Elizabeth Vargas

For the last two years, the Trump Administration has been governed by a simple mantra: “We can just do things.” On Tuesday, voters replied, “So can we,” and wiped out the GOP. This was not a blue wave. This was not a blue tsunami. This was the breakup of a winning coalition. Those voters, in breaking up the coalition, treated downballot races as proxies for their contempt of Washington, D.C. The race for dog catcher became nationalized because of Republican political malpractice. In 2024, Donald Trump assembled a multiracial and multiethnic coalition of voters who bristled at the progressivism of the Democrats and the wreckage of the economy. By 2026, Trump and his White House acolytes set that coalition on fire to cater to a group of hyperonline grievance mongers who have confused Twitter with real life. Last night, the American constitutional system worked as designed and worked so well and so thoroughly that the party that lied to itself in 2020 that it had lost only because the election was stolen is now lying to itself that it lost only because of gas prices and war. Last night’s drubbing was too complete to be theft. It was gas prices.
And it was the war. But it was also calling affordability a “hoax.”
And it was also the corruption.
The incompetence.
The tariffs.
The playing nice with Russia while treating our allies worse than our enemies.
The impression of cruelty.
The overly aggressive deportations.
The accidental arrests of American citizens who were Hispanic.
The arrogance.
The ballroom.
The reflecting poll.
The golf courses.
The arch.
The Qatari 747.
The aggressive redistricting push.
The threats against enemies. It turns out a weekend Fox and Friends host might not be a reassuring beacon of competence to Americans. Gas prices and the war cannot explain a wipe out from top to bottom in Texas or Georgia or losing South Carolina or Ohio or a total coast to coast wipe out. Only the simpletons can believe that. Adam Hamilton won Finney County in Kansas, which was a Trump +35 county in 2024 and he did so with Hispanic voters. He did not do that just because of war and gas prices. And shall we talk about Mississippi? A few weeks ago, Bo French in Texas attacked University of Texas students who were American citizens of Indian descent. A portion of the President’s base cheered him on. Even some within the Administration, on public Twitter accounts tied to the Administration, echoed him. Those voters’ parents repudiated the racism in the GOP and wiped out Republicans in Texas, not because they support the Democrats, but because the party they had supported turned on them. It was political malpractice by the GOP.