A blue tsunami just handed Congress to the Democrats and Barack Obama is savoring every moment.
“Tonight, the American people sent a clear message,” the former president, 65, posted on X in the early hours.
Obama, who hit the campaign trail hard himself, said the voters want “a politics that brings people together rather than divides them, and leaders who offer concrete solutions to the challenges they face.”
His swagger is back for good reason, with Democrats flipping Republican-held Senate seats in Texas, Ohio, Kansas, Iowa, North Carolina and South Carolina, defeating several Trump-picked candidates along the way.
Maine fell too. Troy Jackson, 58, took out Trump-endorsed Sen. Susan Collins, ending her nearly 30-year run in Washington. He will be the first Democrat to represent Maine in the Senate since 1995, NPR reported.
Obama made it clear that a midterm win doesn’t mean the fight is over.
“While this administration has another two years in office, our job now is to roll up our sleeves, make changes wherever we have the power to do so, prevent further damage, and lay the groundwork for the future.”
Obama was hard at work on the trail in October, stumping for Democrats such as Jon Ossoff, 39, and Abdul El-Sayed, 42.
Last Wednesday, Obama filled the 8,000-capacity Arena at Southlake in Morrow, Georgia, for Sen. Jon Ossoff.
Trump, 80, spent the same night in a 2,400-seat college gym in Chillicothe, Ohio, stumping for Sen. Jon Husted.
Ossoff held his seat; Husted lost his.
Trump managed a begrudging “Congratulations to the Democrats” while insisting the drubbing was no verdict on his leadership.
“They did a good job,” Trump said. “They’ve been looking for this one for 11 years, and they finally got it. But I don’t view it as a hit on me.”
Obama described his own defeat in the 2010 midterms as “a shellacking,” but the Democrats retained control of the Senate that year, which the Republicans failed to do this time around under Trump.
Hailing the winners as coming “from different backgrounds,” Obama said they represent “a range of political perspectives,” a nod to the friction between the party’s rising progressive wing and its more establishment Democrats.
In Texas, progressive populist James Talarico crushed Ken Paxton by double digits, becoming the state’s first Democratic senator since 1988. He hammered the “disastrous war in Iran that’s driving up our costs,” the Texas Tribune reported. Even Paxton could see it coming. “It’s the war, it’s gas prices, it’s diesel,” he told donors privately, per Axios.
In Michigan, Bernie Sanders-backed progressive Abdul El-Sayed also won. “We built something bigger than a bank account,” he exclaimed in his victory speech, “we built a movement.”
