It has been nearly twenty years since the United States last experienced a wave election. Contemporary hyperpartisanship suggested that big shifts in the House and Senate were a thing of the past, the detritus of a bygone era of median voters, candidate-centered campaigns, and competitive electoral districts.
Tuesday’s elections proved that big waves are still possible. NBC News projects that Democrats will take 258 seats in the House and perhaps fifty-six seats in the Senate. This would be the biggest partisan shift in the Senate since 2014 and the biggest in the House since 2010. The headlines write themselves. Democrats won every statewide election in Texas, their first US Senate election in South Carolina since 1998, their first trifecta (governor, state house, and state senate) in Pennsylvania since 1993, and their first Senate seat in Kansas since the Great Depression. The best social media summary came from an anonymous X account: “Pete Hegseth wanted people to watch a public execution, well they’re seeing it tonight.”
The most significant conclusion to draw from this election is that national populism, which promised prosperity through industrial policy, tariffs, and immigration restriction, is down and probably out. American voters have shown in two consecutive elections that they will not tolerate inflation, even the rather moderate 4 percent consumer inflation they have experienced over the last year. Obviously, the war in Iran is a source of the widespread voter discontent over prices. But so, too, are Trump’s aggressive tariffs and immigration policy.