Trump Loses America: Iowa, Kansas, and Texas Fall to Democrats as Even Republican Strongholds Turn Against the President

Republicans have already lost their Senate majority. They're also headed toward defeat in the House of Representatives, while suffering heavy losses in gubernatorial races. For Donald Trump, the midterm elections are turning into a political catastrophe.

Donald Trump spent election night watching one political certainty after another fall apart. Iowa, Kansas, and Texas. States where his party had counted on Republican majorities for years. Now Democrats have won Senate seats in all 3. North Carolina and South Carolina fell as well. In Ohio, a Democrat also came out on top. Six states that Trump carried in all 3 of his presidential elections have now sent Democratic candidates to the Senate. The very parts of America where the president believed his political home was have given him an answer that leaves very little room for interpretation. Democrats have taken control of the Senate. Republican control of both chambers of Congress has been broken.

Texas is an especially devastating loss. James Talarico, a Democratic state lawmaker, defeated Ken Paxton, the state's Republican attorney general. Paxton had backed Trump in the spring, giving his candidacy a decisive boost. The Democrat's campaign turned into an extraordinarily successful fundraising operation. Paxton, meanwhile, had told his supporters that losing Texas would mean losing America. Well, Texas is lost now, at least its Senate seat. The United States still exists. The fact that a politician would tie the future of his country so closely to his own election says quite a bit about his understanding of democracy. Voters took the opportunity to correct that idea.

In Kansas, Methodist pastor Adam Hamilton defeated Republican Senator Roger Marshall. Republicans had held that Senate seat for nearly 100 years. Generations of American voters knew Kansas as a state where Democratic hopes usually ran straight into a remarkably dependable Republican majority. Hamilton broke through that decades-old political order. His victory also came from rural areas that Trump had won by substantial margins as recently as 2024. Rising living costs and economic uncertainty had long since worn down people's patience. Political loyalty to the president turned out to be less lasting than the bills that have to be paid every month.

A long period of Republican dominance also came to an end in South Carolina. Annie Andrews defeated Senator Darline Graham, the sister of the late Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. Republicans had held the Senate seat for decades. Just a few months ago, hardly anyone would have expected South Carolina, of all places, to hand Democrats a victory like this. In North Carolina, former Democratic Governor Roy Cooper prevailed. Ohio also sent a Democrat to Washington. Sherrod Brown defeated Republican Senator Jon Husted. These results came from states with different economic interests and political traditions. What they have in common is that Republican candidates are paying the price for a presidency whose decisions are facing growing resistance.

In Iowa, Josh Turek defeated Republican Congresswoman Ashley Hinson. With 94 percent of the vote counted, the Democrat was ahead with 656,899 votes, or 50.7 percent, compared with Hinson's 597,929 votes and 46.2 percent. Hinson conceded defeat and called Turek to congratulate him. "It is time to put politics aside, dial down the rhetoric," she said. Quite a demand after a campaign in which her party had publicly stood behind the president just a short time earlier. Turek had promised Iowa a different approach to politics. He said he would work with Trump, too, if doing so helped the people of his state.

The new senator is a 2-time Paralympic gold medalist in basketball and uses a wheelchair because of a congenital spinal condition. His father had been exposed to the defoliant Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. Turek ran a campaign focused especially on the financial pressures facing American families. Trump's tariffs drove up the cost of essential supplies for farmers, while the war in Iran pushed up diesel and gas prices. On top of that came the cuts to Medicaid and food assistance that Hinson had supported. Turek also criticized tax breaks for the wealthy. Back in 2022, he had won a Republican-leaning district in Iowa by just 6 votes.

Hinson had long been considered a strong Republican candidate. She had worked as a television journalist and was already widely known in politics. Just 2 weeks before the election, she appeared alongside Trump in Sioux City. At the same time, she tried to distance herself from certain decisions by the president, including his move to lower tariffs on certain beef imports, which American cattle ranchers strongly opposed. Her ties to the White House were still plain to see. Trump had won Iowa by 13 percentage points in 2024. Now the Senate seat is going to a Democrat who will succeed retiring Republican Joni Ernst in 2027.

Turek is also taking over a seat once held by Democrat Tom Harkin. Harkin played a major role in passing the Americans with Disabilities Act. During his campaign, Turek said that without Harkin's work, his own path into politics would have been almost unimaginable. He felt it was almost poetic that he could win this particular Senate seat. The fact that a Paralympic champion is making his way into the U.S. Senate gives the result in Iowa a significance that goes well beyond the Republican defeat. Meanwhile, in Cedar Rapids, Republican supporters had to watch their state change political direction.

The consequences reach right into the president's own grip on power. With their Senate majority, Democrats will now be able to block numerous Trump appointments. They'll also have considerable influence over budget negotiations. Democratic lawmakers have already announced that they won't approve additional funding for the war in Iran or the administration's intensified deportation policies. For Trump, that means an entirely different political reality. Until now, he could count on Republican majorities that largely supported his decisions. Now he'll have to get his proposals through a Senate whose majority openly rejects his policies.

That resistance is also showing up in the governors' races. In Texas, Gina Hinojosa defeated Republican incumbent Greg Abbott. He had served 3 terms and spent millions of dollars more on his campaign than his challenger. Hinojosa will become the state's first Latina governor. No Democrat had won the office since Ann Richards in 1990. In her victory speech, Hinojosa said people would once again associate Texas with restored faith in government. In Georgia, Keisha Lance Bottoms won her race, becoming the first Black woman ever elected to govern an American state.

Republicans in Ohio also had to come to terms with their defeats. At their election-night gathering, supporters blamed Trump personally. Luis Gio, a 59-year-old court interpreter, criticized the expensive renovations at the White House, among other things. The administration had pushed things too far when the country had far more urgent problems to deal with, he said. Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy also came under fire. His controversial campaign ad featuring the estranged mother of Democratic winner Amy Acton drew criticism even from Republican supporters. Acton won the governor's race, while Sherrod Brown triumphed in the Senate contest.

At the same time, another heavy Republican defeat was taking shape in the House of Representatives. Democrats won congressional districts in Pennsylvania and Kentucky, as well as North Carolina. Even newly redrawn districts in Florida, which were supposed to secure additional seats for Republicans, fell to Democratic candidates. In Virginia, former Navy officer Elaine Luria won back her old seat from Jen Kiggans. In Colorado, Manny Rutinel defeated Republican Congressman Gabe Evans. Control of the House had not yet been finally decided at that point. But the seats Republicans had already lost showed just how little their elaborate redistricting efforts had accomplished.

Meanwhile, Trump said in an interview that he was "absolutely willing to accept those results" and was prepared to work with Democrats. "We'll probably work something out," he suggested. Shortly afterward, he attacked defeated Texas Governor Abbott. If Abbott "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!" the president claimed. Even after an election night like this, Trump apparently still has enough political certainty left to blame somebody else.

American midterm elections have dealt presidents crushing defeats before. Ronald Reagan lost 8 Republican Senate seats in 1986, and under George W. Bush, Republicans lost another 6 in 2006. Trump's result belongs in that historical company. What makes it especially devastating, though, is just how deeply Democrats have pushed into Republican territory this time. Kansas, Iowa, and Texas were pillars of the political landscape on which Trump built his power. The president had told Americans to vote as if he himself were on the ballot. Millions did exactly that.