As the dust settles from the midterm elections, members of the chattering class are wrestling with how Democrats managed to rack up so many significant victories in red states.
When James Talarico and Gina Hinojosa won Texas’ Senate and governor’s seats, respectively, it sent shockwaves through the political battlefield. Democrats also defeated Republicans in several other key races across the country.
Several factors contributed to this outcome, with voter turnout playing a key role.
Nationally, 124.3 million people voted, a turnout rate of 49.42 percent of eligible voters and the second-highest midterm rate since 1914, just below 2018’s 50.05 percent, according to Michael McDonald of the University of Florida Election Lab.
Early voting set a midterm record, with 61 million ballots cast before Election Day, about 15 million more than the previous midterm. Early in-person and mail voting together ran 34 percent above the 2022 midterms.
In the 25 states that publish party registration, registered Democrats cast 39.5 percent of early ballots and Republicans 32.4 percent.
Southern Methodist University professor Matthew Wilson noted that, “Voter turnout was very high, and it was especially high on the Democratic side.”
Texas Republican strategist Joseph Lopez said, “There is clear apathy amongst GOP lifers.”
NBC's exit polls showed the national electorate as about 34 percent Democratic and 33 percent Republican, versus about 31 percent Democratic and 35 percent Republican in 2024.
First-time midterm voters backed Democrats 64 percent to 34 percent, a 41-point swing after Trump won first-time voters 55 percent to 44 percent in 2024, according to USA TODAY.
Ted Cruz: The problem wasn't voter turnout. Instead, our voters, Republicans, Libertarians, independents, showed up to vote and rejected our candidates. They voted Democrat instead. https://t.co/oAYHhZgN0G
— FactPost (@factpostnews) November 5, 2026
Men split 49 percent to 49 percent after Trump won men by about 12 points in 2024. Women backed Democrats 58 percent to 40 percent. About seven in 10 voters under 30 backed the Democratic House candidate, and about 6 in 10 Hispanic voters did the same, according to the Associated Press.
Latino men favored Democrats 56 percent to 41 percent nationally after favoring Republicans 54 percent to 44 percent in 2024, and Black men backed Democrats 85 percent to 13 percent.
In Mississippi, black voters made up about 30 percent of voters in the Senate race and nearly all broke for Democrat Scott Colom, according to CNN.
The reality this election season was that Republican voters just didn’t show up in the same numbers as before. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance acknowledged that the war in Iran played a critical role. Others pointed to the economy and rising grocery and gas prices. The New York Post’s Sean Trende sheds more light on the issue:
First, Republican turnout was down.
According to exit polls, the electorate was about three points more Democratic than it was Republican; in 2024, it was about four points more Republican than Democrat.
Because Republicans vote almost unanimously for Republicans and vice versa, this shift put Republicans in a hole to begin with.
At this point, we can only assume why these voters stayed home, but disappointment with the Trump administration surely played a crucial role.
Donald Trump was elected on a promise to bring prices down “starting on day one.” Trump’s tariff policies did the opposite.
The inability of the administration to persuade Republicans to make the DOGE cuts permanent, or to pass the “SAVE America Act,” made it look ineffective, regardless of the actual merits of those policies.
Pollster Frank Luntz noted that voters who switched from Trump in 2024 to Democrats in 2026 felt they were misled about lowering costs. “They felt disappointed and just disillusioned with what’s happened over the past two years, specifically over affordability.”
About four in 10 voters said they cast their votes to oppose Trump, compared with just under two in 10 voting to support him. A CBS News exit poll found 38 percent of voters angry about the economy and 37 percent dissatisfied, against only 18 percent satisfied.
Still, I don’t believe that the outcome was the result of the Democrat Party winning favor with the electorate. Democrats’ popularity is also in the toilet. This was more of a vote against Republicans than for Democrats, and it reflects widespread discontent with their economic problems.