Trump’s MAGA nightmare: The midterms’ biggest winners and losers

When a political system only has two dominant parties, there will always be winners and losers every time an election is held.

However, when one of the parties has the worst election since 1974 — the year when its president had to resign in disgrace — there are even clearer winners and losers.

So here are Dagens.com‘s winners and losers of the 2026 midterm elections.

Winners

Young Americans

There has been a disconnect for many years between what young Americans vote for and who really gets elected.

But not in this midterm election. According to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), young men voted overwhelmingly Democratic this election cycle. The same can be said for young women and minorities.

“There remains a notable gender gap in the youth vote. 77% of young women voted for a Democratic U.S. House candidate in the 2026 midterms, compared to 65% of young men. That is a major shift for young men: in 2024, according to that year’s AP VoteCast data, 56% of young men supported President Trump,” writes CIRCLE.

Texas Democrats

No Texas Democrat has been elected to the Senate or the governor’s office in 35 years. That changed when Senate candidate James Talarico defeated the Trump-backed Ken Paxton, who turned out to be a disastrous candidate.

Texas state Rep. Gina Hinojosa defeated Gov. Greg Abbott, who had been the governor of Texas since 2015.

But the wins did not stop there. In one of the House races in Texas, Katy Padilla Stout won in an upset against right-wing YouTuber Brandon Herrera, who got in hot water and made derogatory comments about Padilla Stout along with anti-Semitic rants.

Senator Jon Ossoff

There has not been an early race call like this in Georgia to the advantage of the Democrats.

But that is exactly what happened when Senator Jon Ossoff was once again reelected as senator in Georgia.

This dominant win also makes Ossoff the early candidate for the Democratic nomination for president in 2028. He definitely has the support of Southern voters, and he is a great orator.

Losers

Donald Trump and the MAGA movement

It is too early to call it, but it sure looks like Trump’s MAGA movement is on its last legs. His party lost its majorities in both chambers of Congress, and by wider-than-expected margins.

The last time Trump was president and Democrats held congressional majorities, the president was impeached twice. That may happen again.

What is certain is that this was a stunning rebuke of President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement. He may not recover from this as he becomes a super-lame-duck president.

Trump also sounded defeated in his phone interviews, especially with Fox News.

Pete Hegseth

Other than Trump, no other Republican is going to wake up as worried this morning as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

Democrats are reported to be preparing investigations into everything that Hegseth has overseen, from his religious crusade in the Pentagon to the Iran war.

But Republicans are also interested in impeaching Hegseth.

Republican Thom Tillis, who is retiring at the end of the year, said this about Hegseth: “He needs to go. Whether it’s impeachment or the most expedient route is just the president replace him.”

Vivek Ramaswamy

Vivek Ramaswamy’s campaign strategies will be studied for decades to come. The gubernatorial candidate for the open seat in Ohio ran a disaster class in how not to get elected.

The billionaire entrepreneur poured millions of his own money into the 2026 governor’s race, but to no avail.

That has a lot to do with the fact that Ramaswamy put $4 million behind an ad featuring Democratic candidate Amy Acton’s estranged mother calling the Democrat a “liar,” though Acton has described a childhood of abuse, including rape charges against her late stepfather.

Reminder that Dagens.com is still running a live blog to cover all the results of the midterm elections. Hop in and get the the latest updates right here: https://www.dagens.com/politics/live-results-2026-midterm-elections-who-takes-control-of-congress

This article is made and published by Daniel Wolfram, who may have used AI in the preparation