Daltrey introduces the “Tommy” portion by noting, “This is how we used to do it,” and then the band proceeds to light the stage on fire. The band seems perplexed and concerned about the size of the crowd, with both Roger and Pete each taking turns to ask the crowd to take a few steps back.

This Silverdome footage is absolutely a text, and even this rudimentary capture that was meant to make sure the 76,896th guy in the back could see something is still full of electricity and life. If you were lucky enough to see the band with Keith Moon in those days, you’ll remember, and if you weren’t, this at least brings some of that fairy dust into your life and your house. Put it on, turn it all the way up, and enjoy it without 76,896 people stepping on your feet.

The post Tom Petty and The Who box sets reveal two sides of rock history appeared first on Salon.com.

Loss aversion is a phenomenon in psychology and behavioral economics. Defined simply, it means that the pain experienced from a loss is felt twice as much as winning. In politics, that intensity manifests itself in motivation. If you take something away from people, they are going to feel it more acutely than promising them something, and the theft produces a backlash. 

That’s what appears to be happening right now with Black voters. Across the country, they have been lining up to vote early, presumably against Donald Trump and the Republican Party’s MAGA agenda, in astonishing numbers, particularly in the South. That this comes only six months after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in Louisiana v. Callais should not come as a surprise.

In the Trump era, Republicans have become experienced at taking rights away from the American people. For women, it was the roll back of their constitutional rights when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, sparking a backlash in that year’s midterm elections. Since Trump returned to office in January 2025, immigrants have come under assault from a xenophobic administration intent on carrying out mass deportations via masked, secret police rampaging through neighborhoods. The LGBTQ+ community, and trans people in particular, have seen their rights stripped away. 

These policies have come as a shock to some Americans who never thought Trump would go there, and they have also opened the eyes of others to the cruelty at the heart of MAGA, overseen by the highest court of the land. But to many Black Americans, the GOP’s agenda and behavior will not have come as a surprise. After all, it’s been at the core of their history going back to before the country’s founding.

Black Americans know what it means to have their civil rights taken away from them. They understand fully the fear of being targeted by brutal, marauding gangs of armed men. In the decade following the Civil War and the passage of the 14th and 15th Amendments, Black people began to participate fully in civil society. Mississippi elected two Black U.S. senators and a lieutenant governor, and former slaves and their offspring enjoyed freedom of speech, movement and opportunity. But the white members of Southern society would not let that stand, and as soon as the federal government withdrew its troops, they stepped in with legal and social barriers to deny Black Americans their rights, this time backed by vigilante and state violence that became Jim and Jane Crow. 

Almost a century had passed by the time Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965, a period characterized by subjugation and violence by the white majority. But Black America kept fighting, against all odds, until they won. 

This year, we have seen yet another attempt by reactionary politicians and judges to turn back the clock. After the Callais decision, several Southern states reverted immediately to form and radically redrew their congressional districts to favor the white majority, making it much more difficult for voters to elect a Black federal and state representatives.

They may come to regret that decision. This isn’t 1955 (or 1855) anymore, as much as Donald Trump would like to make it so, and the Black community is once again mobilizing. According to experts, early voting data is showing something unexpected: The vote is being driven by young voters rather than just those who went through the earlier battles. It’s muscle memory for the Black community.

After 2024, when Trump won a surprising 15% of the Black vote — nearly doubling his share of 8% in the 2020 election — Republicans thought they were defying history to make great inroads within the community. Then, incredibly, the administration began attacking Black America. The result is what some politicos are calling a “Blacklash,” and it could very well be decisive in some places where nobody expected the Democrats to do well. And even if it doesn’t result in flipping seats, it’s a shot across the bow. 

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In Mississippi, prosecutor and former judge Scott Colom, who is Black, is running an excellent race against Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, the GOP incumbent. Colom has made some very clever advertisements which have garnered a lot of national attention, but Republicans and Democrats alike had largely ignored the race until just a couple of months ago. Polling has tightened, and the GOP has dispatched an influx of luminaries, including Trump himself. For the first time in years, Democrats from Bill Clinton to Kamala Harris, along with a long line of senators, have descended on the state to support Colom. Former President Barack Obama even cut an ad for him. Mississippi has the largest population of Black voters of any state in the country. If Colum gets a big Black turnout with just enough disaffected whites, he could win. 

Louisiana, after giving birth to the case that saw the Supreme Court’s conservative majority gut the Voting Rights Act, has been winnowed down to one majority Black district in a state that is one-third African-American. But there has been a surge in Black participation akin to what is seen in presidential years, which could prove decisive in a race for Louisiana’s open Senate seat that has been a sleeper until the last couple of weeks. According to a recent poll, Republican Julia Letlow and Democrat Jamie Davis are tied. Among voters who have already cast their ballot, Davis — who is Black — holds a six-point advantage, and 34% of early votes have been cast by Black Louisianans.

Then there’s South Carolina, which has seen Trump make three desperate appearances to shore up Darline Graham’s torpid campaign. The endangered incumbent, foisted upon South Carolina Republicans by the president himself following the sudden death of her brother, Sen. Lindsey Graham, is not getting the job done. As numbers cruncher Nate Silver pointed out, a recent New York Times poll showing the race essentially tied is not an outlier; she is in deep trouble. As of late October, the Times reports, “Black voters accounted for around 28 percent of early votes, while making up around 20 percent of the overall electorate in recent cycles. The trend is not unlike what we’re seeing in Georgia and North Carolina thus far.” If that holds true through Election Day, we could see the biggest upset of the whole campaign, largely due to Black South Carolinians saying “Enough is enough.”

In a few short hours, all the ads, mailers, signs and rallies will mercifully come to an end. I am cautiously optimistic, but like many, I’ll never celebrate prematurely again. There is good reason, though, to feel more positive than we have in a long time. Trump and his acolytes have overreached. Opting for the big tech credo of “move fast and break things,” they vastly overestimated their abilities — and the American people’s tolerance. 

They have also aroused a group of Americans who know what it is to lose their rights and privileges. With all that history and so many battles, Black Americans have shown what it takes to never give up.

The post Black voters could sway the midterms in surprising places appeared first on Salon.com.

As Americans head to the polls on Tuesday, voting experts are watching to see how the Trump administration’s unprecedented efforts to assert more federal control over elections will play out.

Since President Donald Trump retook the White House, his administration has tried to force states to turn over their unredacted voter rolls and to restrict mail-in voting. The Department of Homeland Security has used its resources to identify and prosecute noncitizen voters, an effort that has unfolded alongside the agency’s massive crackdown on immigrants.

The president has justified these steps by claiming, without evidence, that American elections are beset by fraud and that illegal voting is tipping the scales in favor of Democrats.

Courts have thwarted most of the administration’s plans to date, but Trump and his top deputies have kept up the pressure. Most recently, they’ve threatened to prosecute election officials who don’t reject ballots from people that the federal government has identified as likely noncitizens.

The administration hasn’t explicitly ruled out sending federal agents to the polls or seizing ballots or voting machines.

Election experts say the cumulative effect has been to ramp up anxiety about the midterms and to erode voters’ trust in the system.

“The administration has been creating a lot of noise, a lot of confusion, a lot of doubt,” said Ben Hovland, whom Trump fired as a commissioner for the bipartisan Election Assistance Commission earlier this year. He said he worries that this will make voters “sit it out” and “throw their hands up.”

In an emailed response to questions, a DHS spokesperson said Immigration and Customs Enforcement “is not planning operations targeting polling locations,” adding that the agency would only arrest people at the polls to address a safety threat as part of “intelligence-driven targeted enforcement.”

The DHS and the Justice Department “are laser focused on identifying, prosecuting and removing aliens who vote and dilute the votes of U.S. citizens,” the spokesperson added. “Our message to aliens who vote in American elections is clear: we will find you, arrest you, and you will face the consequences — including criminal charges and deportation.”

Before and on Election Day, it’s typical for the major political parties to mount poll-watching operations, but both Democrats and Republicans say they’ve expanded these activities in this pressurized midterm.

Republicans will focus on issues such as voter eligibility and voter-roll accuracy, according to Ally Triolo, the Republican National Committee’s election integrity communications director. Democrats will concentrate on voter intimidation and other hurdles to voting, Angelo Fernández Hernández, a Democratic National Committee spokesperson, said.

Here are five issues that voting rights experts say they’re watching as this year’s election unfolds:

1. Will There Be Federal Interference?

An incident in Leon County, in the Florida Panhandle, illustrates the widespread anxiety about law enforcement at the polls.

Mark Earley, the county’s supervisor of elections, told ProPublica he was “furious” when two marked U.S. Customs and Border Protection vehicles parked outside the county’s busiest early voting location last month, after he’d been repeatedly reassured by the administration that agents would not do this.

He reported the sighting to the FBI, then learned that the agents, who were headed out of state, had just stopped by to try to vote themselves. The episode generated a flurry of news coverage.

“Given the negative media coverage regarding federal agents at the polls, it shows pretty bad judgment that they showed up in their official vehicles,” Earley said.

It’s against the law for federal law enforcement to be near polling places.

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Nick Brown, Washington’s attorney general, leads a group of Democratic state officials and voting rights advocates who have been planning how to respond if, indeed, there is real federal interference. The group has “war-gamed” how to react if government agents attempt to commandeer voting equipment or ballots.

“We’ve seen the tension and chaos that’s in the air,” Brown said. He called the federal government “the biggest challenge to smooth elections right now, which is not the way it’s supposed to be.”

A DOJ spokesperson said “the best preparation for any election official is following federal law.”

It’s routine for DOJ monitors to watch over polling places, and the agency has assured states that, in the midterms, its observers will follow the law and not interfere with voting or election administration. Still, state officials remain concerned. During Wyoming’s primary election, poll workers said they felt uneasy when DOJ monitors asked about their training and to inspect voting systems. The state’s governor criticized these actions as “a bit aggressive” and “irregular.”

2. What Effect Will Noncitizen Voter Challenges Have?

The Trump administration’s multipronged effort targeting alleged noncitizen voters has already led to eligible voters being improperly removed from the rolls. Voting rights groups fear this will block some U.S. citizens from being able to vote when they show up on Tuesday.

Federal officials have made clear they plan to go after anyone they think is committing voter fraud.

On the first day of early voting in Texas, Aaron Reitz, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Texas, posted a YouTube video announcing his intentions. “If you violate federal election law,” he warned, “I will hunt you down and prosecute you.”

This threat came days after the DOJ sued California, seeking to block the state from counting mail ballots from more than 20,000 voters it claims are “likely” noncitizens. The administration had obtained the state’s public voter rolls, which the DHS had blended with its own immigration information and third-party data.

In a court filing, California called the claim that there are 20,000 noncitizens on its voter rolls “specious.” Los Angeles County analyzed a sampling of the likely noncitizen voters that the federal government claimed were registered there. Many weren’t registered in the county or had never voted, the analysis showed. Some said on their voter registration forms that they were born in the United States.

Asked about the case, the DOJ told ProPublica, “Federal law prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections, and the Department has a duty to enforce it.”

A federal judge has rejected the DOJ’s motion for an emergency order that would have barred California from counting the 20,000 voters’ ballots. (A federal appeals panel later backed that decision.) On Thursday, the administration sent grand jury subpoenas to California officials demanding records about their response to allegations of noncitizens on the state’s rolls. Late Friday, a federal judge issued a restraining order blocking the DOJ’s demands, calling them an “intimidation plan” that would interfere with legal voting.

Last week, the DOJ wrote a letter threatening to sue Washington state if officials there refused to review a list of 400 voters it believes to be noncitizens within 24 hours. U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche told reporters late last month that the department was considering additional actions, saying there were “a number of states that we’re looking at.”

In a letter responding to the DOJ, Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs called the government list of 400 names “not reliable,” saying it included U.S. citizens, people who aren’t registered to vote and duplicate entries. “Time and time again,” Hobbs wrote, “DHS claims about noncitizen voter registration turn out to be greatly exaggerated or false.”

Sam Trepel is Rule of Law program director at States United Democracy Center and a former attorney for the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. She said the agency’s actions involving California and Washington were a “disturbing use of prosecutorial authority.”

Trepel worries that the DOJ may try to seize ballots cast by voters identified as likely noncitizens, before or after the election, which would “put their votes at risk and undermine trust more broadly.”

Voting rights advocates also worry that the government’s efforts to target noncitizen voters could frighten eligible voters to the point that they won’t show up.

A federal judge recently put limits on a multistate effort by the DHS to go door-to-door in search of suspected noncitizen voters, at least through Election Day, saying it was illegally intimidating legal voters.

“A voter could say, ‘Well, maybe I don’t want to put myself on the target list here, maybe I won’t register, or maybe I won’t vote,’” said David Janovsky, acting director of The Constitution Project at the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight.

3. Will There Be Problems at the Polls?

States often change laws and rules related to voting.

Since 2024, Republican-led states have taken a number of steps that experts say will make it more difficult for some of their residents to cast ballots and have them count.

A North Carolina law, for example, requires voters to provide proof of identification when sending mail-in ballots. Under new rules, ballots now come with two envelopes, both of which must be sealed. Ballot rejections have skyrocketed, Democracy Docket reported, because voters aren’t sealing the inner envelope.

Texas and other states have cut back on the number and location of polling places, especially in areas favoring Democrats. In hotly contested Tarrant County, which includes Fort Worth, the number of polling sites was slashed by almost a third. This could increase the risk of long lines and voter confusion on Election Day.

Voting rights groups such as the Texas Civil Rights Project are tracking two issues involving the state’s voter registration systems. A software error at the Texas Department of Public Safety stopped several hundred thousand new voter registrations from being forwarded to local election officials, preventing them from being added to the rolls. A separate state system for updating registration information wasn’t processing changes for several weeks, leading to more backlogs. Counties say they’ve been able to address these problems.

Every election features some issues with voting equipment.

So far, there have been isolated complaints involving touch-screen voting machines — including one from Dolly Parton’s sister in Tennessee — spawning fears that machines have been “rigged” to switch votes.

ES&S, the company that makes the machines garnering the complaints, told ProPublica that the company hadn’t received widespread reports. Election experts say occasional problems with touch-screen machines don’t signify tampering or manipulation. Any attempt to tamper with programming would surface during testing by election officials and be corrected, they said.

4. How Secure Will the Election Be?

Incidents in the run-up to the midterms have ratcheted up election officials’ concerns about the potential for both cyber and physical attacks.

Last month, officials in several states, including Arizona, received envelopes with an unknown white powder. Arizona eventually deemed the material nontoxic, but Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said “the fear it caused was real.”

In 2024, false bomb threats, thought to be from foreign actors, caused widespread evacuations of vote-counting sites across the country. The disruptions were brief, however, in part because a message board funded by the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA, alerted election officials that the FBI had deemed the threats not credible.

Trump, however, has dismantled CISA since retaking the presidency, leaving states and local election officials to grapple with both physical and cyber threats on their own. Election nonprofits have stepped up to try to fill the gap, and states, with CISA’s help, have enhanced their own cyber defenses.

Derek Tisler, counsel and manager for the elections and government program at the Brennan Center for Justice, said the federal government’s absence has weakened the defenses.

“States acting on their own just do not have the same power,” he said.

5. Where Will Postelection Challenges Come From?

Election lawyers fear that actions by the Trump administration in the run-up to the midterms suggest the government will aggressively pursue postelection challenges if the results are not to the president’s liking.

Late last month, the DOJ sued Alaska, seeking to block the state from certifying the result of its Senate race if the Republican incumbent doesn’t win. A federal judge threw out that lawsuit on Sunday, but the administration is expected to appeal.

Trump has said he personally ordered the lawsuit to be filed. It claims the system is unfairly rigged against Sen. Dan Sullivan, because another Alaska man named Dan Sullivan also qualified for the general election ballot. The New York Times reported last week that campaign aides to Democratic Senate nominee Mary Peltola orchestrated the candidacy of the second Dan Sullivan after a monthslong, statewide search to recruit someone with the same name.

Nonetheless, the DOJ’s case is unusual, both because federal law prohibits the government from interfering with an active election and because challenges typically come after voting is complete. Postelection challenges are most often brought by losing candidates in state courts.

“This is using the federal government to interfere with our election process in a way that I think is pretty troubling on multiple levels,” said Brown, the Washington attorney general.

In response to ProPublica’s questions, the DOJ pointed to Blanche’s statement about the lawsuit on social media, which said the agency “does not seek to stop any ballot from being cast or to stop the certification of Alaska’s election.” (The lawsuit calls it “vital” that the state not certify “any election result that may be impacted by voter confusion” and asks the judge to prevent Alaska from doing this.)

Some election lawyers have suggested that if the GOP suffers significant losses, Trump could try to pressure Republicans in Congress to block new members from being seated. Several lawyers, including Derek Muller, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, say that the incoming Democratic majority would be able to fend off such an effort; courts, too, are likely to stymie it, though it might cause a short delay, according to Muller.

Brown said he and other attorneys general are also planning how to respond if local election officials or boards refuse to certify election results, based on their own claims of fraud or claims by the administration.

“I worry tremendously about what they might do,” Brown said.

The post “Chaos” in the air: Five ways voting could be disrupted on Election Day appeared first on Salon.com.

On Wednesday multiple news outlets revealed the purported headliner of “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” to be none other than Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s trusted lawyer and cable news’s favorite nutcase.

Compared with the mock attempted kidnapping Pamela Anderson, Borat’s ultimate get in 2006’s “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan,” the pranking of America’s mayor does not make for a grand climax or even an affectionate one. Instead, it more or less confirms what we already know about Rudy Giuliani: his corruptibility makes him shockingly easy to dupe.

All it took for the producers of “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” to succeed in their mission was a simple honeytrap, presented in the form of Baron Cohen’s exceptional co-star Maria Bakalova dressed as a right-wing fake news Barbie. By the time we get to that scene the Bulgarian actor has solidly established that she is the reason this feminist-themed sequel works as well as it does.

Performance-wise, Bakalova fully commits and never breaks, keeping pace with Baron Cohen in every shared sequence and commanding every scene she pilots solo. If Baron Cohen were to ever greenlight an inheritor to his Borat franchise, she would more than do it justice.

And this illustrates the subtextual call to action throughout “Subsequent Movefilm” for women of good conscience to reclaim their power, not only at the polls but in the realm of social equity. Baron Cohen and his writers cloak this in slapstick from the moment we’re introduced to Bakalova’s Tutar, the 15-year-old daughter Borat never realized he had.

Tutar is filthy and coarse, raised in a pen and guided by a book given to her by the Kazakh government that insists that women cannot drive, own businesses or even touch their privates without causing great disaster on par with the sinking of the Titanic. Her highest aspiration is to live in a golden cage like Queen Melania, “the happiest wife in the world,” emboldening her to join Borat’s latest trip as a stowaway.

Similarly life, and Borat’s government, have not been kind to him since “Cultural Learnings” conquered America with great success – high five! – 14 years ago.

America may have loved Borat but his countrymen, neighbors and family in his home village of Kuzcek felt great shame at how his documentary portrayed them (a nod, perhaps, at the Romanian villagers angered at being misrepresented in the 2006 film, who unsuccessfully sued its producers). In reaction he was sentenced to a life of hard labor in a gulag.

When Kazakhstan’s current Premier Nazarbayev (Dani Popescu) realizes the regime has a use for Borat, he’s hauled out of prison, shaved into a familiar form – ill-fitting grey suit, walrus mustache, puffy hairstyle and all – and given a new mission to smooth glorious leader’s entry into the world’s strongman club. How? By presenting to”Vice Premier Mikhail Pence” valuable offering: Johnny the Monkey, “Kazakhstan’s Minister of Culture and No.1 porno star.”

This is why the Giuliani spoiler leaking before the film’s release fails to ruin “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” because, like old Johnny would do in a room full of bananas,  plunking Giuliani into a situation like the one announced in the film’s full title: “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” merely yields the expected results. Giuliani was hoodwinked not by a monkey but old-fashioned monkey business. Wa-wa-wee-wa!

In the main, the humor driving “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” is a continuation of what Baron Cohen does in his 2018 Showtime series “Who Is America?” – which is to say that he functions more as a prodding force these days than a hard crowbar. Long ago the Borat character functioned as a truth serum, the kind of amiable ignoramus people were inclined to countenance or forgive either out of politeness or a sense of superiority. Bigots would meet his bigotry with their own, perhaps, in a gesture of finding common ground, while others put up with him out of kindness.

Now, as father and daughter embark travel through the good old U.S. of A, 2020 edition, they encounter a place where the rampant racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia Borat unearthed in 2006 is now on proud display across the land and slathered in misogyny.

The sexism, though, is the road by which Borat and Tutar find their way into the psyche of the ugly American – enabling them to infiltrate a debutante ball where Borat gets a father to admit he’d pay $500 for Tutar within earshot of his own child, and another man, hopelessly drunk, slurs out unbidden that men love pretty girls in South. “They’re fun!”

Following a span of time in which Borat keeps Tutar in a cage while he sleeps in the relative luxury of a horse trailer he drags behind a jalopy, “Subsequent Moviefilm” makes Tutar’s empowerment the centerpiece of the movie’s second half.  Baron Cohen’s signature obviousness and a style reminiscent of director Jason Woliner’s past TV work (which includes series such as “Nathan for You”) shapes how this transpires, and the audience either accepts this for what it is or may cringe at its clunkiness.

Either way, the fact that “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” and Baron Cohen need Bakalova is indisputable.

There’s the practical matter that the character of Borat is famous, for one. Back in 2007 Baron Cohen announced that he was retiring two of his alter egos, Borat and Ali G, acknowledging to The Daily Telegraph that “the problem with success, although it’s fantastic, is that every new person who sees the Borat movie is one less person I ‘get’ with Borat again, so it’s a kind of self-defeating form, really.”

What he could not have predicted back then was how thoroughly the fabric of reality would be torn by the disinformation flood plaguing us today. However, he’s right about the problem of Borat’s fame. “Subsequent Moviefilm” confronts this early in the film when Borat sets down in America once again, only to be instantly recognized and pursued by crowds of thrilled Texans. This necessitates a trip to a local costume shop to purchase prosthetics and disguises.

Nonetheless, Borat’s relevance in 2020 is debatable. Since the anti-Semitism and sexism at his heart are defining traits in a nation seized by white nationalism, that either makes him redundant or highly relevant — except for when he revealshis subjects’ prejudices.

But then, the laugh-until-you-cry parts of the original “Borat” don’t involve, say, the Islamophobic, homophobic rodeo organizer mouthing off or those Southern frat boys wishing aloud that slavery was still legal. The best antics involve Borat’s stupidity crashing against the patience and politeness of typical Americans, or ludicrous moments like the nude wrestling match between him and his producer Azamat (Ken Davilian) that spills out of their hotel room and well into public spaces.

Fewer of those sight gags exist in “Subsequent Moviefilm.” Save for an extended segment in which he quarantines with a pair of right-wing QAnon adherents, they have been replaced instead by situational humor, such as when Tutar swallows a plastic baby cake decoration and Borat rushes her to what he believes to be a doctor’s office. Naturally they land in crisis pregnancy center where father and daughter are counseled, not by a doctor but by Pastor Jonathan Bright. This evolves precisely as one expects it would.

Then there are the bits that have already made the news: Baron Cohen’s infiltrating the Conservative Political Action Conference in February dressed as Trump? They work their way to that, and a scene from a right-wing militia gathering in Washington state where Borat performed as Country Steve and got the audience to sing along to a racist ditty, starting with lyrics about injecting Obama “with the Wuhan flu.”

Gotcha moments like this and the Giuliani business don’t tell us anything we don’t already know. Instead, it’s what the context implies about America’s psychological state. The cringe comedy in the crisis center isn’t merely in the pastor’s misunderstanding about the nature of the baby inside Tutar’s stomach. It is his calm insistence in her keeping it there even after Tutar’s father tells him that he put it there. (He bought the cupcake, OK?)

But this is part of an escalating series of moments that show us who America is: a nation of very fine people who live and let prejudice flourish so long as it doesn’t disturb the status quo.

There’s the Texas baker who uses icing to pipe the words “Jews Will Not Replace Us” on a chocolate cake without batting an eyelash. There’s the shop owner who guffaws along with Borat when he asks that Tutar be directed to the “no means yes” dress section. There’s the spray tanning salon technician who, in response to Borat asking, “What color is best for racist family?” says without pause or reaction, “I wouldn’t go any darker than a six or a seven.”

All of these are women, by the way.

This leads up to savior in this narrative: Jeanise Jones, a Black woman Borat hires to look after Tutar and who ends up talking some sense in to her, starting with waking her up to the fact that her father has been lying to her. (And how.) Jones is the level-headed figure in a vast land of fools; she’s also playing to the trope of the Black woman savior utilized in the first “Borat” and touted in this election cycle. Placed in the context of everyone else Borat and Tutar encounter, though, she’s a cool clarifying drink in a desert of dumb and therefore welcome.

Evaluating the comedy value of “Subsequent Moviefilm” relative to the first “Borat” sets it up to lose, sad to say. It is enormously entertaining and, for the reasons listed above, a healthy treatment to whatever anxieties may be plaguing us a little more than a week leading up to the election. Whatever faults it has aren’t deadly, although it’s plain to see that the pandemic may have shifted the film’s ending in ways that don’t feel fully baked.

The most prominent difference between the “Borat” of 2006 and the 2020 “Subsequent Moviefilm” is in who America is now. Our inability to agree on basic facts has only worsened since Trump’s election in 2016, to say nothing of how decline and fall of basic critical thought has left us vulnerable to benevolent pranksters like Baron Cohen and outside forces who would mean us harm.

At the same time, there’s simply no getting around the fact that Kazakhstan receives little in the way of an image acquittal in this follow-up, an unavoidable and miserable result of alloying a problematic character to a place. If there’s a salvageable component to this, it is in how differently the sequel leaves us. When we first met Borat we comforted ourselves with the first-world notion that somehow we are better than people of so-called “lesser” nations.

Now it doesn’t allow the audience to be so sure of itself, implying in the final scene that we aren’t merely ugly Americans. We’re a once glorious nation being led by goons who are sliding us backward into diminishment, and dangerously so. That is nothing to laugh about. 

“Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery of Prodigious Bribe to American Regime for Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” is currently streaming on Amazon.

The post “Borat 2” makes an America slathered in misogyny and disinformation reckon with itself appeared first on Salon.com.