Well before the Texas Senate and Governor’s races were called last night former RNC Michael Steele raised a point that stuck in my mind. He challenged fellow panelists and the GOP to imagine a path to winning the Presidency without Texas’ Electoral College votes. Perhaps he was aware of something we’d learn later, which was that while Democrats had banked about sixty percent of the early votes, they were doing even better in same/election day voting! I’m not saying as some are that Texas is now a blue state but the Democratic breakthrough which ran down ballot even into the legislature means it has to be considered purple in 2028. That’s a godawful reality the GOP now faces. Even worse for them, while they eked out wins in Florida it’s also going to be in play!
Today and for the rest of the week there will be endless analysis of how huge a night the Democratic Party had. It wasn’t just flipping so many Senate and House seats to gain substantial majorities, the blue wave washed over a lot of statehouses too. Every so-called swing state except Florida (yes, it will be a swing state again) will have Democratic Governors and other high level state officials. Just as important is that in some places the GOP lost at least one chamber in the statehouse, or had a supermajority broken. Trump and the GOP’s wet-dream of stacking the deck for 2028 is over. It will be a fair fight which is the LAST thing the Republican Party wants and/or will be able to handle.
For the moment lets take a good look at Texas. At first glance this set of results from MultiState is eye popping. Democrats flipped all the key statewide races, took control of the state House and seriously dented Republican’s margin in the state Senate. It’s easy to get carried away and say as some pundits are saying this morning ‘Texas has turned Blue!’ From where I sit one election does not a trend make. While it’s a hellava start to to one I’d caution people to think of Texas having turned purple. That alone is causing panic and for a lot more Republicans than Ted Cruz who will be up for re-election in 2028.
Obscene amounts of money was spent in Texas including hundreds of millions by one a-hole. Elon Musk. Having moved Space X to Texas he had a vested interest in keeping the state deep, deep red. Decades of GOP rule had gutted regulation of big business so of course Musk wanted to buy control of the state. Well, Texas is now the poster child for the concept that money doesn’t guarantee an electoral win – voters do. Trump and his policies might have been the catalyst but I think it’s possible that given how bad things have gotten there (and in the country) maybe Texans started thinking blind acceptance of what the GOP was doing (or not) simply hadn’t worked out the way they were told it would. Gas prices in particular had to have been on their mind since the U.S. oil industry (and lots of refining capacity) is based in Texas. For that and other reasons the state’s voters clearly decided to send a message that they’d had enough of being ignored by the rich and powerful/connected few.
As I said a single election doesn’t mean Texas is now blue. But come 2028 it’s the Republican Party that will be playing defense for not just another Senate seat but those forty Electoral College votes. That’s second most in the country. When Michael Steele raised the matter Democrats felt pretty good about flipping both the Senate seat and the Governorship. I dare say in their wildest dreams (and the GOP’s worst nightmares) they didn’t see such a sweeping rebuke of the Republican Party. The bottom line as I said is that Texas and its huge bloc of Electoral College votes will be up for grabs. And Democrats already have one hand firmly on them.
As horrifying as that is for Republicans, the news gets worse. Let’s start with the situation before yesterday’s votes were tallied up around the country. The four biggest Electoral College prizes have been California, Texas, New York and Florida. California were (and still are) considered safely blue, while Texas and Florida have been considered safely red. Now Texas is purple and as I said the GOP will have to play some serious defense to get those forty electoral votes. Now it’s time to talk about Florida.
There weren’t a lot of bright spots for the GOP last night but as the Senate and Governer’s races went down to the wire a collective sigh of relief was heard from damned near every Republican. If they go thinking ‘at least we can count on Florida’ (another hugely expensive place to mount a statewide contest) they are whistling past the graveyard. Here’s why. Ashley Moody only won the Senate race by 2.9 percent and Byron Donalds only won the Governor’s race by 1.3% (with 99% of the voted counted) when it was assumed both would win by much larger margins.
Florida gerrymandered four House districts to get rid of Democrats. Each of the new distrits was carried by Trump by double digits and before I (finally) went to be three of them had been won by Democrats, and it looked like all four would remain in Democrat’s hands. Uh Oh. Also, I’m not certain but I swear I heard a pundit discussion last night about slight pickups in the Florida state legislature including breaking a supermajority. Here’s the thing. For a couple of decades Democrats had a weak, spineless state Democratic Party. The DNC and most Democrats had written off the state.
Democratic candidates Angie Nixon (Senate) and David Jolley (Governor) were pretty much on their own until very late in the campaign. A look at detailed results will cause a lot of Democrats to lament what might have been. Only in the last couple of weeks was the Democratic Party willing to put some significant resources into the state. You can bet the powers-that-be in the Party are regretting blowing off the state of Florida. I’ve heard it said multiple times both last night and this morning that had the Democratic Party stepped up with even moderate help we would have yet another new Democratic Senator and a Democrat in the Governor’s Mansion! In other words, if Democrats jump in right away to shore up and build on the network Florida Democratic candidates had to form on their own Florida too will be a swing state in 2028.
I’ll say it again. The ballgame has changed and Republicans will have to fight harder than they ever imagined even a month ago to win their two biggest Electoral College prizes. Conversely, Democrats won’t be forced to do the same with California and New York. There’s still more bad news for the GOP.
Remember how in 2016 Republican’s were crowing about having broken down the ‘Blue Wall’ of Pennsylvania and the upper Midwest? It’s been rebuilt. Hillary Clinton was criticized for ‘not watering the garden’ in that blue wall, for taking it for granted. Democrats learned from that mistake and I’m pretty sure the lesson is parked deep. That mistake won’t take place again. Now think about how election after election we’ve seen that red and blue electoral college map. It showed a wide swath of red west of the Mississippi broken up by only Minnesota (on the eastern edge) and Colorado. It’s been the GOP’s red wall.
With the widespread wins in Texas last night, and a Senate pickup (and Governorship?) in Kansas that red wall has bricks that are loose and can be knocked out. Given some surprising special election results in some of those states more bricks might well be loose. Texas could be the key to breaking down that red wall. Voters in some of those reliably red states have made noises and seeing what happened in Texas might take a good hard look at what their loyalty to the GOP has cost them.
There are tons of stories about various winners and losers in the just concluded midterms. I intend to write one or two myself. However the biggest takeaway for me is that the old Electoral College equation has just been re-written. As terrifying as that is for the GOP, what is even more so is that batsh!t insane amounts of money from a handful up uber rich donors can no longer be counted on to buy them a win. That I think is the most profound lesson we can take from the 2026 midterms.
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