Republicans Got Pummeled In The Midterms, But Dems Will Overplay Their Hand

Tuesday was an awful day for Republicans. It was worse for the republic. As GOP Sen. Roger Marshall can attest, we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto. We’re heading toward Havana. Marshall lost his reelection bid, a dependable Republican seat Sunflower State Democrats flipped for the first time in nearly a century. Marshall’s defeat was part of a midterm shellacking that cost Republicans control of Congress. As in Kansas, the political bloodletting was historic nationwide. Red Texas elected a Democrat to the Senate for the first time since 1988. Incumbent Republican Greg Abbott got the boot after three terms as governor of the Lone Star State. In ruby red South Carolina, the late Sen. Lindsey Graham’s baby sister, Darline Graham, became the first Republican to lose a Senate seat in nearly 30 years — in a state President Donald Trump won by 18 points in 2024. Democratic Party cheerleader The Atlantic described it as the “Unlikeliest Democratic Win of All.” In Iowa, the heart of Trump country, the all-Republican congressional delegation was gutted, with Democrats winning three of four House seats and grabbing the open senate seat held by retiring GOP Sen. Joni Ernst. The Hawkeye State will have a Democrat governor for the first time in 20 years. As ballots continued to trickle in early Wednesday morning, Michigan kept its Senate delegation blue, this time electing an Islamocommunist who embodies the growing red-green alliance. Texas’ newly elected senator, James Talarico, who has said God is nonbinary and that there are six genders, puts the trans in transformational election. He and many other Democrat victors came into their respective races with a lot of far-left baggage but reinvented themselves as “moderates” for an electorate that had pushed back against radical politics. Apparently they could have dropped the act. ‘Lawyer Up’ Voters didn’t just reject Republicans, they opened their arms wide to a socialist movement antithetical to foundational American values. Said voters are about to find out that modern-day Marxism is no fix for inflation. That goes for the dwindling moderates and independents upset over higher gas prices and neocon-style military adventurism. And for the conservatives who sat out the midterms disgusted by a Republican Party and a president that strayed from the agenda that got them elected. High on the priority list is to take Barack Obama’s ill-named Affordable Care Act and transform it into Medicare for All, single-payer health care in the hands of bigger big government. Dr. Joel Zinberg, director of the Paragon Health Institute’s Public Health and American Well-Being Initiative, estimates the expensive healthcare scheme would add as much as $47 trillion in federal spending over a decade. That’s a strange idea of affordability, but it fits socialism to a T. But it appears the first order of business compliments of the “blue surge” will be politically weaponized purges — 2021 style. Just the way old Uncle Joe Stalin liked them. “Noem, Markwayne, Miller, Homan, Bovino, what’s up? Clear your schedule,” gloated Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., an ICE de-funder with impeachment fever, after Tuesday’s victory. Noem, Markwayne, Miller, Homan, Bovino, what’s up? Clear your schedule.— Congresswoman Delia C. Ramirez (@repdeliaramirez) November 4, 2026 “LAWYER UP,” Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, declared on X. Will there be enough time for all of that “free healthcare,” packing the Supreme Court, jettisoning the Senate, and reopening the border between impeachments and criminal prosecutions? What about lowering gas and diesel prices? That’s a tall order from the party of the Green New Deal and its trillions in wasted tax dollars and the higher energy prices it wrought. Even in what promises to be a lame-duck final two years of Trump 2.0, the president still packs the power of the veto pen, and he’s already pledged he will use it liberally. ‘All the Wrong Conclusions’ While the midterms turned out disastrous for Trump and the Republicans, there is a sliver lining, according to a national conservative activist. Success will surely go to the left’s head, Ned Ryun, founder and CEO of American Majority, said this week on The Federalist Radio Hour. Just as it did in 2020 and 2022. Democrats, Ryun said, “will draw all the wrong conclusions” about their newfound power, and they won’t be able to control themselves. They will show the American people just what they’re made of, and that likely will prove catastrophic for a left-lurching Democratic Party. Ryun believes a lot of neocons in the Republican Party establishment will do the same, screaming that MAGA doesn’t work, that the GOP needs to abandon America First principles. “No, all that we need to do is go back to why we were elected, and that’s affordability, the economy, mass deportations,” the grassroots leader said. “Let’s forget the foreign policy larks that we’ve been on recently, get back to doing what we promised voters and I think you could actually see this thing turn around in the next six to nine months.” Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin. Darlene GrahamDemocratsElection DayElectionsGreg AbbottIowaJames TalaricKansasPresident Donald TrumpRepublicansSen. Joni ErnstSen. Roger MarshallTexas