For Trump, the midterms delivered what Congress wouldn’t: accountability | Editorial

The better angels won — again.

Just when it seemed all hope was lost, the American people on Election Day 2026 rejected the hatred, fear, and division sown by Donald Trump over the past decade. Empathy, compassion, and shared national identity triumphed over chaos, corruption, cruelty, and incompetence.

Somewhere, Abraham Lincoln is smiling.

Trump pleaded with Americans to pretend he was on the ballot. And they did, bigly.

Across the country — in red states and blue — voters backed Democrats, who took control of the House, Senate, and multiple governors’ mansions, including Pennsylvania. Gov. Josh Shapiro and Democrats now apparently command Harrisburg.

The midterm election was a massive and complete rebuke of Trump and all his anger, hate, greed, and costly policies.

Despite relentless efforts by the president and his enablers to alter the election outcome — through mid-decade gerrymandering, legal threats, voter suppression, money-for-vote offers, and baseless and exhausting claims of voter fraud — Americans peacefully waited in line, quietly mailed in their ballots, and carried out their civic duty.

The result was a resounding denunciation of everything Trump has said and done over the past two years. Americans are tired and fed up with his war, pocket lining, tariffs, cruel and senseless immigration enforcement, wasteful and often illegal Washington construction projects, selling out of allies, attacks on science and research, and trampling of the rule of law.

The proof was in the ballot box.

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Turnout was huge, underscoring the power of one person, one vote to make a difference.

Democrats won Senate races in deep-red states like Texas, South Carolina, Iowa, and Kansas, where they have not been competitive for decades. The romp is not over, as Senate races in Mississippi and Alaska remain up for grabs.

The results were historic, signaling Americans still appreciate the benefits of diversity over racism, misogyny, and hate. Abdul El-Sayed (D., Mich.) withstood vile attacks by Trump, JD Vance, and others to become the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Senate, while Chris Pappas of New Hampshire became the first openly gay man elected to the Senate.

Meanwhile, Gina Hinojosa will be the first Latina governor in Texas and first Democrat to win that office since 1990. Keisha Lance Bottoms beat billionaire Rick Jackson to become the first Black female governor in Georgia. And Deb Haaland in New Mexico became the first Native American elected governor in the U.S.

The Democratic candidates were outspent in nearly every race, yet they overcame relentless attack ads filled with lies, fear, racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, and hate.

Trump tried to energize his base with rallies in red states filled with profanity, antisemitic tropes, baseless threats of jihadists and communists, and a strange obsession with men’s physiques. But the MAGA magic dust was not enough to distract from $6-a-gallon diesel.

In the end, a parade of Trump-backed sycophants, phonies, hacks, and incompetents were thrown out of office or rejected, including Ken Paxton in Texas, Vivek Ramaswamy in Ohio, Darline Graham in South Carolina, Susan Collins in Maine, and Scott Perry in Pennsylvania.

Many of the Republican losers backed Trump’s war, tariffs, and tax cuts for the rich that have resulted in higher prices, interest rates, and inflation. The GOP enablers shrugged as Trump enriched himself, his family, friends, and corporations while the president’s policies hurt farmers, senior citizens, minimum wage workers, and recent college graduates.

Democrats won by such wide margins in nearly every competitive race that Trump meekly said he would accept the results. Even for the man who cried election fraud almost daily and sicced the U.S. Department of Justice on election officials, the mandate from voters was too big to rig.

For one night at least, millions of voters beat billions of dollars. Billionaires, big corporations, and law firms that shamelessly cozied up to Trump endured a well-deserved shellacking. But the threat of oligarchs remains and must be confronted.

We the people trounced trillionaire Elon Musk, who poured nearly half a billion dollars of his highly government-aided fortune into backing losers in Texas and beyond. Musk remains a foreign and domestic policy danger, with the power to meddle in wars and elections while spreading his toxic hate and racist ideology on social media. Not to mention his destruction of government operations during his brief and failed tenure running the dubiously legal Department of Government Efficiency.

Democrats would be wise to use their newfound power to put a stop to the flood of money corrupting politics. Democrats must also focus on the needs of average voters and not special interests.

Voters have given Democrats a golden opportunity to remake the party, rebuild the country, and stop Trump’s madness and corruption.

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Democrats must use their newfound power to work to lower prices, restore healthcare cuts, end the Iran war, regulate artificial intelligence, rein in data centers, release all of the Epstein files, tame the deficit, tax the ultra-rich, pass real immigration reform, invest in research, undo gerrymandering, back Ukraine, confront climate change, stop the deportation cruelty, and investigate Trump’s self-dealing.

The list is long, and the damage is great.

But the voters have spoken. They rejected the wannabe king and demanded the American Experiment continue.

Hopefully, this marks the beginning of the end for MAGA.

Trump, increasingly incoherent, remains a danger. But after a decade of dragging the country and the world through hell, he is officially a lame duck.

It took some longer to realize that Trump ain’t making America great.

Now it’s time for the better angels to get to work.