by Hunter Woodall | Nov 4, 2026 | elections, News
Texas Republicans chose Ken Paxton over Sen. John Cornyn this year despite Cornyn’s warning that Paxton could put the seat at risk. Now they have lost it.
Democratic state Rep. James Talarico defeated Paxton, the impeached and acquitted state attorney general. He is the first Democrat to win statewide in Texas since 1994 and the first to win a Senate race there since Lloyd Bentsen in 1988.
The race was the most expensive of the midterms, with more than $500 million spent overall, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact.
Paxton easily won the May runoff with a late assist from President Donald Trump, but it quickly became clear he would need significant help to hold the seat.
After the 2020 election, Paxton led a failed lawsuit asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn former President Joe Biden’s victories in the battleground states of Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. In 2023, the Republican-led Texas House impeached him over allegations, among others, that he “misused public resources.” The state Senate acquitted him.
Democrats’ hopes of turning Texas blue had gone unfulfilled for years, and the state had moved further from them since the 2018 midterms and the 2020 presidential election. But concerns about Paxton in both parties helped Democrats end their long losing streak. So did a midterm electorate looking to rebuke Trump.
Talarico capitalized. He vastly outraised Paxton, according to federal campaign finance records, even as Trump and his allies worked to keep Texas red.
That Texas was competitive at all showed how difficult the midterms had become for Republicans midway through Trump’s second term. When the cycle began, Democrats faced a daunting Senate map: Their path to
by Chris Walker | Nov 4, 2026 | 2026 Elections, Bernie Moreno, Christian nationalism, Christianity, elections, Mike Johnson, News
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) and other Republicans are including Christian nationalist themes in their messaging and campaign rhetoric in the final days before the midterm elections. This past weekend, Johnson appeared on “The Week on Capitol Hill,” a right-wing Christian program hosted by Tony Perkins. Perkins asked Johnson what advice he’d give to conservatives “who are…
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by Anthony Coley | Nov 4, 2026 | elections, Opinion, Politics
Florida entered Election Day with two streaks on a collision course: Republicans had won seven straight races for governor. No Black Republican had ever been elected governor anywhere in America. Only one streak would survive.
We now know the answer.
MS NOW projects U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds has won Florida’s governorship, defying political gravity and breaking a new barrier for a Black Republican candidate. Two other Black Republicans were running for governor Tuesday: Lisa Demuth in Minnesota and John James in Michigan.
Florida entered Election Day with two streaks on a collision course. Only one streak would survive.
Here at MS NOW in September, I wondered if Florida’s Republican advantage would be enough to carry Donalds and pointed out the national political environment hostile to his party and that he was trying to break through a barrier no Black Republican ever had.
Donalds ran as a conservative successor to Ron DeSantis, promising lower property taxes and insurance costs, expanded school choice, less red tape and tougher immigration and crime enforcement. He has also leaned into culture-war fights and portrayed Jolly as offering a blue-state model for Florida.
Jolly focused relentlessly on affordability, led by a state-backed catastrophe fund to lower property insurance costs. He also supported more public-school funding, tighter rules on vouchers, Medicaid expansion, abortion rights, gun reforms, climate resilience and a moratorium on hyperscale data centers. He ran against culture wars and ethics scandals while presenting himself as a former Republican offering a more inclusive alternative.
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Trump-backed Byron Donalds, Democrat David Jolly win FL governor primaries
August 18, 2026 / 13:13
In August’s Republican primary, Donalds’ support was notably weaker in rural northern Florida, a region that
by Liza Gross | Nov 4, 2026 | ballot measure, California, California Environmental Quality Act, data centers, elections, Environment, Environmental Racism, environmental review, Indigenous Rights, Infrastructure, News, Oil and Gas Industry, Proposition 45, Tribal Rights, utilities
Political action committees funded by technology companies, the state’s major utilities and other corporate interests have spent several million dollars more to pass a ballot measure that would greenlight major development projects with minimal environmental or public review than public interest and labor groups have spent opposing it. Developers and other corporate interests aim to…
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by Hunter Woodall | Nov 4, 2026 | elections, News
Democrat Roy Cooper has ended his party’s Senate losing streak in North Carolina.
Roy Cooper has flipped North Carolina’s open Senate seat, giving Democrats their first Senate win in the state since 2008.
The recent two-term governor defeated Michael Whatley, a former Republican National Committee chair, in a race widely seen as Democrats’ best pickup opportunity of the night. The seat opened when Republican Sen. Thom Tillis chose not to seek re-election.
Kay Hagan was the last Democrat to win a Senate race in North Carolina. Races since have been close, and Democrats’ losses in 2020 and 2022 helped Republicans in Washington.
Cooper served as North Carolina’s attorney general before his two terms as governor, and he has never lost a race in the state. Whatley, an untested candidate running with President Donald Trump’s vocal support, could have pitched himself as a fresh alternative to a well-known opponent. But for months, Cooper appeared to be in a comfortable position, even though Trump carried North Carolina in all three of his presidential runs.
Cooper, 69, was one of Democrats’ strongest Senate recruits of the cycle. He is a moderate with crossover appeal in a state where elections are usually close, but Republicans have long held outsize power.
For Republicans, Whatley’s defeat hurts their Senate math. It is also a knock on Trump’s endorsement record.
Even with Cooper’s win, Democrats still face a difficult map in their bid to retake the Senate. Beyond Maine and North Carolina, their remaining pickup opportunities are in redder states that weren’t presidential battlegrounds in 2024.
Yet discontent with Trump over the economy and his actions since returning to the White House has given Democrats
by Amanda Becker | Nov 4, 2026 | 2026 Elections, 2026 midterms, Abortion, access to health care, Arizona, Attorney General, elections, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, News Analysis, Wisconsin
In the four years since the U.S. Supreme Court ended the federal right to an abortion, state attorneys general have played central roles in both defending and eroding reproductive rights — and their power to do so extends far beyond their home states. Just in the past couple of months, the Republican attorneys general of Louisiana, Arkansas and Alabama have sued California…
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