“You brutalized Hispanic voters in a way I personally warned would destroy you politically. I told you that. I warned you,” MS NOW host Joe Scarborough said angrily on Wednesday morning, sounding like a man who had not been invited to anchor the network’s prime-time election coverage.
“For the people in the White House watching right now, that is the price of ICE,” he declared, offering his own explanation for the Republican midterm losses in Texas, where the party surrendered a Senate seat and the governor’s mansion in one of its worst nights in the state in decades.
That was quite a lecture from Scarborough, who had previously insisted that a declining Joe Biden was “beyond cogent… better than he’s ever been, intellectually, analytically.”
One consequence of losing an election is having to endure a chorus of commentators insisting they saw the result coming all along.
There is little doubt that President Donald Trump and several of his handpicked congressional candidates had political vulnerabilities. That, however, did not make it any easier to watch the exuberant reaction from liberal commentators as the Democrats’ so-called Blue Tsunami rolled in.
Even before 6 p.m. Eastern time, the president had become increasingly agitated, firing off messages to Fox News host Greg Gutfeld while Gutfeld was live on air.
“Greg, tell [Jessica] Tarlov, who is the worst—and worst is in capitals—gas prices are lower than they were for Biden and Obama, and they allowed Iran to have the nuclear bomb,” Gutfeld read from his phone on The Five.
Trump was also battling the Fox News poll online. “The Fox News Poll, always the worst, is so insulting with the questions they ask. Every question is a hit job, and every answer is ‘BULLS**!’ This has been going on for years,” he wrote at 6:36 p.m.
“I warned you,” said MS NOW’s Joe Scarborough on Wednesday morning, with the intensity of someone who had not been asked to host the network’s prime-time election coverage
Before 6 p.m. Eastern time, the president was already visibly frustrated, messaging Fox News host Greg Gutfeld as he appeared live on air
It was shaping up to be a long night.
On CNN, the network’s chief defender of Joe Biden, Jake Tapper, stumbled early by describing Trump’s signature tax proposal as “no tax on tits.”
Whatever the intended wording, the mistake did little to inspire confidence in the night’s coverage.
Tapper soon appeared increasingly animated as he examined the first substantial vote totals to emerge.
Republican-held seats in deeply conservative Indiana and Kentucky began trending toward the Democrats, and Tapper’s excitement was becoming difficult to miss.
The MS NOW panel, led by Rachel Maddow, was similarly tense as the early results came in.
Could American voters really have delivered a setback to the Republican Party? And if so, what would the result mean for commentators who had spent years warning about Trump’s political influence?
Shortly after 7 p.m., that possibility appeared increasingly real.
News networks called the Georgia Senate race for Jon Ossoff. CNN’s Kasie Hunt could barely contain her enthusiasm. “The Ossoff for President campaign starts tonight, basically,” she said.
From there, Republican losses began accumulating quickly.
At 8:10 p.m., Democrats won Florida House seats in districts that had been drawn to give Republicans a structural advantage.
Tapper began using the phrase “blue-nami.” He was visibly energized, and the excitement reflected more than one high-profile Democratic victory.
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Texas Gov. Greg Abbott appeared vulnerable. Democrats were leading in dozens of Republican-held House districts. Susan Collins was trailing in Maine, Kansas was competitive, and Republicans were showing little strength in the Senate contests they needed to retain control of the upper chamber.
Back on CNN, Van Jones predicted what he called a “revenge of voters of color.”
The night’s television analysis repeatedly focused on the demographic divisions shaping the election.
At 9 p.m., Republicans received one of the evening’s few major pieces of good news.
Former Congressman Byron Donalds was declared the winner of Florida’s gubernatorial election, succeeding Ron DeSantis and becoming the first elected Black Republican governor in the state’s history. Yet the significance of the result received limited attention from some commentators.
At MS NOW, figures including Symone Sanders-Townsend were instead celebrating Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms’ victory in the Georgia governor’s race.
The MS NOW panel, led by Rachel Maddow, remained visibly tense as the results continued to move toward the Democrats
“Symone, your political analysis of this race has been perfect, but how does it feel? How does this feel?” asked Lawrence O’Donnell.
Sanders-Townsend appeared emotional as she dabbed her eyes with a tissue offered by Maddow.
“I’m over here about to cry, Lord,” she said. “After the 2024 presidential election, I myself, but Black women all over the country, it felt like a repudiation of us.”
Donalds’ victory in Florida received considerably less attention during the discussion.
“As you say in my community, all kinfolk ain’t skinfolk,” Sanders-Townsend said.
The remark underscored how sharply the panel framed the evening through the lens of race and representation.
Donalds also faced an ugly online episode. Shortly after his victory, his Wikipedia page was altered to describe him as “the first openly gay man to serve as governor,” despite his marriage to Erika Donalds.
As the night continued, Republican losses mounted and Democratic commentators became increasingly celebratory.
“I’m happy, happy, happy! I’m so happy!” Jones said, grinning broadly.
“This is like Christmas, and a birthday and the Easter Bunny and Halloween,” he said, before comparing the result to the Jonestown cult massacre. “This is Jonestown for the Republican Party. They drank the Kool-Aid and they have candidates that are dropping like flies across the country.”
“I’m happy, happy, happy! I’m so happy!” Van Jones said, grinning broadly
The comparison was striking enough to prompt even former Obama adviser David Axelrod to ask Jones what was in his coffee mug.
At 9:30 p.m., CNN called the North Carolina Senate race for Democrat Roy Cooper. An hour later, Lindsey Graham’s sister was declared the loser in South Carolina. By 10 p.m., the House had been projected for the Democrats, and the outcome was effectively sealed.
Trump and his allies suffered a decisive defeat, and the reasons were not difficult to identify. A combination of an apparently unending foreign war and high gas prices helped push Democratic voters into traditionally Republican territory.
What happens next remains uncertain. But if Democrats interpret the victory as a mandate for sweeping change, the political mood could look very different two years from now. The same commentators celebrating on election night may then be the ones explaining a Republican comeback.
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