'Tis like shooting fish in a barrel ...

-> Georgia voters ousted two Republican members of the state's Public Service Commission in favor of two Democrats"the first Democrats to win statewide nonfederal offices in decades.

-> Democrats in Mississippi Break the G.O.P.'s State House Supermajority

-> Every single county in Virginia - even deeply red counties - saw shifts TOWARDS the Democrats, as opposed to how they voted 1 year ago.

-> Dems flip Wichita School Board from a 4-3 GOP majority to a 5-2 Democratic majority. Democratic candidates Amy Warren and Amy Jensen defeated Republican incumbents Hazel Stabler and Kathy Bond.

->Two of Tuesday's school board elections were in Bucks County, Pa., which was considered "ground zero" for right-wing groups' takeover of school boards in 2021. A few years ago, conservatives on these boards in Pennbridge and Central Bucks districts were using their roles to pass policies targeting LGBTQ+ students and banning books.

---> Democrats flipped control of both boards in 2023, and on Tuesday, they ousted every Republican from both of these boards, except for one. The Pennbridge school board is now 8-1, with Democratic members in control. The Central Bucks school board is 9-0.

-> In Texas, we even won in Lockhart, which sits in a district so red that Democrats normally don't even run. We had a clean sweep in Cy-Fair ISD, another deeply red area that not even Greg Abbott could save your party.

-> In SD-9, another red district, we saw an 8 point shift for the Democrat

Other than screeching like cut hogs that Zorhan Mamdami is about to seize the means of production in New York City and usher in Full Sharia Communism With Mandatory Gay Marriage and Free Bus Rides, the GOP has nothing today.

Nothing. Nada. Bupkis.

His long-bomb "end the filibuster" performance at the White House a few hours ago was delivered in a dispirited monotone, the flat affect of a man who is negotiating with the political Grim Reaper.

His party is bleeding out under the public's ferocious judgment that his shutdown is linked utterly with the MAGA GOP. Every poll now

His own polling numbers are abysmal, with large fractions of the GOP now objecting to his tariffs, his shutdown, and his overall performance. On every issue, independents now poll roughly 2.25:1 against him.

America is pissed off.

The states are rebelling.

2026 is coming, and MAGA is in trouble.

If you're inside MAGA world today, you're doing the usual post-defeat interpretive dance "It wasn't really a loss," "Turnout," "The media," "If Trump were on the ballot ... " but the rest of us saw what happened as plain as daylight: in two states where Republicans thought they had a shot, voters took one look at the chaos, the cruelty, the endless grievance playlist of Trump-era MAGA ... and they chose normal.

That's the part that should terrify them.

Because last night wasn't just about Abigail Spanberger turning Virginia bluer than Stephen Miller's balls, or Mikie Sherrill wildly outperforming her Democratic predecessor.

It was about the reappearance of a voter we were told had gone extinct: the suburban, exasperated, moderately liberal-to-centrist American who wants government to function and is profoundly over the MAGA circus. That voter came out in an off-year election, not for a Trump-sized spectacle but for basic competence.

And MAGA lost to that.

Let me walk you through the nightmare.

First, Virginia. Republicans had convinced themselves that 2021 wasn't a fluke, that Glenn Youngkin's "I wear a fleece vest so I can't possibly be extreme" act was the new template. They told themselves the northern Virginia federal-worker cataclysm of DOGE, Russ Vought firings, and the Trump shutdown was no big deal. They decided to replay the 2024 classic "Trans trans trans trans trans", which went over like a wet fart in a hot car.

Then Abigail Spanberger walks in and doesn't just win ... she wins big. She wins while being unapologetically pro-democracy, pro-functioning government. She wins in a state with a large military and intelligence community footprint that remembers who stands with Ukraine and who thought Putin is dreamy. She wins in exactly the places Republicans told their donors they could hold forever.

That's bad enough. But Democrats didn't just take the top slot. They took the other statewide offices. They look set for full control in Richmond. That means policy. That means maps. That means the next time Republicans tell you, "Just wait until we draw the lines," you can say, "Buddy, those lines just got drawn for you ... by Democrats."

And for MAGA, that's the first omen. Because the Trump-era GOP is built on the idea that structural advantages will save them: gerrymandered maps, weird turnout patterns, off-year lethargy, rural overperformance. Last night showed what happens when you remove one of their cheat codes.

When Democrats fight the right battles, Republicans have to win on message.

They did not win on message.

New Jersey told the same story in a slightly different accent. Republicans have had a kind of recurring hallucination that New Jersey is secretly ready to come home to the GOP if only the right national winds were blowing. Those winds were not blowing. Sherrill wins, Democrats hold serve, and what could have been a "Huh, maybe blue states are wobbling" headline turned into "Nope, not wobbling."

So, two states, two blue nights. Why does that matter for 2026 and beyond?

Because MAGA isn't scaling. The Trump personality cult works when the man himself is onstage, sweating chicken grease onto the podium and promising retribution. It works when the audience is national, when the right-wing media machine is in maximum signal-boost mode, when the election feels existential, and the QAnon aunties are forwarding fundraising emails like it's a chain letter from God.

But put MAGA on the ballot without Trump, and it shrinks. The turnout softens. The vibes droop. The people who love the cruelty but not enough to drive to the middle school gym in November don't show. The movement that pretends it's an unstoppable populist wave starts to look a lot more like a loud minority that needs very specific conditions to win.

That's what we saw last night. MAGA without Trump is like a cover band without the lead singer: same songs, way fewer people in the bar.

And the issues mix? Oh, baby.

Right now, the GOP brand is: tariff pain, shutdown disasters, and performative culture-war nastiness aimed at making life worse for people who aren't their voters.

The further we get from the Trump rally stage and the closer we get to real-life consequences, the more America will reject Trump: higher prices from his tariff tantrums, a government shutdown by his minions in Congress.

The more voters remember that they actually like calm. They like stability. They like knowing that the people in office are going to try to manage the state's business, not declare holy war on librarians.

MAGA can still win deep-red places, forever. There will always be room in this universe for the grunting lunatics and tire-gutted weirdos and whatever election-denying county clerk decides she's the Joan of Arc of voter fraud.

But to be a national party, you have to win places like Virginia. You have to compete in states like New Jersey when they're open. You have to show you can rise above your own performative lunacy.

Last night, they didn't. Last night, voters said, "We see what you've become. We don't want it here."

And if I were Trump ( God forbid), I'd be nervous. Because when people start using state races as a low-cost way to punch your movement in the face, they tend to keep punching.

2026 is coming.

And, in the FWIW category..."it's a representative republic. Not a democracy."

How is your local dog catcher chosen?

How are your mayor and county/parish executives chosen?

How are your state representatives/state senators chosen?

How is your governor chosen?

How is your US congressperson chosen?

How is your US Senator chosen?

Think...

How are all those people chosen ... if NOT through democratic means?

It's time for us to finish the job and put MAGA in its political grave.

Rick Wilson's Against All Enemies
About Last Night: MAGA Reeks of Death
Rick Wilson Nov 05, 2025 - Paid

There are nights in politics when the country leans over, taps you on the shoulder, and says, "I told you I was sick of this." Last night was one of those nights.

There is not a single ray of light for Donald Trump and MAGA from last night's apocalyptic blowout. A billion Iranian centrifuges whirling for a hundred years could not spin last night into a victory. There is no amount of mayonnaise in the known universe that could turn the chickenshit of last night into chicken salad for the MAGA world.