It's a Wave: Republicans Celebrate Big Wins Across Races

If it looks like a wave, feels like a wave and crashes down like a wave — it’s a wave, right?

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FOR SUBSCRIBERSAbdul El-Sayed tries to woo MAHA voters as Democrats seek inroads with RFK’s supporters

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FOR SUBSCRIBERSFrom clean energy warrior to ‘wall of shame,’ James Talarico reverses on a fossil fuel money pledge

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCongressional staff planned official trip with luxury stops in Italy and France weeks before election

FOR SUBSCRIBERSA harrowing ordeal aboard an Israel-bound plane

FOR SUBSCRIBERSOpenAI CEO Sam Altman to skip congressional hearing on rogue AI agents

FOR SUBSCRIBERSKey DOJ lawyers departed Trump ‘grand conspiracy’ probe amid pressure to produce, source says

FOR SUBSCRIBERSTrump’s new AI chatbot often links to a site launched under Clinton 26 years ago

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAt MAHA summit, industry CEOs the movement once vilified take the stage

FOR SUBSCRIBERSThis Paralympian has two goals: Win medals and give away $500,000 to her teammates

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCornell rape allegation spotlights stringent New York state laws that have long drawn criticism

That’s exactly what slammed down on Democrats and their majority in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday night. Consider all of the Republican victories:

• The GOP netted at least seven Senate contests, more than the six needed to win control of the U.S. Senate;
• The party captured three of the four Senate contests taking place in presidential battleground states – Colorado, Iowa, North Carolina – and almost won another in prized Virginia;
• It ran up the score in the extremely competitive gubernatorial contests, winning in Florida, Kansas, Michigan and Wisconsin;
• And it even won a race it had absolutely no business winning: the gubernatorial contest in deep-blue Maryland.

What’s more, most of these GOP victories happened before midnight ET, when many believed that the battle for the Senate wouldn’t be decided until possible runoffs in December and January.

The GOP successes don’t stop there. The Republican Party is set up to pick up double-digit House seats, increasing their majority in that chamber to its largest margin since the 1940s, if not the 1920s. And it’s poised to make additional gains in state legislatures across the country.

In fact, maybe don’t call it wave; call it a political typhoon.

For Subscribers

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAmerican passenger drafted goodbye texts to her family as Flydubai plane plummeted

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCornell rape allegation pushes embattled New York prosecutor into national spotlight

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAbdul El-Sayed tries to woo MAHA voters as Democrats seek inroads with RFK’s supporters

FOR SUBSCRIBERSKratom-like substances are popping up in a typically benign supplement

FOR SUBSCRIBERSGOP super PAC increases its spending for Sen. Jon Husted in tough Ohio race

FOR SUBSCRIBERSRecords reveal tumultuous marriage between slain New York Times executive and wife

FOR SUBSCRIBERSFrom clean energy warrior to ‘wall of shame,’ James Talarico reverses on a fossil fuel money pledge

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCongressional staff planned official trip with luxury stops in Italy and France weeks before election

FOR SUBSCRIBERSA harrowing ordeal aboard an Israel-bound plane

FOR SUBSCRIBERSOpenAI CEO Sam Altman to skip congressional hearing on rogue AI agents

FOR SUBSCRIBERSKey DOJ lawyers departed Trump ‘grand conspiracy’ probe amid pressure to produce, source says

FOR SUBSCRIBERSTrump’s new AI chatbot often links to a site launched under Clinton 26 years ago

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAt MAHA summit, industry CEOs the movement once vilified take the stage

FOR SUBSCRIBERSThis Paralympian has two goals: Win medals and give away $500,000 to her teammates

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCornell rape allegation spotlights stringent New York state laws that have long drawn criticism

Strikingly, it came as many – including NBC News – didn’t see the 2014 midterms approaching as a wave, at least compared with the one from 2010, when Republicans picked up 63 House seats and six Senate seats.

Yes, it was shaping up to be a pro-Republican year, all the polling data found. But we dismissed it as a probable product of the Republican-leaning map. Or the typical “Six-Year Itch” a re-elected president suffers in his final midterm election. Or an electorate that was angry at all incumbents, Democrats and Republicans included.

But what took place on Election Night was something else – a wave that crashed directly down on Democrats and the Obama White House.