US midterm elections 2026

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      Democrats start plotting as civil war breaks out among Republicans | Politics Weekly America

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      Jonathan Freedland hosts a live panel to look at what happens next – for Donald Trump, the Republicans who might want to succeed him, and for Democrats looking ahead to 2028. He is joined by the Guardian’s Washington bureau chief, David Smith; Tara Setmayer, a co-founder and CEO of the Seneca project; the Guardian’s global editor, Devika Bhat; Adam Smith, a professor of US politics and political history at the University of Oxford; and the clinical psychologist, author and political commentator Mary Trump Continue reading… More

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      The most diverse, anti-establishment Congress in history is cause for optimism

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      After years of outrage or numbness being the main options for dealing with politics, Tuesday’s results were permission to be optimisticThis was originally published in the Stakes 2026, a newsletter about the midterm elections. Sign up to get it in your inboxWe shed some tears this midterm cycle.US politics always makes people emotional, but I heard from friends and colleagues many times this year that speeches, campaigns and underdog success stories moved people in unexpected ways, whether it was this ad of Michigan senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed doing bedtime, a photo of newly elected Texas Democrats James Talarico and Gina Hinojosa at a Whataburger, or Georgia’s Keisha Lance Bottoms becoming the first Black female governor in the entire country. Continue reading… More

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      Oxford, Bethnal Green and the Guardian: the British sojourn of a younger Abdul El-Sayed

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      In a Guardian article in 2010, the Oxford Rhodes scholar said UK democracy had the ‘upper hand’ over the USUS politics live – latest updatesIn the tense final hours before his dramatic election as senator for Michigan in this week’s midterms, Abdul El-Sayed had a heated encounter with a British TV journalist that rapidly went viral.As James Matthews, of Sky News, tried to ask him a question, El-Sayed bit back. “Why would I care to have a conversation with you?” he demanded of Matthews, placing both hands on the reporter’s shoulders in a gesture of emphasis. Continue reading… More

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      What is this strange, post-election feeling? Oh right – it’s utter joy | Dave Schilling

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      A decade of political misery does terrible things to the mind. Tuesday’s wins came with a sense of unrealityLate on Tuesday night, the comedian Alex Edelman asked a poignant question on social media: “I know we’ve never had to ask this before tonight, but what’s the opposite of doomscrolling?”I don’t have a definitive answer to that, though I did offer the term “boomscrolling”, accompanied by a gif of the social media sensation and Costco enthusiast Big Boom AJ. Continue reading… More

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      ‘I didn’t expect to be a main character’: Abdul El-Sayed heads to the Senate with a mandate – and a spotlight

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      The successful Democratic contender for a Michigan Senate seat parried the many insinuations lobbed by RepublicansWhat happens after the ‘blue wave’? Ask your midterm election results questionsAbdul El-Sayed said he did not expect to be “a main character of this midterms”, but the first Muslim elected to the US Senate in history will take his seat in January after a vitriolic campaign that cast him as the central villain of the president and his party.By October he told the Associated Press he was “not shying away” from those rightwing fixations. “What are you implying?” El-Sayed, the son of Egyptian immigrants, replied when a town hall attender asked if he would disavow the Muslim Brotherhood, in a now-viral exchange. Continue reading… More

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      Democrats finally decided to take rural America seriously – and won big | Anthony Flaccavento and Erica Etelson

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      Democrats won over rural voters from Maga in the midterms by focusing more on working people and less on culture warsLong before Jamie Ager entered politics, he was making a name for himself in a very different place: the meat counter of a grocery store in Boone, North Carolina.It was the early 2000s, and Ager owned and operated Hickory Nut Gap, a regenerative farm near Asheville. Over the next 20 years, he helped build a regional food system that delivered healthier food to thousands of people, improved land stewardship and made farming a bit more profitable. Continue reading… More

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      After the midterms, the global right is reeling. But the danger of Trumpism will never be gone | Jonathan Freedland

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      Yes, the Republicans suffered humiliating defeat. But the fact that a Trump presidency was even possible means something like it could happen againHe’s down, but not quite out. Barring divine or other intervention, Donald Trump will remain in the Oval Office for a further two years and 10 weeks. Or, as the White House put it in a plaintive social media post brimming with neediness: “PSA [Public Service Announcement]: Trump is still your president.” But that’s not the only reason why the global celebrations that greeted the Democratic tidal wave that swept Republicans out of even their deepest heartlands should be tempered, if only a tad.Don’t get me wrong, the results of Tuesday’s midterm elections are cause for genuine international jubilation. The defeats of Trump allies in Serbia and Brazil were delicious appetisers, but this was the feast. No mere electoral setback in line with midterm tradition, this was a thorough repudiation of the second Trump presidency and of Trumpism. The 16% swing to Democrats in the popular vote for the House of Representatives was greater even than the 11.2% swing recorded in the Watergate midterms of November 1974, following the resignation in disgrace of Richard Nixon. Trump had worked hard for many months to undermine these elections, either by gerrymandering districts in his favour or preparing the ground for a later claim the vote was rigged, but to no avail: the democratic system proved too resilient, and the American public too determined to have their say. And have it they did, in a voice loud and clear. Continue reading… More

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      As the Republican civil war kicks off, Democrats start plotting – podcast

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      After the midterms earthquake that shook US politics, Jonathan Freedland hosts a Guardian Live event panel to look at what happens next – for Donald Trump, the Republicans who might want to succeed him, and for Democrats looking ahead to 2028.He’s joined by the Guardian’s Washington bureau chief, David Smith; Tara Setmayer, a co-founder and CEO of the Seneca project; the Guardian’s global editor, Devika Bhat; Adam Smith, a professor of US politics and political history at the University of Oxford; and the clinical psychologist, author and political commentator Mary TrumpListen out for the latest episode of Radical Thinking with Aditya ChakraborttyWatch Jonathan Freedland on our new Politics Weekly YouTube channel.Send your questions and feedback to [email protected] Continue reading… More