Red, White and Who? A Blue Tsunami

"After months of campaigning, the election is over, and the results are decisive, Democrats took the House and the Senate. This is a major victory for the Democratic Party, or a whole? Democrats are winning and seats all over the country, flipping seats from red to blue. In the Senate, Democrats flip Republican seats in Ohio, Maine, Texas. This could be the blue Senate seat that Democrats have talked about in Texas for a long time, turning Texas blue. Iowa, Kansas, and this is a once in a generation, and then some victory. The Democrat, Adam Hamilton, the Methodist preacher from Kansas City, will prevail in the Senate race. And both North and South Carolina. Democrat, Dr. Andy Andrews, is going to win the Senate seat in South Carolina, pulling off a shocking upset. I don't think you can understate how good of a night. It's been for the Democrats, and honestly, it's kind of shocking. Chris Matthews is the Wall Street Journal's politics editor. When we saw the numbers coming out of Texas and other places, it was really jaw dropping. So it seems like we've got like a blue tsunami on our hands. I think it's safe to call it a blue tsunami at this point, absolutely. What is your biggest takeaway, and when you look at these results? I think there's no way to read it other than a rebuke of Trump. Researchers said they were upset with the economy, they said they were upset with the Iran War, and the president told voters to pretend he was on the ballot, and it seemed like they took him up on that. From the journal, this is Red, White, and Who. Our series about the road to the midterms. I'm Ryan Knudsen. It's Wednesday, November 4th. Coming up on the show, The Blue Sunami. So why do you think Democrats did so well? It is a surprising outcome, particularly in the Senate, where the map was really stacked against them. A lot of these races were in deep southern states that Trump won by large majorities, which makes the victory all the more surprising. In some ways, I think they won in spite of themselves. Our polls have showed that the Democratic Party is still deeply unpopular. Again, I think it's all about Trump at the end of the day. And I think in particular, it's about the state of the economy and high prices that in many ways are a direct result of the war in Iran. Mm-hmm. One of the most surprising races to me, which is in South Carolina, Lindsey Graham's sister, Darleen Graham, lost the Senate seat to Democrat Annie Andrews, was South Carolina even on your radar is one that might go Democrat? But honestly, it hadn't been, and then in the last few weeks, our reporters started saying South Carolina is actually in play. We sent a reporter down there last week who spent time with Darleen Graham. She indicated she'd sort of grudgingly gotten into the race and wasn't really enjoying herself. And I think it's an example of Trump bucking common sense standard protocol and picking a completely untested candidate who'd never run for a major office like this and thrusting her into the national spotlight just after her brother had died. Another really surprising result is Texas, James Tallariko, one ascendancy for a Democrat for the first time there since 1988, and not only that, a Democrat also won the governorship. In some ways, I think that's the biggest story of the night. I mean, Texas is the ruby red beating heart of the modern Republican party. I lived there for 10 years, was born there, and I'm still kind of finding it hard to believe how well Democrats have done there tonight. The fact that Tallariko won so convincingly is really surprising. Perhaps even more surprising is that, you know, OSA is going to be the governor of that state. This is a shocking country changing political event that will be unpacking for a long while. How do you think Democrats are able to pull it off in Texas? I think there were a few things at play. I think one Paxton is probably one of the most flawed candidates in modern political history. He has a litany of scandals that have dogged him for years. Trump endorsed him over incumbent Senator John Cornyn, who probably would have been a much stronger candidate, seemingly because Paxton was very popular with the MAGA base, and yet, even after he endorsed him, Trump would make fun of Paxton, talk about how he didn't like how he dresses, how he didn't like how he looks. So you had a really flawed candidate on the Republican side of the leisure. And I think Tallariko ran a really good campaign. He was able to invoke religion and speak to voters about Christianity in a way that you haven't seen in Texas Democrat doing a long time. Republicans painted him as far left progressive and pointed to past statements he made about supporting trans athletes and other things that are sort of outside the mainstream within Texas. And he managed to kind of move to the middle and portray himself as a moderate. And that's no small thing in Texas. One of the things also that's interesting about the Texas races, that Elon Musk poured a ton of money into that campaign. Does this say anything about Elon Musk's political influence? I think it does. I mean, interestingly, in the final weeks of the campaign, Tallariko made a point of saying that he was running against Elon Musk that should vote for him because we can't let Elon Musk control Texas politics. I think another interesting dynamic there is so much of Elon's empire is based in Texas now, SpaceX, other companies, and with a Democratic governor in power that could really affect his business. Yeah, I was going to say there's a little bit of an irony that the Elon Musk left California sort of statically because of Democratic control. And now he lives in Texas and there's a Democrat in the Senate, a Democrat in the governor's mansion. You know, I think he would be shocked if you'd told him a week ago this was going to be the outcome. The economy has obviously been a big factor for voters. Where did you see that show up in the results? I think it was a factor across the country. But if you want to look at places like the Midwest where Democrats scored big victories in Kansas and Iowa, we've been writing about how farmers have been struggling with high fuel prices, high fertilizer prices. All that is connected to the Iran war and it seems like voters directly connected the dots to Trump and his policies on that. So it seems like what we've seen in places like Kansas and Iowa is that the economy was enough to cause some Republican voters to break away from Trump. That's right. I mean, I think Trump has had a hold on the Republican Party for a better part of the decade, but he's always been able to rest his laurels on a strong economy. And when he is presiding over an economy that Americans believe is not helping them and they're feeling it in their checkbooks and they're talking about it at the kitchen table, they turned on him. And at that point, party loyalty doesn't matter when you can't pay your bills. Another interesting result was in Ohio where we saw that Democrats shared Brown make opposition to AI data centers, a centerpiece of his campaign, and he won. How big of a factor do you think data centers were in this election nationwide? I think it was a really big issue. This is something that is broadly unpopular with Republicans and Democrats. We see it in our polling. It factored in terraces in Ohio, it factored in terraces in Texas where Governor Greg Abbott had been a big booster of data centers and it seems to be among the most bipartisan issues in the country that Americans are uncomfortable with data centers. They're uncomfortable with the speed of the AI build out. And it'll be interesting to see now with a new order in Washington whether there'll be bipartisan measures implemented that restrict the AI build out. What does this mean for the AI industry? Do you think it could lead to a slowdown? I mean, I think that's clearly what voters want. And I think if you run an AI company, you run a big tech company today, you're probably sweating it out a bit. One of the interesting dynamics is that the AI trade is propping up the economy in many ways. And so where we go from here, how that ripples through the stock market is going to be really interesting to watch. One of the big stories of 2026 was all the redistricting efforts that were taking place around the state is largely Republicans but Democrats as well, we're trying to redraw [BLANK_AUDIO] to pick up more seats. Did any of that seem to make a difference at all? We're still unpacking that, but actually in early results, in a lot of places, it looked like it backfired for Republicans. In Texas, we're seeing districts that were gerrymandered on the premise that Republicans would be able to add five seats, going Democrat. There's a term out there that's known as dummy mandering, where you undertake this effort, and it has the exact opposite effect of what you wanted, and right now, it's looking like this red firewall that Republicans thought they were building with this gerrymandering effort is falling far short of that. Why is that? I mean, did they draw the maps wrong? I think you have to look at each district, but for example, in Texas, a lot of the gerrymandering was premised on the idea that Hispanic voters who had moved to Trump in 2024 were going to stick with the Republican Party and that they could safely drop those districts counting on those voters, and that's looking like it's not a safe proposition. We've also talked a lot on our series about how there's a fight over the future of the Democratic Party. Should it moderate or should it lean more progressive? One of the biggest tests for this is in Michigan with Abdul El-Sayed versus Mike Rogers. Those results aren't in yet as of this conversation around one in the morning, but is there anything else in the results tonight across the country that helps answer that question of which path forward is the correct one for the Democrats? I think it's probably going to be unsettled, and as much as tonight is a massive victory for Democrats, and we shouldn't understate that this battle is going to continue to play out. And I think both sides are likely to have data points that they can say prove that their candidates can win. Abdul El-Sayed is ahead at the moment by about five points in Michigan. If he wins there, it would be the biggest win bar none for the far left. It would prove in their minds that a far left candidate can win in a competitive general election in a purple state. And so the Democrats are going to feel really good tomorrow morning, but this fight is going to play out, and I think it's far from settled. Shortly after we recorded this conversation, by the way, the race was called for El-Sayed. We built a movement, government of the people, about the people and for the people. We showed that in a battle between the money and the money, that the money really can win. Now that Democrats have control of Congress, what do you expect the final two years of the Trump presidency to look like? This will usher in an era of divided government. And Trump has actually never had both chambers of Congress controlled by the opposition party. And so it's a total reset. I mean, he dominated Washington and national politics for the first two years of his term, and this completely changes the dynamic. That's next. (dramatic music) Now that we have a clear picture of the battles of power in Congress, what sort of fights does this set up for Trump over the next two years? - I think it sets up potentially a multi-faceted war and battles on an array of fronts. Democrats are going to feel pressure to investigate most aspects of his administration, the war in Iran, immigration policy, but also his family and his business interests and the perception of corruption throughout the administration. And I think it's going to be a big question for Democrats how far they want to push on that. And it's going to be a big question for Trump about how hard he pushes back. - Yeah, the incoming House oversight chair, the Democrat Robert Garcia put out a statement that just said lawyer up, which certainly suggests that they want to be opening in some investigations. - There's no doubt there's going to be investigations and that comment of lawyer up was the first salvo in what's going to be probably a two-year battle on this front. I mean, another thing looming over all of this is do they try to impeach the president? We know how that played out last time at Backfire. But they're going to be voices in the Democratic party that want to do that. - Do you have any sense of what democratic priorities are going to be? I mean, obviously they've got to deal with a Trump video that could block any legislation that they could pass. But what do you think that they might try to focus on other than investigations into the Trump administration? - So I think they're going to be really focused on health care costs. They picked a fight with the president over the Affordable Care Act premiums. I think you'll see them try to roll back or even dismantle Trump's Tara Fregime. Again, that's tricky. In some ways, protectionist policies are popular with segments of their base. How far they want to go into free trade is going to be a big question for the party. Another big focus I think is going to be Israel. A lot of the party in general has become broadly opposed to Israel's actions and Gaza in the Middle East. I think it's going to be very difficult to get an aid package through a Democratic control congress for Israel. - How difficult do you think it'll be for the Democratic party to handle the rising force of progressivism within its party? - Do you think the moderate and more central wings will be able to work with the progressive left? - I think that's one of the big questions. You're going to have about six or so Democratic Socialists members of Congress. That's a first. You are potentially going to have extremely progressive far left senators in office. And so the party has moved further to the left than perhaps ever before. They, at the moment, have been saying things about working together and having a big tent party. But there are really substantive policy disputes between these two sides. And if you reach a point where Democratic Socialists aren't getting what they want out of a speaker Jeffries, out of a leader, Schumer, what's going to happen? I think we're going to have to watch that closely. - What do you think the lesson is for Republicans? - I think Republicans find themselves in a really difficult position. For the last decade, the way to win a race, to hold on to power, was to ride Trump's co-tales. Tonight voters said that doesn't work anymore. However, Trump is still very popular with a large segment of the Republican base. So if you're Republican, you have to calculate, do I still need to wed myself to the president to get through a primary? Or is this the moment where he is truly a lame duck president? And I break from him, and the party can move on to something else. - In a phone call, President Trump told the Wall Street Journal that he rejected the notion the results were a review of his presidency. He said, quote, "The biggest issue is that I wasn't on the ballot." What do you think the takeaways are for Democrats? - I think they have to be cautious not to be overconfident and thinking they were handed a mandate. We've seen Democrats make this mistake before in the midterms under President Joe Biden's presidency. He interpreted the outcome there as a desire for voters for him to run for president again. And as we know, that was not the case. And while this is a huge night for Democrats, their party is still deeply unpopular. And so I think they have to make sure that they don't get out of step with the American voter again. And make sure that they're sticking to their message on affordability, improving the economy. Those seem to be the things that voters really want them to focus on. - And I also wonder like how much can these results be extrapolated forward? And the same way the Republicans thought that there were elements of this new coalition that they'd built around Trump based on 2024, that don't look like they're really holding right now. You know, how much can Democrats actually sort of take away about how much political power they have in the US? - It's a huge deal that they are going to have what looked to be really strong majorities in the House and if we take in the Senate. At the same time, Trump still controls the White House. He has veto power. So their ability to legislate is probably going to be limited. I think more than anything, they're going to serve as a check on the president, but it's going to be difficult for them, probably to deliver on sweeping healthcare reform on, you know, massive entitlement programs on the kinds of things that they've promised voters. So that's going to be their challenge. They've made a bunch of promises, but they don't control the entire government and their ability to deliver on them is limited. (gentle music) That's all for today. Wednesday, November 4th. Red Wedden Who is part of the journal, which is a co-production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal. This episode was produced by Matt Kwong and Pierce Singy. It was edited by Catherine Brewer, audio engineering by Peter Leonard. I'm Ryan Knutzen. Our theme music is by So Wiley and remixed by Peter Leonard. So thanks to Joshua Jamerson, Sarah Platt, and the whole journal team. The journal will be back with a regular episode this afternoon. See you then.