More than $250 million in Trump spending failed to avert candidate losses
Voters nationwide were in the mood for change, according to The AP Voter Poll, which found that roughly three-quarters felt “angry” or “dissatisfied” with the country’s direction. Among those who had Trump in mind when they voted, about twice as many wanted to express opposition to him as wanted to support him. Most in that group also blamed his administration for high costs; about 6 in 10 said higher-than-usual prices were “more because of Trump’s policies.”
These findings came as Democrats won Senate seats in South Carolina, Texas and Kansas — longtime Republican bastions — and will control the House and Senate beginning in 2027. AP said the magnitude of the results was hard for Democrats who had tempered their expectations after painful losses to comprehend. As votes were still being counted, Keisha Lance Bottoms in Georgia and Gina Hinojosa in Texas posted dominant victories in governor’s races that even the most optimistic forecasts had narrowly favored. James Talarico similarly dispatched Republican Ken Paxton with relative ease to become the first Democrat to win a Texas Senate seat since 1988.
The scale of those victories could mark “a profound pivot in American politics,” AP said. The results would place a Black woman in Georgia’s governorship, a state AP described as “both the heart of the Confederacy and the soul of the Civil Rights Movement,” and a Latina in Texas’s governorship. In Texas, AP said Trump’s strict immigration enforcement had rocked communities from the Rio Grande Valley to Houston.
AP called Tuesday’s elections “a categorical repudiation” of a Republican president who had spent the first half of his second term governing “without regard to consequences.” AP wrote that Trump had “defied the rules of politics that applied to everyone else” for more than a decade, then wrote, “No more.” The analysis said this time Trump “couldn’t make the sale” and voters “forcefully rejected him.”
Republicans whom Trump expressly “lifted to the ballot” and campaigned fiercely for, including Darline Graham in South Carolina, Michael Whatley in North Carolina and Paxton, lost. AP said the coalition of young, Black and Latino voters that had propelled Trump two years earlier swung decisively toward Democrats.
Trump pumped more than $250 million into Republican campaigns, and millions more came from donors including Elon Musk, AP reported. The money was not enough to fend off losses, the analysis said. AP also wrote that the “coarse brand of politics” Trump had long heralded met its limits.
In Ohio, Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy had sought to revive his governor campaign with an advertisement featuring negative comments from the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent, Dr. Amy Acton. Acton won, and AP said Ramaswamy was “not particularly gracious in defeat.” He said, “I have to tell you I have some serious concerns about the future direction of our country.” AP described the reaction as the exception to the broader Republican acceptance of election results.
In Wisconsin, Tom Tiffany, who had objected to certification of the 2020 presidential election, conceded his governor’s race to David Crowley. AP described Trump as “unusually congratulatory” of Democrats, saying the party did a “good job” and blaming GOP candidates for their loss. Sen. John Cornyn, whom Trump had refused to endorse in the Texas primary against Paxton, applauded Talarico and pledged to try to help him.
Trump entered the midterms after surviving scandal, impeachments and a criminal conviction, and AP said he approached the vote as yet another hurdle “he could clear with the sheer force of his personality.” He insisted the economy was fine and the war in Iran was needed to avoid nuclear war. AP said his unilateral tariffs undermined the economy and that he started a war in Iran that spiked fuel prices and angered Americans who did not approve of U.S. involvement in the kind of Middle East conflict he had promised to avoid. AP also said Trump earned billions in outside investments and focused on Washington renovations that showed “little empathy for those struggling financially.”
Even Trump, who still refused to accept his loss in the 2020 presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden, did not dispute the 2026 results. AP said Democrats who will control the House and Senate beginning in 2027 could claim a mandate to shift Washington in a new direction. Roy Cooper, the Democrat who flipped a Senate seat in North Carolina, said, “We knew that the chaos and corruption in Washington (was) hurting our people.” He added, “Today, you said this has to stop. And as your new United States senator, I am ready to take that message to Washington.”
AP said claiming a mandate and executing on it were different challenges, and that Democrats will have difficulty delivering on policy promises so long as Trump holds the power of the veto. Trump also could no longer rely on compliant Republican leaders, and party members who lost were likely to become more openly critical during their remaining months in office. AP said the reordering of power in Washington had the potential to signal that Trump’s era of dominance was waning.
After the decisive victory, the burden would soon be on Democrats to prove they could govern effectively. The party had pledged to investigate Trump but would have to navigate calls to also impeach him, which AP said could drain valuable time. AP said there would also be pressure to prove Democrats could pass significant legislation addressing healthcare, high prices and measures to rein in presidential power.
Rep. Jared Moskowitz, a Florida Democrat who won reelection to a House seat Republicans sought to redraw in their favor, said, “We have to deliver for the American people on getting costs down.” He said, “That is the mandate” for Democrats on Capitol Hill. Asked what would happen if the president vetoed Democratic legislation, Moskowitz said, “Let him do that. Let him still tell the American people affordability is a hoax.”
Associated Press writer Bill Barrow contributed to the report.