A primary focus during the Democrats’ midterm election campaign was the insurgency of emboldened socialists looking to draft off the successful campaign of Zohran Mamdani for mayor of New York. Sure, President Donald Trump’s approval had been sinking for months, but wouldn’t a silver wave of senior voters who lived through the days of the Soviet Union and Castro’s Cuba show up and vote down the far-left nationwide or at least in traditionally red pockets? Would the old folks be enough to cancel out so many young Americans drawn to socialism? Could the Dems withstand the charge that they had surrendered to the same progressive forces that brought them low in 2024 and that they remain committed to fundamentally transforming the country we know and love? Many thought some of these far-left candidates might survive Tuesday night, but few predicted that it would be a truly glorious night for the forces of collectivism.
And yet here we are, having witnessed a midterm slaughter of epic proportions, with socialists and socialist-aligned candidates succeeding beyond their wildest expectations. But what will linger from this night of reckoning for the Republicans is the shocking level of acceptance of these outspoken far-left candidates among everyday Americans in the heartland. With many Republican-leaning voters staying home to send a message of disappointment to Trump, Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan and James Talarico in Texas were able not only to win but also to romp. Kansas elected its first Democrat to the Senate since 1932. That’s 94 years, folks.
Everywhere you looked was a graveyard for Republicans. A three-seat majority in the Senate vanished into the wind. Nearly every single swing district in the House, bar perhaps one or two still being counted, went blue. Democrats gained a majority of governorships for the first time in two decades.
Socialism in Texas?
The most damaging to the GOP was undoubtedly the utter disaster in Texas, where Democrats are now living the dream after dismantling the Republicans’ firm hold on the state. With Texas steadily becoming less white and more brown and now overrun with people fleeing California, Democrats have spent tremendous energy in recent years attempting to finally get over the hump in the Lone Star State. And they did so Tuesday night in a big way, electing not just James Talarico to the Senate but, even more shocking, far-left Gina Hinojosa as governor, and completing a clean sweep by winning the races for attorney general and lieutenant governor. Not to sound overly dramatic, but it is probably time for Republicans to panic over the 40 electoral votes in that once-red state without which they cannot win the presidency. But that is a subject for another day.
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The magnitude of the slaughter is hard to fathom but leads to an inescapable conclusion: American voters writ large are less scared of, and more open to, socialism than Republicans thought they were. The GOP tried to whip voters into a frenzy over socialist extremism but failed because voters evidently took it as a smokescreen to change the subject from the war in Iran and the high cost of living.
We have seen surveys reflecting this fact for some time, but this election drove home the message with impunity: We are approaching the point where more Americans are scared of capitalism than those who fear socialism. Is it any wonder, given the indoctrination of impressionable young people in academia, which is not subject to public scrutiny and is thus free to exert lasting collectivist influence on them? Did we think all those years of propaganda driven into the brains of the youth, free of open debate, would have no lasting impact?
The Red Rebellion
The shocking outcome of these midterms was largely a product of what might be termed a red rebellion against Trump. Millions of reliably Republican voters stayed home to send their message of displeasure. The GOP field contained too many “lazy and crappy candidates,” as longtime Republican strategist and former Trump senior counselor Kellyanne Conway said on Fox News. And while she didn’t name names, many others are pointing at candidates Trump hand-picked or endorsed in the primaries: Ken Paxton in Texas, Mike Collins in Georgia, Michael Whatley in North Carolina, and especially Darline Graham, sister of the late Lindsey Graham, in South Carolina.
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The losers in wave elections such as this are left to ponder what went so terribly wrong. The aftermath has been marked by Trump insisting that if he were on the ballot, Republicans would have won. This represents a severe detachment from political reality. Proclaiming to voters that we are in the midst of a golden age when they are struggling to make ends meet was a mistake of epic proportions, the very thing Joe Biden did when inflation was soaring. Saying Republicans should act as if he is on the ballot, while he is so unpopular right now, was an equally dramatic misstep. It brought to mind 2020, when he advised his supporters not to vote by mail while Democrats piled up a huge advantage.
Most Republicans were girding their loins for a rough night, but while they might have expected a mild shake-up, what came was an earthquake that instantly changed the entire balance of power in Washington. It would take a great deal of anger for voters to do a 180 from two years ago and welcome back the very progressives they banished back then. But the fact that they did proves that their fury runs deep, so deep that they would rather let progressives rule than vote for a Republican tied to Trump. If that message doesn’t cut to the core of the GOP meltdown, it’s hard to imagine what would.
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