Transcript of Democrats Take Texas For The First Time In Decades | 11.4.26

After months of predicting a blue wave, Republicans end up suffering a blue tsunami.

With both the House and Senate now in Democrats' hands, what can we expect coming down the pike?

I'm Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley with Georgia Hou. It's Wednesday, November 4. This is a special election edition of Morning Wire.

Of course, guys. Happy to be here.

The night has not been long enough, Tim, so we've invited you on for a follow-up.

There's nowhere I'd rather be to wrap things up than with you two right here.

Oh, that's sweet.

So we came in expecting a blue wave. This was way bigger than anyone expected. Tell us about the results.

Yeah, so, I mean, let's start with the two kind of tentpole races that we've been talking about for six months: Texas Senate and Michigan Senate. James Talarico won in Texas. He will be Texas's first Democratic senator since 1993. Ken Paxton called him to concede. Also in the Lone Star State, Governor Greg Abbott has lost and conceded to his Democratic opponent. So Texas has basically, as far as these things go, flipped blue. And then, you know, you run through the other Senate races. In Kansas, Republican Roger Marshall lost.

Right.

So it's looking like Democrats are going to hold 54 to 56 seats in the Senate. And then in the House, similar margins. We talked a lot going into this about how one positive side would be that if these 10 Democratic Socialists of America candidates won in the House, they would probably wind up putting Hakeem Jeffries through the same sort of rigmarole that Republicans put Kevin McCarthy through. It's looking like the Democrat majority in the House is going to be big enough that while those DSA members and other leftist members can cause problems and drag the caucus further to the left, it's not going to impede Jeffries' ability to keep his speakership.

Yeah, we're seeing estimates of upwards of 250 seats for Democrats, correct?

Yeah, that's exactly right. This is the first time in decades that one party has had not just control of both houses, but control of both houses of Congress with such large margins that they're really going to be able to get things done. And with a lame-duck Republican president, this is divided government like we haven't seen in at least 20 years.

So, look, it was no surprise that the Republicans lost some seats yesterday, like we said at the top. But what was surprising to you? I mean, this is obviously the scope of this is a massive surprise to most people. What was particularly surprising to you?

Susan Collins losing in Maine was surprising to me. I really did think that, especially given the calamity that the Democrats had in that race, I thought that Collins was going to be able to, you know, earlier today we were saying she doesn't just have nine lives, she has 19 lives. Apparently, those lives have run out. You know, the NRCC chairman losing in North Carolina, that was shocking. You look at these House races and, again, moderate Republicans like Mike Lawler in New York, like the folks in North Carolina, like Victoria Sparks in the Indiana Fifth, people who were in these solidly Trump, Trump plus 15, plus 20 districts in '24, even when you account for the fact that Trump wasn't on the ballot, when you account for the kind of, you know, incumbent party curse that we tend to think that we know happens in midterm elections, some of these races that we just didn't even think were going to be toss-ups have landed solidly Democratic.

But not a strong pick.

Not a strong and a debated pick, you know, is Lindsey Graham's legacy enough for his sister who never really worked outside of state-level politics to win? And people went back and forth on whether or not she was a good nominee. But I think, you know, coming into yesterday, everyone sort of thought that the Graham name would be strong enough. And she sort of started picking up steam and momentum in the waning days of her campaign and just all of these across-the-board kind of handily Democrat victories. Again, the scope of it was just a little staggering.

Now, we've talked before about how the polling has been flawed, but a lot of times Republicans have outperformed the polling. How did the polling do this time?

Yeah, it seems that this year polls were a little bit incorrect, but in that they didn't predict enough Republican defeats. Now, this is bad for Republicans. It's good news for pollsters, right? I mean, I was talking to our friend Brent McCannon, who I was on set with all night.

Yeah, he loves it.

And he was saying, you know, this is good for the industry, right? Because in a lot of ways, and obviously Brent is a class above and signaled those good polling, but, you know, they were predicting a lot of stuff: libertarian spoiler candidates in different governor's races or third-party candidates in Senate races. A lot of their predictions were kind of spot on in ways that people didn't expect because they seemed a little bit extreme. So I do think that one of the sleeper stories of this election is that the polling industry lives to fight another day. One thing that I do want to mention very briefly is there were a lot of ballot initiatives and a lot of sort of down-ballot state and local level things.

That's insane.

And this is something that it's still very early, obviously. You know, the ballot measures are something that is not talked about that much going into these elections, and there's going to be a lot more polling and exit polls than data to crunch and discuss in the coming weeks. But that, I think, is something fascinating. There's something interesting going on with the American electorate where this isn't, yes, this is a blue tsunami. It's not truly a blue tsunami because voters are voting against Democrat priorities in states where they're voting for Democrats. I don't know what that means. I don't think any of us will know what that means until we get a little bit more data and maybe not until 2028 kicks off in earnest.

That sounds like affordability, though.

Yeah, exactly. There's a little kernel of hope in there. Maybe we're seeing voters kind of realign, again, around candidates that they like, around issues that they feel strongly about: pocketbook issues, kitchen table issues. I think it sets an interesting table for Republicans going into 2028 because the answer to the key to victory in the future might not just be being the most partisan candidate. It might just be being the most electable.

Right. Well, tons to unpack over the next few days. Certainly, you're going to be back with us very soon. Tim, thanks for coming on.

Of course.

Thanks, Tim. Joining us now in studio after a grueling night of discussing this election is Ben Dominic, host of the District Club. Thanks for coming on. You're still awake? We're all still awake?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Are you kidding? Election night is always fascinating, and this one turned out to be pretty historic and, I think, a shocker in a lot of ways for some people, but also, I think, one that we can take a lot of different lessons from.

Yeah, so, like, look, going into yesterday, a lot of people bracing for a blue wave. We got a blue tsunami. What, in the end, are the top-line issues that really shaped this election?

Well, you have to start with the economy, of course. It's obvious, but it's true. The economic problems and challenges that people face are part of it, but a large part of it, too, is their concerns. And I think that they didn't feel that Republicans were adequate at all when it came to addressing those concerns. Those can be some things that drill down within the various people who made up this new Trumpian coalition in 2024. My takeaway from this is something that I've been saying for a while, which is that I felt like too much of the conversation around the 2024 win assumed that all these voters who came to support Donald Trump did so because they were down with the MAGA movement, that they believed in him to the hilt, that they thought, you know, that he was someone who they could follow into all sorts of different, you know, challenges.

Was there anything from yesterday's results that particularly surprised you?

I am very surprised by the outcome in Texas. I thought that it was definitely possible that the blue attempt to take this, you know, something that has been a load star for them for such a long time was probably going to be successful when it came to that Senate race. But I also thought that Greg Abbott, you know, a governor who has been relatively popular, even though he was trying for, you know, a historic term in terms of his fourth, that he would be able to pull it out. Instead, Texas turned out to be, you know, a situation where even given the amount of money spent there, Republicans weren't able to hold on.

Now, you mentioned redistricting, and this was particularly interesting to me. Texas, they won the redistricting battle. They lost most of those seats. Can you drill down a little bit more about why that was actually a risk on some levels?

Sure. When you look back at the redistricting fights timing and the takeaway generally in Washington was that Republicans prevailed, that they won virtually every redistricting battle that they had. One of those was due to a court ruling in the case of Virginia, but it was also a situation where they had a lot of confidence, including to the point that some of these House members were saying, hey, maybe Democrats will take the House, but they'll only have a slim majority. It'll be impossible for them to make any they'll be stuck in the same situation we've been stuck in with a single-digit majority, unable to move a lot of legislation.

Now, Trump has said that things went this way because he wasn't on the ballot, and it sounds like he thinks the MAGA base is still very strong behind him. But how do you think the war in Iran has affected his core base who voted for him because he said no new wars?

Well, one of the things that I'm going to be curious about when it comes to the Democratic studies is looking at what men in particular did when it came to those votes. Young men in particular have been pessimistic about the war in Iran, and they obviously make up a significant portion of the president's base they have historically. And I think Republicans just assumed they would never be a demo that they would lose any significant portion of. I think what you may end up finding is that those voters just didn't show up or, you know, they basically stayed home.

Final question about Trump. Do you see him really altering his approach in the coming months after this? I mean, we thought, you know, probably Democrats would win the House with this kind of significant wave. Does he make any changes?

That's a huge question. And I think that's what we're going to be looking to try to answer in the coming weeks and months. You know, the president doesn't change his behavior often, and I don't think he's going to do it at this stage necessarily in his presidency. But the lessons he takes from this could send him in very different directions in terms of his response. Does he go heavier into Iran to try to finish things up the way that some people want him to? Does he pull back completely because he says voters didn't like this? We got to get away from it. I was given bad advice.

Yeah, that's the point he made.

He is not lying when he says that. You know, you had a situation where, you know, look, everybody was complaining about him not being out on the trail. I think of it as the scene where, you know, the T-Rex isn't in the enclosure in Jurassic Park, and then suddenly, you know, it rolls around to October and the goat's gone and here comes the T-Rex. He did as much as he could to try to carry Republicans over the finish line. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough for him. But I think in this case, these Republicans did not make any kind of case for themselves, any kind of consistent case on affordability, on the economy, on the war, on any of these issues that matter to voters.

Like you said at the top, an historic night, not the kind of history, though, that the Republicans wanted to suffer through. We will see what comes in the coming months. Thanks so much for coming on.

Great to be with you.