Tuesday marked the first major election night since November 2024, and to put it frankly, it was a bloodbath for Republicans. This was a 2018-level obliteration in races across the country. The only saving grace was that off-year elections only offer so much meat on the bone for the winning party.
I don’t say that to be alarmist, but I also don’t want Republicans to lull themselves to sleep. These results were a troubling indication of real angst within the electorate, and with the 2026 midterms now under a year away, the clock is ticking for Republicans to turn things around. And while I want to discuss some fundamental issues that I believe are spoiling the environment for the GOP right now, the first step is understanding what happened.
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In short, this was not just blue states voting for Democrats in statewide elections. For example, Republicans got absolutely nuked in Virginia’s red districts, including in some that weren’t even supposed to be competitive.
How bad was the night for Virginia Republicans? I listed 13 seats as battlegrounds in the House of Delegates on my watch list; they lost all of them pic.twitter.com/UO1SZN56QJ
— Political Election Projections (@tencor_7144) November 5, 2025
Massive upset. pic.twitter.com/X7aSLUsuSf
— Rich Baris The People’s Pundit (@Peoples_Pundit) November 5, 2025
Call: Democrats have flipped VA HD-66, with Nicole Cole defeating Bobby Orrock.
This is a stunning upset that just encapsulates how much of a disaster tonight has become for the GOP.
Bobby Orrock was first elected in 1989 and has almost always won re-election by landslide… pic.twitter.com/pETcQ69JxX
— Christian Heiens 🏛 (@ChristianHeiens) November 5, 2025
But let’s talk about Republican states. In Georgia, Democrats won their first statewide office in 20 years. Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, Democrats swept the Supreme Court races, solidifying a 5-2 majority. Further, Bucks County, which went red in the last off-year election (2021), completed its journey back to the left, with every GOP school board member ousted.
The Democrat is winning a statewide special in Georgia by almost twenty points.
H/t @lxeagle17 pic.twitter.com/Y19EM4CEoC
— The AZ – abc15 – Data Guru (@Garrett_Archer) November 5, 2025
BIG result:
Bucks County, PA, was ground zero for the conservative takeover of school boards & anti-LGBTQ policies in 2021, with Central Bucks and Pennridge districts.
Dems flipped both boards back in 2023.
Tonight, Dems have ousted *all* Republicans from both school boards.
— Taniel (@Taniel) November 5, 2025
You can also look at Mississippi, one of the most Republican states in union, where Democrats flipped multiple seats and ended the GOP supermajority. In short, these shifts weren’t contained to select areas in select races where you can handwave away the trend.
So what led to this wipe-out? You’re going to get a range of answers, but let me suggest that this wasn’t about Trump building a ballroom, whatever your views on Israel are, or even the government shutdown to a large degree. It was about the economy.
It’s. The. Economey. Stupid. pic.twitter.com/ycpdhFBTic
— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) November 5, 2025
I know what you’re thinking. “But the economy sucked under Joe Biden, and inflation is down from 2023 highs.” Correct, but you’re thinking too linearly when the electorate is much more like a pendulum. The in-power party gets punished if people feel like they can’t get ahead. It’s not any more complicated than that.
Right now, topline inflation has settled at around three percent, but some of the more visible costs for Americans have risen more sharply. Beef and chicken are both up sharply, with ground beef up around 14 percent, while steak is up 12 percent. Electricity is up a whopping 10 percent in 2025. Even in an energy powerhouse like Texas, rates are up seven percent. Other things like vehicles and home prices also remain stubbornly high.
Gas prices have been a welcome exception and have helped tamp down CPI, but it’s not enough to change perceptions. Right now, the national average for a gallon of gas is down five cents from this same time in 2024. That’s not nothing, but for a person who buys 50 gallons a month, that amounts to $2.50 in savings. That’s not going to change perceptions when they are paying $6 a pound for ground beef and their coffee costs 40 percent more.
I’m laying all this out not to place blame on any single person or policy (we already have enough arguments about that), but to illustrate the problem for Republicans. It doesn’t matter what you think the cause of all this is. What matters is that this is reality, and our elected officials have to deal with it, or 2026 is going to be a nightmare for the GOP.
With that said, let me offer this warning to Republicans: We can’t simply message our way out of this. Democrats tried that in 2024 and got shellacked. Love them or hate them, swing voters make their decisions based on what’s going into and out of their bank accounts. Telling them how great things are if they don’t personally feel like things are great is a losing strategy.
To make that point, I used to make fun of the Biden administration for bragging about the unemployment rate because topline statistics are largely meaningless to everyday Americans. No one cares about the unemployment rate. They care about whether they have a job or not. No one cares about CPI. They care about whether they are paying less for the things they buy the most in their daily lives.
It’s not too late for Republicans to save the 2026 midterms, but they have to figure out a way to deliver relief to Americans that goes past broad talking points and into something tangible enough that will change perceptions.
Editor’s Note: The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.
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