Last night Californians waited for hours in long lines to vote. They were on a mission to do one thing–vote yes on Proposition 50. When asked why one voters was waiting to vote in such a long line, he said, “I’m voting for my freedom.” Another voter said “I don’t like it that he wrecked the White House. After he did that nothing would have kept me away from voting.” Millions of Americans were there to register their resistance to Trump and the MAGAs and that surge for Democrats was replicated across the country.
The AP Voter Poll, which surveyed more than 17,000 voters in those places, found that most voters disapproved of Trump’s performance as president, and many thought his aggressive approach to immigration had “gone too far.”
Last night was huge win for the Democrats. They won big in two states that had been trending right in 2024. Last night reversed that rightward trend. Abigail Spanberger was elected governor of Virginia with a 13 point swing left, Mikie Sherrill was elected governor of New Jersey in an unpredicted landslide. The PA Supreme Court retention races were won by the three Democratic justices by large margins, shoring up the resistance to MAGAs in the purple state of PA. Prop 50 won in California by large margins. Zorhan Momdani was elected mayor of New York in a remarkable victory over Andrew Cuomo who had been endorsed by Trump and Musk at the last minute.
This was not just a big win for Dems at the top of the ticket, the Dems won down ballot races as well–the Virginia house gained 13 seats which will set it up as a bulwark against the MAGA Republican efforts to cheat to win in that state in the 2026 midterm elections. Even in red states like Mississippi there were local victories for the Dems. Perhaps most importantly, the gains Trump made with Hispanic, Black men, Asians and young voters moving to the right which got him elected in 2024, were erased in this election. Here’s one example:
Mikie Sherrill carried Hudson County, which is 40% Hispanic, by 50 points — a 22 point improvement from Harris’ showing.
That trend line was repeated across the country. What it means for the GOP is that even those re-gerrymandered seats in Texas along the border (there are two of them), are probably winnable by the Democrats given this massive shift.
REBUKE TO TRUMP
This election was a rebuke to Trump over his chaotic, wrecking ball approach to governance. It was a resounding smack down by the voters.
Americans voted for Trump and Republicans in the 2024 presidential election hoping to get a better economic situation for themselves and their families. Instead, they got a chaotic, unhinged self-centered dictator who literally and symbolically wrecked the East Wing of the White House to build himself a gold encrusted ballroom, is all in on masked ICE agents kidnapping American citizens including mothers and nannies along with law abiding immigrants off the streets of American cities, blows up fishing boats in the Caribbean Ocean claiming without evidence that he’s killing drug dealers, bails out Argentina and buys their beef which undermines American ranchers, slaps tariffs on and off other countries based on his whims of the day if he doesn’t like a Canadian TV ad he sees when he’s watching a baseball game, makes health care and housing unaffordable and holds a totally tone deaf lavish Great Gatsby roaring 20s costume party at his private golf club during the longest government shutdown in American history when federal workers are going without pay and people in need of SNAP benefits are going without food.
Trump 2.0 is Trump unleashed. He juiced the backlash he and the MAGAs are getting slammed with now.
Americans want their country back. They want a Congress that has balls and that puts the brakes on this out of control demented man. He has no one to blame but himself. But Trump, true to form, is blaming everyone but himself. He said one reason the Dems won big is because he was not on the ballot.
Commentators have been asking “what is the Democratic message?” This outcome clarified that message. It’s AFFORDABILITY. It’s The Economy, stupid!” But it’s also an anti-Trump message. Trump is hated by a majority of Americans now that they are experiencing Trump unleashed. The common denominator yesterday was that voters wanted Democrats to win.
Republicans have been exposed as Trump mini-mes who will help the ultra rich have better lives but not regular Americans. Some Americans who voted for Trump 2.0 in 2024 did not understand that Trump was not on Team Working American. Trump is on Team Billionaire. But this election tells us that Americans have figured it out.
The Dems have always had a big tent with squabbling factions. That has not changed. But Trump is the evil genius who is bringing those factions together, united against him and the damage he is doing to our country.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR THE MIDTERMS?
1. Are Young Men, Black men and Hispanics Still Trump Voters?
The question of whether young men, Black men and Hispanic voters who moved to the right and were instrumental in getting Trump elected in 2024 would stay wedded to Trump has been answered: They just filed for divorce. Hispanic voters, young men, Asian voters, Black voters. They all had moved to the right in 2024, but that was a mirage. Trump has lost that coalition for the Republicans probably for a very long time.
2. Do the Dems Need a Charismatic Leader?
The question of whether the Dems need a strong charismatic leader to rise up and lead the Dems out of the diaspora was also a red herring. Voters sent the message that they will vote for candidates who listen to them and that they trust to care about them.
Trump is charismatic in his own celebrity stand up comedian way- with his mean girl humor and his rambling confessions at his rallies. He is all about big performances, extravaganzas shiny objects and distractions. Americans might love celebrities and glitter, but when it comes to voting, I think Americans finally got the memo that a showman only goes so far. Trump was a con man populist. He was fools gold. I think Americans understand now that they got conned. I think they will be looking for candidates who truly care about helping working Americans, who follow the law, who are not corrupt, who are more steady and who will reimagine and rebuild a better future democracy.
3. Do the Dems have a message?
House Democrats have their playbook now. It’s pretty simple. They need to run cost of living and anti-Trump campaigns. They will do this in different ways depending on their own districts. They need to listen to what their voters are saying and explain how they are the answer to those needs.
Democrats also must fearlessly go to the most ruby red parts of their districts to hear from the MAGA base voters because those people are going to be hurting the most when Medicaid is gone, their rural hospitals have closed, and tariffs make everything too expensive for them. Given what Trump is doing to our farmers and ranchers, Democrats will be able to win back those voters too.
Dems should give thanks to Trump for the huge blue wave backlash he is creating. Trump won’t stop creating it either. He cannot help himself. He will do more crazy stuff and blame everyone but himself for the fall out.
4. What Does this Mean for Our Democracy?
Americans are relearning what a democracy is and what it requires of them. They are using a muscle they haven’t used much or maybe at all before in their lives because they thought government would just take care of itself and because they thought their vote wouldn’t affect much. They are realizing they can and they must vote and that their vote CAN affect the outcome of elections.
Politico just did a poll that supports that new idea permeating the electorate:
Nearly two-thirds of Americans — 65 percent — believe voting can make a real difference when the right leaders are elected, according to The POLITICO Poll conducted Oct. 18 to 21. Fewer than a quarter — 24 percent — say that no matter who is elected, things do not change.
The No Kings Rallies were powerful. The refusal of Americans to allow Jimmy Kimmel to be taken off the air was powerful. People in Chicago and Evanston and other towns under attack from ICE are standing up for their immigrant neighbors against ICE agents – using whistles and cell phone cameras to document what is happening, gathering in large peaceful groups to surround ICE agents when someone in the community is being attacked by Trump’s goon squad.
All of this has helped to convince more Americans that they must act if they hope to save our democracy. They cannot sit this out. We Americans are developing a resistance movement to Trump and the MAGA movement which is what we need to do to get through the next 3 years.
5. What Resistance Looks Like in Trump’s 2.0 Regime
Americans are realizing that it will be our mission to stand in line to vote even if that means standing for hours and even if we are nervous about what those military looking guys are doing hanging around our polling places. We get it that we have to cancel our Hulu and Disney subscriptions if that’s what it takes to keep free speech. If we need to save MSNBC hosts from being cancelled some day we can do without Amazon prime. We know that if someone in our neighborhood is being threatened by ICE we must get out the door and join our neighbors, our communities, take our whistles with us and use our cell phones to record everything. We can even try to calmly talk with the ICE agents and tell them to go away. (Many of these agents don’t like what they are being told to do and are good people who are trying to make money to help their own families).
I believe that Americans are gonna do what they need to do to reclaim our democracy. Voters will be on a mission in 2026 to reclaim our country from Trump and the MAGA extremists and install every possible Democrat up and down the ballot. The goal is to convince MAGA Republicans that they should stop pandering to Trump and stand up to him in Congress. Our country is under siege. There is no other way to get this MAGA fever to pass. MAGAs have to lose election after election.
6. This Was Coming for a Long Time
Trump would have done the damage he is doing now in his first term if he had not had all the minders in his cabinet who stopped him. Those minders are gone. Nobody is putting baby in the corner. Trump 2.0 is Trump unleashed.
Trump’s unleashed corruption is incredibly, truly astounding. His crypto scams alone have netted him billions. Trump’s defiance of the law is disgusting. The level of pandering to Trump has been nauseating. Americans were shocked or cowed at first as news organizations, companies and law firms caved to Trump’s will and obeyed in advance. Voters wanted to give Trump the benefit of the doubt. Where was the resistance? Nowhere. It was puny. But that honeymoon is over.
Countries that save their democracies from a coup like this have had to create a counter movement to rise up to resist their fascist government. I have been wondering if our country had the capacity to develop this counter movement, this resistance movement to Trump and the MAGAs. Were Americans willing to turn their backs on their constitutional democracy as long as they could personally get by and survive the regime? Were we a country of “good Germans?”
But this election gave me the answer I hoped for. I think Americans do understand the danger. And I think we are up to the job.
We are starting to flex our collective muscle in resistance. Americans now realize this important truth: We are the ones we have been waiting for.
