An Extraordinary Victory For The Democrats: Five Interesting Facts Following The U.S. Election

6.11.2026, 15:28
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The Republican Party's current defeat is particularly significant in several respects.

The ruling party in the U.S. often suffers painful defeats in midterm elections—that’s just how the system works. But this year’s midterm elections were marked by a series of particularly stinging defeats for President Donald Trump’s Republican Party. “Belsat” highlights the key moments.

U.S. Midterm Elections: What You Need to Know

U.S. midterm elections take place between presidential elections. In these elections, a completely new composition of the House of Representatives (the lower chamber of the U.S. Congress) and one-third of the senators (the Senate—the upper chamber) are elected. With rare exceptions, the president’s party loses seats in Congress during midterm elections. But the Republican Party’s current defeat is particularly significant in several respects and deals a major blow to President Donald Trump’s future.

Is Texas no longer “red”?

The Texas Senate race received a great deal of media attention. It is the second-most populous state in the U.S. and is considered “red”—meaning it reliably votes for Republicans. For example, Texas last voted for a Democrat in a presidential election in 1976, and a Democrat last won an office elected statewide in 1994.

In the Senate race, conservative Republican and state attorney general Ken Paxton faced off against a young member of the Texas House of Representatives, the Democratic populist James Talarico. For unknown reasons, Paxton ran a low-key campaign in which he emphasized masculinity—accusing his opponent of having low testosterone. One possible reason for Paxton’s unsuccessful campaign is believed to be that he was going through a difficult divorce—his wife accused him of cheating. But even his own party members didn’t do Paxton much good with their rhetoric. Perhaps the main criticism leveled at Talarico was that he was allegedly… a vegan (even though he ate meat). The president, meanwhile, twisted Talarico’s last name into “Tala-freako”—“Tala the freak.”

This election became the most expensive Senate race in U.S. history: the two candidates’ campaigns spent a combined total of over $500 million. But while conservative political action committees and billionaire Elon Musk (who donated about $200 million), Talarico received funding primarily from individual donations by ordinary voters.

And the Senate isn’t the only defeat for Republicans in Texas. For the first time since 1990, a Democrat—specifically, Gina Inohosa—will become the state’s governor, defeating the incumbent Republican governor by a wide margin and becoming the first Latina to hold this office. A Democrat will also become the state’s new attorney general. Republicans suffered defeats in a number of other Texas elections as well.

If Texas remains this “blue” until the 2028 presidential election, it will radically change the political landscape: In the complex U.S. electoral system, the results of the Texas election account for about 7.4% of the presidential electoral college votes—15% of the 270 votes needed to win.

Islamophobia didn’t help

Another high-profile Senate race took place in Michigan. Republican Mike Rogers was defeated by progressive Democrat Abdul As-Sayed, whose parents are from Egypt. He will become the first Muslim senator in U.S. history.

As soon as As-Sayed became a candidate, his opponents unleashed a wave of anti-Muslim rhetoric. As-Sayed was called both a “terrorist” and a “radical,” and his opponents emphasized his middle name: Muhammad. Rogers claimed that al-Sayyed supports terrorists from the “Muslim Brotherhood” and receives funding from them. However, when Trump began calling al-Sayyed a “jihadist,” Rogers distanced himself: he said he had never said such a thing and was not responsible for the president’s words.

Abdul al-Sayed proved to be an excellent speaker and confidently countered the verbal attacks. The issue of his background and religion became, perhaps, the central theme of this campaign—and the strategy of playing on Islamophobia did not work. And al-Sayyed had something to say to voters about their concerns—from healthcare to the threats posed by artificial intelligence.

Michigan is not a “red” state like Texas, but rather “blue-purple,” so the Democrat’s victory is not that sensational. However, al-Sayyed—a representative of the Democratic Party’s left wing—won not in a “safe” state but in a competitive one, which may inspire the progressive wing of the Democrats.

In addition, a Democrat was re-elected as Michigan’s governor, and in the House of Representatives elections, the Democratic Party held onto districts that the Republicans had been hoping to win.

A widespread “blue tsunami”: Ohio, Kansas, South Carolina…

The Republicans suffered defeats in a number of other “red” states. Among those who lost were candidates personally selected and endorsed by Trump.

In Ohio, Democrat Amy Acton defeated Republican billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy — a close ally of Trump’s, whom the president had even appointed to co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) alongside Musk. Ramaswamy declined the position at DOGE to focus on the gubernatorial race. But he made numerous mistakes, including involving Acton’s mother in his campaign, as she campaigned against her own daughter. It turned out that the mother had abandoned her daughter and stayed with her stepfather, who was accused of raping her own daughter. In addition, Democrat Sherrod Brown returned to the Senate, unseating the incumbent Republican senator from Ohio.

In Kansas, Democrat Adam Hamilton unseated the incumbent Republican senator; the last time a Democratic candidate won a U.S. Senate race in Kansas was in 1932. And Democrat Cindy Golscher is likely to become the state’s governor.

In the very “red” state of South Carolina, Democrat Annie Andrews unexpectedly won the Senate race. And in the last presidential election, Trump won there by a margin of 18 percentage points—a huge margin by American standards.

In the Senate elections, Democrats also “took” seats from Republicans in Iowa, Mississippi, Maine (where the Democrats had to replace their candidate due to a sex scandal), and North Carolina, as well as gubernatorial seats in Alaska, Iowa, Georgia, and Nevada.

A “VETO” cap instead of “MAGA”: Trump promises to cooperate with Democrats—and threatens a veto

The Democratic Party will not gain absolute control of Congress: in the Senate, Democrats will win between 54 and 56 seats. But 60 out of 100 seats are needed to overcome the so-called filibuster—the obstruction of legislative debates. And to remove a federal official from office through impeachment, 67 votes in the Senate are required. It is possible that enough votes will be gathered to remove the unpopular Secretary of Defense Pete Hegset (though he may step down before a potentially humiliating impeachment). But it is unlikely that Donald Trump faces removal from office.

Trump himself plans to become “Mr. Veto” and do everything possible to prevent Democrats from advancing their initiatives, as well as to push forward what he can accomplish as president with a Congress controlled by the opposition. Therefore, the Democrats’ main goal now is to craft a narrative leading up to the 2028 presidential election through legislation and high-profile investigations.

Trump, meanwhile, may become more active in foreign policy, where Congress plays a secondary role. But a Congress controlled by the opposition can effectively cut off funding for active wars and oppose trade wars.

Is it even about the war with Iran and fuel prices?

Republicans are now trying to figure out what went wrong. A simple answer would be the unpopular war with Iran, which ended without a victory for either side but drove up fuel prices—which are critically important for a “car-dependent” nation. But the answer is more complex.

The United States fully entered Israel’s war with Iran on February 28, 2026. Trump’s approval ratings had been falling even before then; they didn’t plummet sharply after any particular Iranian strike or after diesel prices rose to some psychological threshold—they simply kept going down, while the Democrats’ chances of winning kept going up.

According to polls, U.S. voters are predominantly dissatisfied with the current state of affairs in the U.S., and among the top issues that concern them are not only the economy and inflation but also the state of democracy and perceptions of corruption. More than two-thirds of voters believed that Trump’s actions had worsened the state of the economy, and more than half do not see Trump as a strong leader who fights for his people.

Before the election, Trump urged voters to cast their ballots as if he himself—rather than his party—were on the ballot. Now he says: if he had been on the ballot, it would have been a landslide victory. Doubts about this could force the Republican Party to reevaluate itself and the Trump-led MAGA movement, sparking an intense intra-party struggle even now ahead of the 2028 presidential election.

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