The 2026 midterms were historic. The Democrats prevailed, taking control over both the House and the Senate and gaining five governor’s offices. Pundits and political analysts will spend the coming days, weeks, and months analyzing the election results, examining why Americans voted as they did. But what message did voters send?

Two messages are clear. First, the 2026 midterms were a resounding, blistering rebuke of the Trump administration and its cataclysmic decisions and policies. The administration has blatantly abused the powers of the executive branch, mishandled foreign affairs, slashed essential programs that helped the poorest Americans and farmers, disregarded and destroyed beloved institutions and sites, and gutted essential environmental regulations, to say nothing of its grifting, bullying, and attacks on women in power and through its disastrous policies and actions.

On one hand, in just two years, the Trump administration has undone decades of American progress. On the other, America was already failing so many of its people and Trump only intensified their suffering.

Despite promises in 2024 of making Americans better off or “great again,” the Trump administration failed its working- and middle-class constituents. Its erratic and arbitrary financial policies, including unlawful tariffs and baffling war in Iran continue to hurt American families, dramatically raising the costs of gas across the country. In the outer regions of Alaska, gas prices exceeded $25 per gallon. The high costs of food now make it difficult for Americans to feed their families. And despite Trump supporters’ rallying around tougher immigration laws in 2024, the mass detention of their neighbors and community members and the murdering of their fellow Americans by ICE agents were not part of their agenda.

Trump’s exploitation of office is at a breaking point. At every turn, he has financially benefited during this term in office, trampling the Emoluments Clause and presidential norms. The president has hawked not only Bibles and sneakers but literally hundreds of items. Visit the so-called Trump Store—an online bazaar, selling everything from branded footballs, honey, hoodies, roasted coffee, vests, shot glasses, candles, cookies, jellybeans, and chocolates. There is no arms-length dealing here. Trump is selling a pricey “Presidential Gold Aurum Note” and a “President Donald J. Trump ‘We The People’ Silver Medallion” and one in gold too. He’s also faced accusations of selling access to the White House.

Yet the midterms were not only about fighting back against an administration that shows little regard for the concerns of Americans. The second message they delivered was about women claiming their space and expanding political leadership. In a historic showing, pro-choice women leaders across the country secured House and Senate seats and prevailed in gubernatorial races—a powerful response to both Trump’s policies and the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade.

Current Issue

November 2026 Issue

Keep in mind, since January 2025 when Donald Trump took office for a second term, his administration has targeted women with political harassment, pulling grants that focused on women’s health, demoting women leaders in the military, firing scores of Black women in government positions, and seeking to disenfranchise women voters through the SAVE Act, which “would make it harder to vote for 69 million women.” The National Partnership for Women and Families issued a report shortly after Trump returned to the White House, identifying “35 ways the Trump Administration has harmed women and families in its first 100 days.” That list has only grown since then.

Trump has frozen family-planning funding—gutting programs that provided breast cancer screenings, contraception, and STI testing. The administration has revoked efforts to raise the minimum wage, which would directly affect women workers, many of whom are the main provider and head of their household. Rather than prioritizing family leave or childcare initiatives, this administration decimated the Department of Education and invested in war, while turning its keys over to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). According to congressional oversight letters, the administration canceled minority health grants, diverting the money to “support things like treatment for erectile dysfunction in the name of family values.” Trump also terminated the federal diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility offices, which tracked gender disparities.

Voters responded by electing record numbers of women into office. In Georgia, Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former mayor of Atlanta, made history by becoming the state’s first woman governor, and the first Black woman to ever be elected governor in US history. Bottoms beat out Rick Jackson, an anti-abortion billionaire who invested $200 million of his personal resources in the campaign. Audio recordings of Jackson surfaced where he was heard expressing “support for further restrictions beyond Georgia’s current six-week abortion law,” which ProPublica investigations have found contributed to the preventable deaths of women in the state.

In Ohio, Dr. Amy Acton resoundingly defeated Vivek Ramaswamy, who describes himself as “unapologetically pro-life.” Ramaswamy, a Trump loyalist, ran deeply disturbing, disgraceful ads against Acton, featuring her estranged mother calling her a liar. Notably, Acton was raped as a child by her stepfather. Nevertheless, Ramaswamy doubled down—as did Vice President JD Vance and Donald Trump, who criticized Republicans who urged Ramaswamy to not run the ad.

In a stunning victory, Representative Gina Hinojosa (D-Austin) defeated Governor Greg Abbott, becoming the first Latina governor of Texas. Hinojosa, who campaigned on the vision that “this is our last best chance to take back Texas for the people,” has shared her personal story of pregnancy loss. In contrast, Abbott played a critical role in rolling back reproductive freedom in Texas. The state was the first to implement an extreme abortion ban, nine months before Roe was overturned. And now in Texas doctors risk 99 years of incarceration, $100,000 fines, and the possibility of losing their licenses to practice medicine if they violate the state’s total abortion ban.

Deb Haaland, the former US secretary of the interior, will be New Mexico’s next governor. She will be the first Indigenous governor in US history. In Minnesota, a state that has felt the devastating brunt of Trump’s domestic immigration policies, voters have elected Senator Amy Klobuchar as their next governor. Klobuchar has consistently criticized the US Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. And, in Illinois, Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton has been elected to the Senate. Stratton helped spearhead in the state the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, which would prohibit sex discrimination.

As Trump’s lame-duck presidency comes into clear view, Americans are rejecting policies that keep them vulnerable and threaten their future, entangle them in wars, and make a mockery of the rule of law. There is a momentum building with historic wins across the nation, including in Texas, Ohio, and Iowa. As the Democrats return to power in Washington, DC, they should look not only to rebuild what was lost but to lay the groundwork for a third Reconstruction.