A Blue Wave Through Trump Country

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That's AvocadoGreenMatress.com to get up to 20% off, AvocadoGreenMatress.com. Everyone's clapping exhaustedly. That's the end of the broadcast. All right, I'm going to go in here. For years now, Americans have been kind of leery of trusting political polls. A big part of this is the Trump effect in 2016 that again in 2024. Donald Trump brought voters into the fold that did not often vote for Republicans or didn't often vote period. Polsters were kind of flummoxed. As a result, if a Democrat appears to be leading in the polls, Democrat voters are often the last to believe you. And even heading into last night, as Republicans feared the worst with concerns about the economy, a foreign war, and a deeply unpopular president, Democrats had this attitude of, "We'll believe it when we see it." Well, as polls closed, and midterm results started coming in, they started believing. We've got a race to call. John Ossoff has been reelected tonight. Congressman Chris Papis will now serve New Hampshire as their senator. Remember, Republicans held a three-seat advantage in the House, a four-seat advantage in the Senate. A year ago, they would have expected to expand that Senate lead. Several of the states in play did not just vote for Donald Trump. They voted for him emphatically, but as one seat flipped. North Carolinians, you have made your voices heard. And another, "Today, you have elected a senator that will always put South Carolina first." And another, "The House Democrats have taken back control of the United States Congress." It became clear that these polls for telling a Democratic victory weren't a mirage. If anything, those numbers only began to scratch the surface of how transformative a night this was about to become. "We just took back Texas." This morning, votes are still being counted, but we certainly know enough to tell you that not only will Democrats take control of the House in the new year, but they will control the Senate as well. President Trump has spent the last two years with Congress in his corner that ended decisively last night. "And I'll say it again, Iowa. You sure do love an underdog." Many of these races were not even particularly close, and the political state of play in this country suddenly looks very, very different. Welcome to a special edition of Start Here. I'm Brad Milke. Me and the team have just spent the last 10 hours here at ABC headquarters sifting through the data. And right now, we're going to catch up with our colleagues that were just on TV breaking this down in real time. Okay, we have just wrapped. This is why it's very loud right now, but I am at the place where it was all happening. These are the big boards. The sort of the digital sandbox where Rick Klein and Rachel Scott were zooming in and out all night. What a night. Rachel, first off, looking at your map here that you were shepherding all night, where were Democrats winning? I mean, I guess we're worth a winning, but tell me what was happening here. I mean, that's it. Where were they not winning? They were winning in districts that President Trump won by five. They were winning in districts President Trump won by 10. They were winning in districts that were re-drawn to be plus 17, and the Democrats were still winning all across the country, from the rural parts of this country to Texas, to New York, Florida, across the Rio Grande. This was a big night for Democrats, and we're still seeing the numbers come in right now. The number and the majority is only growing. Rick, the Senate? I mean, what did it take and what did Democrats get? Yeah, it's fascinating to me because we all went into this election cycle saying, there's no way Democrats take the Senate. They have to win all of these places that they have no chance of winning, and they won all of them, and then some. The fact that all of these other states came into view late, and that we weren't just talking about winning in a main, for instance, where Kamala Harris had won before, or North Carolina, or Georgia. They went beyond that, into the Iowa's, and the Texas's, and the Kansas's. It is just remarkable, Brad, that just two years after we saw this massive realignment in favor of Republicans, in favor of Donald Trump, we went so dramatically in the other direction. I feel like I could hear you guys' tones change, your voices change when South Carolina flipped. Was that the moment in, like, what's the significance of that? Yeah, I mean, when we started seeing it across the South, and then all of a sudden, Rick was bringing Mississippi into the conversation. That's like legitimately close. Yes, it may take a while to get sorted out, yeah. Yeah, I mean, who would have thought that we'd be talking about red South Carolina, red Kansas, red Mississippi on a night like this? Republicans still did win races, right? So I guess where was the cutoff? Where was the state that could have fallen, but didn't? Maybe in terms of the Senate. Yeah, Mississippi may be a what-if. Louisiana is another one that may be a what-if. Yeah, the idea that we're even talking about those states is pretty crazy, but I think there's going to be some, Montana is another misopportunity. There's no question if Democrats had done a better job clearing the field, but I mean, that's going to be kind of by the wayside of this, because it's such a sweeping Democratic victory. When I was going to say, like, and some of these states, like Florida, still stayed red for the Senate, but that was a state where Ron DeSantis won by 20 points, and now he has it. Exactly. That was just at the Cusp and just beyond the grass, but maybe next time for Democrats, that all looks different now in the light of this new reality. What about down ballot? What should I be paying attention to besides the Senate? We saw some very historic wins tonight when it came to the governor's race. As Byron Donald elected to be the first black governor from the state of Florida, also in Georgia, Keisha Lance Bottoms. This country has never seen a black female governor tonight. That history was made. Last question. What happened at redistricting? I thought that this was going to be the thing where the house stayed with Republicans, perhaps, because they literally re-drew the lines to help that happen. Yeah, redistricting backfired, and the reason why is because, and we're moving and we're walking out. People were going away from your mouth, they're kicking us out. I think it's quieter, but redistricting did backfire on Republicans. And here's why I think that happened, Brad. It's because people, you can redraw the maps anyway that you want, but you cannot escape people's political and economic reality. And when we look at the way that people were saying that the economy was driving them to the polls, that it was these sky-high gas prices and diesel prices across the nations, Republicans cannot outrun that. And that's what we saw happen. All right, Rachel Scott, from the big boards in the big studio, to our little hallway where we've been kicked out. Why would I always, as they break down the set? We've been kicked out of the studio. Thank you so much. Thanks, Brad. Okay, we're going to go to a quick break. When we come back, we will talk to our Democrat and Republican analysts about what this means for each party. This show is sponsored by Quince. The best pieces in your closet are the ones you can count on, whether you're heading to work, going out, or keeping things casual. 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Build your travel lineup for more than 40% off with this unique deal for start-hear listeners head to abcsecretsavings.com/starthear to get 40% off the lug bag that's right for you today that's abcsecretsavings.com/starthear Hey everyone, listen to the All's Fair official podcast. I'm your host, Evan Ross Katz. We'll sit down with the cast and unravel all of the irresistible drama of season two. People don't even know the half of what goes on. We wanted to die. Okay guys, let's give it to them. Watch and listen to the All's Fair official podcast. available on Hulu, Hulu on Disney Plus, and wherever you get your podcasts. And don't miss All's Fair Season 2, now streaming with Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for Bundle subscribers, Terms Apply. Welcome back, it is Brad here at election HQ in New York, as we still react to this absolute walloping by Democrats in last night's midterms. We've now learned that in Michigan, Abdu el-Sayed is projected to win the Senate seat there, that raises Democrats to 54 Senate seats with two races still hanging in the balance, and with that sizable victory comes real questions for Democrats, and perhaps existential questions for Republicans, so as live coverage wrapped, I hit up our analysts on set, including the former leader of the Republican Party in Congress, our ABC contributor, Kevin McCarthy. So I'm here with a former House Speaker, Kevin McCarthy, speaker, what happened tonight, and what went wrong, I guess, for Republicans? Well a lot went wrong, I mean they didn't have a clear message, I couldn't tell you the three things they were going to do if they won. You're given 24 months when you get the majority of the House, and they recessed more than any other congressional, I mean, they wasted this majority, that's why the leadership totally has to change in the House of Representatives, and now we're going to have to regroup, we lost in red states, there's no way around it. I was wondering, was there a certain thing when you looked at what voters were talking about, I'm sure they weren't talking about how many days guys were taking off, or going into recess, but what were voters crying out to you? Well you're missing the point then, if you're given 24 months, what do you do with it? You pass bills, and then you campaign on the bills you passed and somebody voted against it, somebody voted for it. Give them something to talk about. You were given 24 months, and then your argument is they're crazy, we're not, and then you say when the polls saying you're losing, you say no the polls aren't right, well that's not going to win, it's proven tonight, that didn't work, so you got to regroup, and then candidates matter, the quality of the candidates matter. I was going to say there were states where people would vote for a Democratic Senator, but a Republican governor, so what was the difference? The quality of candidates matter, and our candidates were not good, I give Democrats credit for who they recruited. Which ones? Where's good? Well, if you look from a stamp, or Paxton, it was the fundamental flaw that brought Tellerico up, if we had a good candidate there, you wouldn't even have been talking about Tellerico, and then Abbott would have won again, the whole world would have been a little different. What's the conversation going to be like this morning now for Republicans? Well, they're going to have to have a little soul searching and see where we go from here. We've been in this position before, Democrats have been in this position before. But President Trump's been around in the scene for the last 10 years, he won't be next election, I guess. No, you'll have a new president, like anything else, because you do two terms. So from that standpoint, we've got two more years to govern with this president, we've got to build up who's going to be our next nominee, but the House, you've got two years to go come back and win more seats. Speaker, thank you so much. Okay, so that was Speaker Kevin McCarthy, then we've got Faye Shakir, progressive political analyst, and advisor to the Bernie Sanders campaign, Faye's, what did you see tonight? Well, there's a blue wave, and the country spoke loudly, and said they rejected the direction that Donald Trump has been taking us. And now the opportunity is presented for the Democrats. The Democrats' party tonight showed that it was a working-class party. There was a rural revolt all across America, a rural revolt. So if you look at Ohio, you look at Kansas, you look at Texas, you have generally red-leaning people moving towards the Democratic side. Why? Data centers played a huge role, terrorists played a huge role, the farm economy was hurting a lot of people. You have all of those folks saying my life is getting harder, and now they've presented Democrats an opportunity to help us fix it. It's towards Democrats, you said, or is it just away from Donald Trump? Well, certainly a rejection of the Trump agenda that was driving tonight. Now it has presented many Democrats who have presented a pretty good alternative vision for themselves, James Tallerico, and Adam Hamilton, and so many others saying, trust in me, and I can provide you a vision that is different than Trump's, that you can hopefully believe that you will provide you health care, a better, decent standard of living. Now hopefully there's a political realignment in America, and we'll see where it goes. What do Democrats have power in both the chambers now? What do they do with that power? Is it impeachment time? Is that what we're talking about? You saw President Trump say tonight that maybe we can work together with the House Democrats and the Senate Democrats. I don't know what he has in mind, but I would say if you're in the Democrats shoes, and you say, I want to raise them from wage from $725 up to a living wage. Put it on the Trump's desk. What does he do? Do you know? Do I know? No one knows. What if you want a given that he'll veto every time? Exactly right. What if you wanted to raise the cap and expand Social Security benefits? Put it on the President's desk. Do you think he vetoes it? What if you wanted to expand health care? What if you wanted to put a data center moratorium in place? What do you want to put AI safety guardrails in place? So I think the opportunity here is for Democrats to present things in front of Trump to say, hey, go ahead and veto it. Let's see who you stand with. It's interesting because I do feel like a lot of Democrats have said, well, we know that it's not a given that we get something done because he could veto whatever it is a given that will be in charge of oversight committees, that will be in charge of impeachment proceedings if we wanted to go that direction. Do you think they will pursue things like that? Well, there certainly will be investigations. In fact, the new incoming share of the House oversight committee said, lawyer up. So I have no doubt that they'll be looking at a number of things that the President has done in his authoritarian manners to violate rules and to enrich himself. However, that is not going to be sufficient enough to speak to all the working class people who voted tonight to say, give me a sense that my own economic life can impertif. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Okay, you could hear the energy of the studio wrapping up on the broadcast there, but I do want to take a minute this morning, just breathe and figure out where exactly where this all changed for Republicans and for Democrats. So with that, let's go to Emily Gusskin, ABC's polling director who is at ABC's decision desk headquarters in Washington all night. Emily, you do more than just see the vote totals come in, right? You were watching voter polls around the country. What were they telling you? I was focused on voter polls, and I have a team of analysts helping me write analysis about what those voter polls are telling us. And we focused a lot on Senate races because the Democrats winning a majority in the Senate seems like a big story. I think a lot of people came into election day yesterday expecting the House to go blue, but not necessarily for so many Senate successes for Democrats. The Democrats will take control of the House. We can now also project at this hour that the Democrats will take control of the Senate as well. We'll start in Georgia where Democrat John Assof is projected to win. Georgia, we can and will reclaim control over our own destiny. He narrowly won his Senate seat in a runoff election in 2021, and he grew on a lot of those groups that supported him back then. About 6 and 10 Georgia voters disapprove of the way Trump is handling his job as president, and Assof won really a large majority of these folks, and that's something that we saw in a lot of these races. A lot of Americans, even in these states that we see as traditionally red or purple, like Georgia has become recently, a lot of voters disapprove of Trump. And is that like a general vibe? Like I just don't like the guy, or are there specific things that keep popping up where you're like, oh this is why they don't like him? They blame him for the state of the economy. They think his tariffs have worsened the economy both in their areas and in the country overall. I'm paying more taxes, I'm paying more for my health care, I'm paying more for everything. We ask a lot of economic questions on the voter poll, and people are really unhappy with the way things are going. They think things are too expensive, about 6 and 10 across a lot of the states we looked at, we're very concerned about the cost of gas, and about 6 and 10 in a lot of the places we looked at, we're very concerned about the cost of food and groceries. That's majorities of people in a lot of states, saying that basic expenses were big concern for them, and those are things that affect people in their day-to-day lives, and they think about. Pretend please, that I'm on the ballot, just come and vote it so important. When people are disillusioned or unhappy with leadership and blame leadership for what's happening, they turn against the party. So where was that like the most on display? Where was that the starkest tonight? Let's talk about Kansas a little bit. As mentioned, the Democrat there, Adam Hamilton, is projected to become the first Democrat to be elected to the Senate from Kansas since 1932. I think the people in Kansas Republicans and Democrats are saying what's happening in Washington is not okay. He won, based on winning over voters, he said they were angry about the way things are going in the country today. He won voters who disapprove of Trump, about half in Kansas, strongly disapprove of Trump. That's a pretty remarkable number to think about when you think about a state like Kansas. He also pulled off some Republican voters, 12% of Republicans in Kansas split and voted for Hamilton, nearly all Democrats supported him. It's not a state with a ton of Democrats, it's a pretty Republican state. state, but he pealed off some Republicans and independents supported him by more than 2 to 1 margin, but he pulled off 10% of Trump voter, 2024 Trump voters who vote for him. So these are the coalitions that these candidates have built. Working off of margins from previous elections, where Democrats were either not as successful or only marginally successful and winning by larger margins by appealing to a larger base of people, white voters, Republicans, people who may not have traditionally turned out for Democratic candidates who did this time in larger numbers than they have before. All right, Emily Guskin, our polling director after a huge night. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me. All right, and that will do it for us after a historic evening. Literally, as we post this, there are still new results coming in from further down the ballot across the country, so keep it on ABC News Live throughout the morning. We will be right back here tomorrow. I'm Brad Milky, see you then. Last October's brazen daytime heist at the Louvre was shocking. Now, nearly a year out, there are still critical questions to be answered. Where did they go? And second, where did they come from? 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