The moment Donald Trump blew the midterms
Vox · Eric Levitz ·
Democrats won a historic landslide in the 2026 midterms. Democratic pollster David Shor explains how high youth turnout and the Iran War doomed Republicans.
Democrats just partied like it’s 1974. On Tuesday night, they pulled off the largest midterm victory since the post-Watergate wave. Democratic Senate candidates conquered longtime Republican strongholds like Kansas and Texas — and probably (in the view of the internet’s gamblers) Mississippi and Alaska. When the dust settles, and all ballots are tallied, Democrats are expected to boast a 13-percentage-point popular vote victory and more than 250 House seats.
Taken together, these results exceeded many Democrats’ wildest dreams — and Republicans’ greatest fears. Countless Americans are therefore asking: How the hell did that happen?
To make some headway on that question, I spoke with the Democratic data scientist David Shor. Founder of the consultancy Blue Rose Research, Shor has access to volumes of large-sample polling, precinct-level data on which voters did (and did not) turn out in multiple states, and fine-grained estimates of demographic shifts in party allegiances.