Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest man, went on a spending spree in the weeks leading up to the midterms. By Election Day, he had invested — and I use that word deliberately — more than $440 million into propping up the GOP to try to make its message and its candidates more palatable with voters during an election cycle in which their brand had become increasingly toxic. Astoundingly…
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Democrats on Tuesday won control of both houses of Congress and a decisive mandate to put a check on Donald Trump’s tumultuous presidency, a victory propelled by voter anger over high prices, corruption and the unchecked spread of data centers. Some of the same concerns helped to lift Democrats to victories in statehouses, where they gained a majority of the country’s governorships for the…
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Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* As Wednesday morning has progressed, Democrats have continued to receive some good news about highly competitive races, including Nevada’s gubernatorial race, which state Attorney General Aaron Ford has won, defeating incumbent Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo.
* On a related note, the Democratic Party will now control a majority of the nation’s governors’ offices for the first time in nearly two decades.
* Democrats also scored a series of important state legislative victories in the midterms, flipping 12 state legislative chambers according to a tally from the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.
* In Texas, Democrats won five of the state’s most powerful elected offices for the first time since 1961. That list includes Jon Rosenthal defeating Bo French in the race for railroad commissioner, which is a powerful position that regulates the state’s oil and gas industry.
* There were all kinds of important ballot measures worth watching in the midterm cycle, including four focused on abortion rights. As MS NOW reported, sizable majorities in Virginia and Nevada backed constitutional amendments to protect reproductive rights, and in Missouri, 55% of voters opposed reinstating an abortion ban that voters struck down through a ballot measure in 2024.
The exception was in Idaho, where an abortion rights measure was defeated.
* In Ohio’s U.S. Senate race, Democratic Sen.-elect Sherrod Brown is returning to Capitol Hill, just two years after losing a re-election bid. His race was technically a special election, and unlike other Senate winners from the midterms, Brown will take office in December, during the lame-duck session, narrowing the Republican majority to 52-48 in the current Congress’ remaining
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Nov. 04, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
The great sleeping giant of America has awakened, taken a hard look at what’s become of the nation, and roared a thunderous “NO!”
What occurred yesterday was not—as some are saying—the inevitable mid-term swing of the pendulum against the party in power. Texas hasn’t elected a Democratic senator since 1988. The last time Kansas elected a Democratic senator was 1932.
Nor was it just the economy. Americans are unhappy with inflation, but the country is not in a depression or recession. Unemployment remains quite low.
Nor, finally, was it all due to Trump. Despite Trump’s repeated efforts to get voters to “pretend” he was on the ballot, he was not. Most Republican candidates barely mentioned him and many Democratic candidates stressed local or statewide issues rather than fixate on him.
Something much larger is responsible for what occurred: anti-establishment populism. It’s burst forth against the mammoth corporations that have scored record profits while most Americans have had to pay more. Against the mega donors and super PACs that have flooded American politics with more campaign money—legalized bribes—than ever before. And against the Big Tech billionaires who have become the most powerful force in the American economy and society—as well as Trump’s and the Republican Party’s most visible backers.
The irony is that anti-establishment anger propelled Trump into the presidency in 2016 and again in 2024. Many Americans had found his politically-incorrect rants and “America first” nativism to reflect their own anger at being disrespected or left behind. “I am your warrior,” he told supporters when
Missouri voters rejected an effort to overturn their state’s abortion protections, according to a projection by Decision Desk HQ, ensuring that the procedure will remain legal and enshrined in the state constitution despite dedicated efforts by Republican leadership. Amendment 3 would have reversed the results of a 2024 vote that enshrined abortion protections into the state constitution and…
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