Thanks be to God! The Democrats have won the U.S. House and Senate! The crops are saved!
Or let us hope so.
What a spectacular result across the nation! In Texas, that bastion of diehard Trump-Republican-MAGA conservatism, the Democrat James Talarico has defeated the scandal-laden, Donald Trump-endorsed Republican Ken Paxton to be the next U.S. senator from the Lone Star State. Republicans had run a disgraceful campaign against Talarico, calling him “Talafreako,” deriding him as unmanly, even — gasp — possibly gay! You may recall that Paxton became the candidate thanks to Trump’s endorsement in the Texas primary because Trump saw fit to betray incumbent Republican Sen. John Cornyn, whom Trump pronounced to be insufficiently devoted to his majesty. So, how did that work out for you, Donny Boy? Loyalty does matter, and betrayal can fight back with a vicious karmic kick.
Even more earthshaking is that Texas’s next governor is going to be a Democrat, Gina Hinojosa. Hinojosa is also a woman, in case you missed her first name. And she is Hispanic to boot, in case you missed the meaning of her last name! What an outcome!
Not since George W. Bush’s dirty campaign three decades ago unseated Ann Richards will Texas have had a Democratic governor. Hinojosa defeated Greg Abbott, the longtime incumbent and Trump acolyte for whom the president had had high hopes. And, true to form, Trump blamed Abbott for the defeat he suffered, totally ignoring the fact that the rout of key Republicans in Texas and elsewhere is to be laid directly at Trump’s feet for his divisive and toxic approach to governance and disgraceful leadership of Republicans nationally. This is what Trump wrote on Truth Social of Abbott’s defeat:
If Greg Abbott, the Governor of Texas, hadn’t become a RINO in the last six months of his Political Life, he wouldn’t have lost. He went back to his original formula, and it wasn’t pretty! President DONALD J. TRUMP
Whateva.
In the U.S. Senate, Democrats so far have a solid 54 seats and a majority. Republicans have 44 seats. Chuck Schumer of New York will become Senate majority leader in January.
In Maine, longtime Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, who always was able to pronounce herself “troubled” by various of Trump’s policies but never could muster the courage to vote against them, was unseated by Democrat Troy D. Jackson, who entered the race only in July after the initial Democratic nominee, Graham Platner, withdrew from the race under pressure when a former partner accused him of sexual assault.
In Georgia, incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff beat back a Republican campaign underwritten by vast expenditure, vanquishing Republican Mike Collins, by a decisive 59 percent to 49 percent. Ossoff, you may recall, had frequently reminded us that he was the only incumbent Democratic U.S. senator running for reelection in a state that Trump won in 2024.
There were so many other Democratic victories in the comprehensive backlash against Trumpism, but among the sweetest has to be that of Abdul el-Sayed in Michigan over the Trump-endorsed Republican Mike Rogers. El-Sayed, a Muslim, had of course been demonized in all the predictable ways. Even Haley Steven’s, el-Sayed’s former top rival in the Democratic primary for the Senate seat, turned against him in a particularly nasty way, actually endorsing Mike Rogers, the person against whom she would have run as a Democrat had she prevailed in the Democratic primary. With that epic act of treachery, she torched her future in the Democratic Party. I suppose she always has the option of becoming a Republican, or just going away quietly into ignominy. Astonishing.
Donald Trump himself was predictably nasty to el-Sayed, calling him a jihadist and saying metal detectors would be needed at the U.S. Senate if el-Sayed were to become a U.S. senator. Michiganders elected el-Sayed anyway, giving him something in the region of 52 percent of their votes.
I am pleased that in Minnesota, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar will be the next governor, and that in Ohio, former U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown will be going back to the U.S. Senate after defeating incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Mike Husted and flipping that red U.S. Senate seat to blue.
That Klobuchar’s Minnesota replacement in the U.S. Senate will be a Democrat is pretty certain. When a U.S. Senate seat becomes vacant, the governor of the state concerned appoints a replacement to serve until the seat is next up for election. Minnesota’s governor is Democrat Tim Walz, Kamala Harris’s former vice-presidential running mate, and he can be expected to appoint a Democrat to the seat. And if the timing of events puts the decision into the hands of a Gov. Klobuchar, she, too, is virtually certain to appoint a Democrat, and a very sound one, to fill the seat she has vacated. She is not about to pick a nutcase or a loose cannon to be the inheritor of her legacy.
A sweet footnote: In South Carolina, the U.S. Senate seat that was held for much too long by that Republican snake in the grass Lindsey Graham has been flipped to blue. Democrat Annie Andrews defeated the appointed placeholder Darline Graham, the sister of the late Lindsey, to bring a decisive end to the Graham name in that South Carolina seat. Trump’s spirited endorsement of Darline Graham failed to carry the neophyte to victory.
In the U.S. House at the time of this writing, the afternoon of the day after the election, Democrats really have done the business, securing a huge majority, so far 234 seats to Republicans’ 139. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, a Democrat from New York, is slated to be the next speaker of the House, replacing Republican Mike Johnson, a proper Louisiana swamp creature and a thorough enabler of Donald Trump.
Come January, the real work of putting the brakes on Trump’s madness begins.
Democrats, don’t screw this up! We need you to perform well for the American people — all of the American people — so that come 2028, the people will see fit to return a Democratic majority in the U.S. House and Senate, and also to send a sensible, sober Democrat to the White House.
Let the country be able, in 2028, finally to turn its back on the lunacy that has been the Trump era.
