The midterms were a bloodbath. Democrats took both chambers of the U.S. Congress and red-state governorships. The hardest part for Republicans to swallow is how familiar the winning pitch sounded: In 2016, Donald Trump addressed Americans’ concerns regarding the cost of living, Middle East wars, and government corruption. The painful truth is that this year, Democrats addressed those concerns better.
The exit polls tell an interesting story. When asked about their top issues, 39 percent of voters said the economy (46 percent for Republicans and 52 percent for Democrats), 33 percent said the state of democracy (20 percent for Republicans and 79 percent for Democrats), and only 14 percent said immigration (89 percent for Republicans and 10 percent for Democrats). Other questions reveal that the cost of living, the Iran War, and corruption were all critical factors in motivating voters to support the Democrats.
To be clear, President Donald Trump has done excellent work on immigration, anti-white discrimination, and censorship—arguably the three main issues for the online or “dissident right.” But by launching the Iran War, going overboard with tariffs (which much of the online right in principle supports), and allowing widespread corruption throughout the administration, Trump dropped the ball on issues everyday Americans care about. Not the wisest move.
Just look at Gina Hinojosa, a relative nobody who unseated the longtime Texas Governor Greg Abbot on Tuesday. Her campaign was defined by the conscious decision to set aside traditional liberal concerns over identity issues to embrace economic populism. “There is just no winning the culture war,” Hinojosa told the New Yorker. “My agenda is not a Democratic agenda. It’s a populist agenda.”
On the campaign trail, Hinojosa railed against billionaires, corporations, and AI data centers. She called for more school funding, a one-time $1,500 check to every Texas household, and better healthcare access. She framed the incumbent Abbot as a corrupt politician who sold out Texas to wealthy elites. Evidently, Texans loved what they heard, winning her 5.2 million votes (53 percent) to Abbot’s 4.5 million (46 percent).
The Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia, who easily brushed off Mike Collins’s attempt to unseat him, is another Democrat who embodies this rising tide of left-wing populism. Osoff has lambasted the Trump administration for failing to deliver for the working class. He has decried this administration as “a government of, by, and for the ultra-rich.” Like many elected Democrats, he hasn’t shied away from indulging some of the dumber populist tendencies by invoking “the Epstein class” to bash Trump and his friends.
Many believe Ossoff has a shot at securing the 2028 Democratic nomination. It’s anyone’s guess. But whoever does cinch the nomination will probably sound a lot like him. If midterms proved one thing, it’s that left-wing populism, like it or not, is popular.
The new populist formula appears to eschew some of the more radical economic policies favored by the likes of Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. Those policies appeal to many working-class voters but can alienate white-collar professionals who don’t have to worry much about their own health insurance. But the populism of Hinojosa and Ossoff demands little sacrifice from the professional managerial class. After all, who could say no to lower prices, fewer wars, and less corruption?
That, sadly, was pretty close to Trump’s winning formula in 2016 and 2024. Of course, Trump hit on other issues like immigration and left-wing cultural insanity, which Democrats most certainly will not adopt. But they don’t need to. While mass immigration and race preferences remain unpopular, the midterms reveal that enough Americans are willing to support Democrats so long as they are promising to deliver on basic everyday concerns.
But will they deliver? It should be self-evident that the Democrats, once in power, will resume their real agenda: crushing their political enemies, discriminating against whites, censoring your conservative grandma on Facebook, and reopening the immigration spigot. Sure, they might implement some pro-working-class policies, but I doubt most Americans’ lives will dramatically improve.
The Democrats’ control of Congress will cause endless headaches and stymie Trump’s agenda for the next two years. Fortunately, their ability to fully enact vengeance and resume the destruction of our country will be limited at least until 2029, when a new president, possibly a Democrat, enters the White House. The Oversight Committee can issue subpoenas and haul people into televised hearings, but given that Trump’s personal lawyer is running the DOJ, criminal referrals will go nowhere—at least for now.
Great episode listening now