The Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) coalition helped President Donald Trump get re-elected in 2024. Two years later, MAHA supporters say their frustration at what they call Trump’s broken promises helped the Democrats triumph in the midterms.

Disappointment over issues including pesticides and vaccines led some MAHA voters to support Democrats or sit out the midterms, activists involved in the movement say. How widespread those choices were—and whether they meaningfully affected certain races—remains unclear. The Democrats on Tuesday decisively took control of the House and Senate, winning seats in states long considered Republican strongholds including Texas, Kansas, and South Carolina.

“A lot of people had said they weren’t going to vote, and by not voting, they handed the win to the Democrats,” says Zen Honeycutt, the founder and executive director of Moms Across America, a group closely linked to the MAHA movement. “That’s what happens when you don’t fulfill your promises to the American people. They won’t show up for you.” 

Dr. Peter Lurie, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit health-advocacy group, says it is hard to know without more specific voting data just how much of an actual impact MAHA had on the midterm results. But he says the movement is large enough that the votes of even a fraction of MAHA supporters would have been sufficient to “have made a decisive difference.” 

The MAHA movement gained national traction during the 2024 presidential campaign when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. endorsed Trump and brought his health-focused coalition into the Make America Great Again (MAGA) orbit. Kennedy, a former environmental lawyer and longtime vaccine skeptic, was tapped by Trump to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Kennedy has since faced widespread criticism from doctors and scientists for his efforts to slash U.S. vaccine recommendations and research funding for vaccines. Still, Kennedy and MAHA retain national influence. An October survey found that American voters viewed Kennedy more favorably than many leading political figures including Trump, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance, and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. A KFF poll in May found that 41% of U.S. adults support the MAHA movement. However, most U.S. adults surveyed said they didn’t agree with the Trump Administration's handling of vaccines. Despite Kennedy’s attacks on the childhood immunization schedule, Americans across party lines have expressed overwhelming support for childhood vaccines. 

Honeycutt, a close ally of Kennedy, had previously threatened to back some Democratic candidates in the midterm elections if Republicans failed to act on MAHA priorities, including tightening pesticide regulations and nutrition reform. Moms Across America Movement, the political advocacy organization she leads, endorsed 10 Democrats including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, and Rep. Chris Pappas, who won a highly contested bid for Senate in New Hampshire. Nine of the 10 Democrats endorsed by Honeycutt’s group won their races. (The group also endorsed dozens of Republican and independent candidates.)  

“Trump promised [on the campaign trail] to go after pesticides, autism, childhood chronic illness. He shook Bobby Kennedy’s hand and promised to let him go wild. He did not fulfill that promise,” Honeycutt says. “He did not do anything substantial about pesticides. In fact, he made it worse.”

She points to an executive order signed by Trump in February that prioritizes U.S. production of glyphosate, a weedkiller that some research has linked to cancer. Many MAHA supporters want to limit glyphosate’s use. “I was disgusted” with the executive order, Honeycutt says. “It was a clear example of how this Administration is heavily influenced by Big Ag and chemical corporations.” 

Since Trump took office, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has approved five pesticide ingredients that environmental groups say are PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances—“forever chemicals” that could threaten people’s health. In April, only a minority of Republican House members voted to remove language from the Farm Bill that would have protected pesticide manufacturers from health-related lawsuits—more proof, Honeycutt says, that Republicans are “beholden to chemical companies.” (In the end, the pesticide liability protections were stripped from the bill, following support from a coalition of Democrats and MAHA supporters.) 

“I think Republicans lost because they listened to the lobbying wing of their party instead of their base,” many of whom care about issues like pesticides, says David Murphy, a former fundraiser for Kennedy's presidential campaign and founder of the food-system reform organization United We Eat. 

Murphy was among a group of MAHA activists who recently published a MAHA scorecard that listed 42 promises that the Trump Administration had made to “make America healthy again.” According to the scorecard, Trump has kept zero promises, partially fulfilled 5 (including actions related to food dyes), and broken 37 of them. 

“The MAHA coalition was instrumental in helping Trump win based on very specific promises he made to Kennedy…but he has failed to follow through,” Murphy says. “MAHA voters are upset across the country.”

The alliance between the MAHA coalition and Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement has been a tenuous one from the start, strained in part by the close ties that Trump and his allies have to food and chemical industries. Even before the midterms, signs had been mounting of the alliance splintering. Calley Means, a top aide of Kennedy’s, resigned from his position in the Trump Administration on Oct. 22—less than two weeks before the midterms. Means reportedly quit in part over frustrations that the Administration was neglecting MAHA priorities, including work related to ultraprocessed foods. Means did not respond to TIME’s request for comment. 

“I do think we are finally seeing MAHA become a victim of its own contradictions,” says Lurie of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. “It never made sense to expect that this Administration, with its antiregulatory and pro-business position, would have been able to execute on a platform that included restrictions of dangerous chemicals and pollutants. Why anybody expected that to work, I don’t really know.”

During a White House meeting in April between MAHA supporters and Trump officials, Alex Clark Voetberg, who hosts a popular MAHA podcast, warned Kennedy and top Trump aides that a sizable chunk of her audience had vowed not to vote in the midterms if Republicans didn’t take significant MAHA action by then, The Wall Street Journal reported. On Tuesday night, as Democratic wins began accumulating, Clark Voetberg wrote on social media that “MAHA moms stayed home and it could’ve swayed some of these races that were unbearably close.”

Kelly Ryerson, a MAHA supporter and advocate for pesticide regulation who also attended the White House meeting, says she wasn’t surprised by the Democrats’ victory. “When we met with the Administration in April, we knew this would happen,” she says.

Like most Americans, Ryerson says affordability and the war in Iran—which she describes as unnecessary and poorly planned given the “clear, foreseeable economic impacts” on the U.S.—were also issues on the minds of MAHA supporters going into the midterms. Honeycutt says MAHA proponents were also vexed by the Trump Administration’s failure to remove the COVID vaccine, which some MAHA supporters view as harmful, from the market. 

Vaccines are an issue that fragments MAHA: many are skeptical of vaccines, though some support their use. Honeycutt, who has blamed vaccines for health issues in her children, says she hopes Democrats in power will “leave the vaccine issue to Kennedy.” 

Several Democratic candidates who won congressional seats on Tuesday—including Dr. Annie Andrews, a pediatrician who flipped a South Carolina Senate seat—campaigned on strong pro-vaccine platforms. Andrews, like a number of other members of her party, has said she wants to impeach Kennedy over issues including his anti-vaccine agenda.

“If Dems want to continue to push vaccines, they are going to receive a tsunami of resistance” from some MAHA supporters, Honeycutt says.

Democrats, who are largely supportive of vaccines, have been seeking different common ground with the MAHA movement. In September, House Democrats listed “reclaiming MAHA” as one of their health care aims. Democrats who were chasing seats in Congress—including Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, who won a hotly contested Senate seat in Michigan—have made it a point to court MAHA voters by focusing on environmental and food-related issues. 

“Abdul El-Sayed has talked a lot about getting pesticides out. We’ll see what he does,” says Honeycutt, whose group did not endorse him.

Honeycutt says she was deeply disappointed at the midterm losses of many MAHA-aligned Republican candidates, including Iowa gubernatorial hopeful Zach Lahn, who Kennedy stumped for, and Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall, who founded and chaired the Senate MAHA Caucus. But she says she is hopeful that Democrats will prioritize some MAHA issues, and that Trump will work with them to make changes happen. “Trump said he will work with the Dems. Let’s see. This could be a political paradigm shift, a real opportunity to get things done,” she says. 

Ryerson says the midterms should serve as a reminder to politicians of the MAHA movement’s growing influence. “This could have so easily been different for this Administration. It blows my mind. They were unwilling to listen to us,” she says. “Maybe they didn’t believe we were so powerful.”

Leaders of both parties shouldn’t forget that with 2028 looming in the distance, says Murphy: “MAHA, and MAHA voters, aren’t going to go away.”

Democratic socialists will soon be running three major U.S. cities, now that progressive Nithya Raman has defeated Los Angeles’ incumbent mayor.

The Associated Press called the race for Raman on Thursday afternoon, with the Democratic socialist winning 52.1% of the vote and current Mayor Karen Bass, a Democrat, earning 47.9%, with 76% of votes counted.

Raman celebrated her victory in a video statement she shared on social media. She went on to say that she had spoken with the outgoing mayor and thanked Bass for years of service to the community.

“Los Angeles, I’m deeply honored to be your next mayor,” Raman said. “I love this city and I love its people and I cannot wait to get started on building a better future together with all of you. Thank you so much Los Angeles.”

Raman, a City Council member and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, will be the first Asian American to ever lead California’s most populous city. Her victory is also the latest in a string of triumphs for the progressive wing of the Democratic party, notable among them Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani’s win in the New York City mayoral race last year. And on Tuesday, Janeese Lewis George—another member of the Democratic Socialists of America—was elected to be the next mayor of Washington, D.C.

Read More: What Is a Democratic Socialist?

Raman entered the race in LA late, and her announcement came as a surprise to many, given that she had previously backed Bass’ re-election bid. In June, Raman defeated Republican former reality star Spencer Pratt, who President Donald Trump had favored in the race, to advance to the general election. During her campaign, she has emphasized her desire “to build a city that works for everyone.”

Bass’ loss comes despite endorsements for her campaign from political heavyweights in the state, including former Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Gavin Newsom. While she has garnered support from such figures, she has been unpopular with the city’s residents, with many criticizing her response to the devastating wildfires that ripped through the southern part of the state last year.

Bass conceded the race on Thursday afternoon, saying in a statement that she had called Raman to offer congratulations.

“While this is not the outcome we hoped for, the people of Los Angeles have spoken,” Bass said. “I have committed to ensuring a smooth and seamless transition. Moving this city forward is what Los Angeles needs from all of us.”

Raman had the backing of major progressives, including Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. She has advocated for a number of progressive policies, including ones focused on reducing housing costs and bolstering protections for tenants. Housing is one of the top issues for LA voters: A poll conducted by the LABC Institute in April found that respondents ranked homelessness, the cost of living, and housing affordability as top problems.

Raman has also publicly criticized the Trump Administration, particularly over its immigration enforcement operations in the city, and has said that “elected officials in LA have simply not stepped up to protect residents in the way that we all deserve.” Raman has said, though, that, like Mamdani in New York, she would work with the Trump Administration as needed for the sake and well-being of city residents.

Mamdani, who campaigned on ambitious promises to make life more affordable for New Yorkers, sent shockwaves through the Democratic establishment with his victory last year and has since established himself as a rising star in the party. In his first year leading the city he has pursued a progressive policy agenda as he has moved to make good on several of his campaign pledges, announcing the approaching rollout of an expansion in free child care in the city, implementing a tax on high-end second homes, and winning approval for a rent freeze on rent-stabilized apartments, among a number of other moves.

On the campaign trail in the nation’s capital, Lewis George similarly made expanding affordable housing and universal childcare cornerstones of her platform. The incoming D.C. mayor has also pledged to resist Trump’s crackdown in D.C., while saying she’s “willing to work with anyone, including the Administration, to improve the lives of DC residents.”

“I’ll be the mayor of the corner store,” Lewis George said in an acceptance speech Tuesday night, “and the corner office.”

Adding to the movement's victories on Tuesday, a Democratic socialist has also been elected to lead the city of Providence, Rhode Island, while several others scored win in House races in states from New York to Michigan to California.

"From coast to coast, American voters have emphatically endorsed socialism to oppose the corruption and barbarism of Donald Trump and the Republicans," the Democratic Socialists of America said in a statement on Wednesday touting the electoral successes.

"This midterm cycle," it added, "DSA made history."

Last summer, while on an assignment in Ethiopia, I found myself daydreaming while trapped in Addis Ababa’s rush hour traffic. Staring out from my gridlocked taxi, I was struck by something remarkable: on all four sides were vehicles produced by Chinese manufacturer BYD.

Except it wasn’t really that remarkable. For years now, BYDs have been a regular feature of my travels to even the most far-flung places, plying streets from Yerevan to Yangon and beyond. Last year, the firm, whose initials stand for “Build Your Dreams,” became the world’s top purveyor of EVs, selling 4.6 million vehicles across 120 countries and regions, while accruing revenue of $111 billion. It was perhaps more surprising I wasn’t sitting in a BYD myself.

“If you look at a lot of markets, we say, ‘there's been a boom in EVs,’” says Ilaria Mazzocco, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Actually, it's just BYD. They're single-handedly creating markets in some countries, which is remarkable.”

Now the Shenzhen-based firm aims to overtake Toyota as the number one automaker by 2030—a feat that, at current sales figures, would require more than doubling its output. As China’s auto market cools amid a broader consumer slowdown, it’s an ambition that increasingly depends on swelling BYD's foreign business, which has already surpassed its domestic revenue.

Indeed, BYD’s runaway success overseas has contributed to a broader rethink of global trade policy, spurring barriers such as 27% tariffs in the E.U., 35% in Brazil, 40% in Turkey, and 100% in the U.S. On Oct. 12, the E.U. announced a 350,000-a-year quota would be imposed on hybrid EV imports from China in a move that is expected to halve their market share. The U.S. has gone further than tariffs and quotas, with the Pentagon in June labeling BYD as a “Chinese military company.” 

Analysts say Europe’s restrictions on Chinese plug-in hybrid vehicles may become a template for protecting other industries exposed to what’s been dubbed “China shock 2.0,” from chemicals and medical equipment to wind turbines that critics say are heavily subsidized. As such, BYD has become an unwilling lightning rod for a fundamental rebalancing of global trade.

TIME spoke with Stella Li, BYD vice-president and CEO for the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, about the geopolitical headwinds to her firm’s ambitions. The following has been edited for clarity and length.

TIME: The U.S. recently listed BYD as a Chinese military company. What’s your response?

Li: We are working closely with them to check what's the reason, because we are a privately owned, publicly traded company. They say BYD is close to [the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology,] which is the industry authority to give approval of cars. Well, all car companies for sure always need to go to them, including Tesla. Every U.S. company needs to go there. So this reason isn’t very strong. The second they say that BYD has a manufacturing plant within an army industrial park. But different companies, including several American companies, are also there. It’s ridiculous.

Will that designation affect your existing American business, such as batteries, buses, and everything else?

No, we’re working on the legal basis to get out of [the designation].

BYD leads the world in EVs and aims to be its top auto firm by 2030. What's the biggest obstacle to making that happen?

The big challenge now is geopolitical. Every day, you wake up with headlines saying, ‘the U.K. is going to put a 45% tariff,’ and ‘the European Union is going to put another tariff.’ It’s all this scary news.

In Europe, policymakers talk about stopping BYD to protect their legacy automakers. Do you think that those tactics have merit or are they driven by political concerns?

This is mainly triggered by political concerns. Because thinking about BYD or [other foreign] manufacturing in the region, we will hire local people. Then what's the difference? Sometimes when the revolution comes, people need a little time to digest. For us, we are a global company. We need to also make ourselves very strong [by hiring] local people.

One argument is that the whole of China's car industry was built on joint ventures, with Volkswagen and Audi and all these companies forced to partner with local firms to do business in China, which helped build up the domestic auto industry. Does it not make sense to reciprocate with joint ventures overseas?

It's a very different moment now, because when all those foreign companies came to China, the whole auto industry was weak. But China did open up for all the foreign brands to make tons of money over the past 20 years. They banked the profit from China. So now if we do a joint venture, can we make the same profit that they did in China? No, it's impossible. So it's a different moment because now the whole society, industry, has grown to be more open, to be a really consumer-driven, competitive market.

But without BYD, the Chinese auto industry would still be weak, because in these joint ventures the Chinese engineers had zero influence or knowledge with the car. Everything was decided by the foreign country. But when we started in the car industry, people went, ‘how can they do this?’ Then they also started to learn.

China remains the world's biggest auto market but is slowing and getting more competitive. Does that mean you are shifting your focus overseas?

We need to focus on the domestic market, where we're going to get stronger. It is just like altitude training—training with extreme conditions! So we need to retain our number one position in China.

There are some concerns in Europe and elsewhere about data transfers from BYD vehicles and China. What restrictions or safeguards are you implementing to address those worries?

We are maybe 10 times more careful than other companies. Because everybody is watching us to see any mistake we make. We already use tech firms from overseas. Even our data center, our Cloud, uses Google.

BYD is a leader in battery technology, especially pioneering flash charging. How far are we from having solid state batteries in cars for that next leap of performance?

BYD is in the leading position to develop a solid-state battery, but this kind of technology still needs some maturity for mass production. The industry wants to push for 2030, but I think now they need to postpone the schedule a little bit. But BYD will be the first one to make this happen.

You talk about BYD as being a pure technology company and your electronics arm already assembles a lot of the world’s smartphones and iPads. Now you're moving into humanoid robots, data centers, and other things. What's the next great leap you’re preparing for?

For cars, autonomous driving is already the big challenge. And second is about the ecosystem. For example, flash charging; all the charging capability we do is also a huge business. And then the third is robots. And then battery storage and the server and all the components among the server. So all this industry add-on together we already have a very strong position.

Considering the breadth of BYD’s operations, do you see any competitors?

We did not see the competitor who moves to a totally different scope [like us]. If we talk about cars, a lot of companies only have hybrid cars. BYD also has electric buses, we have battery storage. So BYD has multiple core industries. We have a whole ecosystem here. 

BYD is developing its own semiconductors but still relies heavily on Nvidia. Do you have a timeline for when your own chips will be deployed in most of your vehicles?

Our chips will take some share, but never 100%. Nvidia will always be our partner. 

Have you considered alternatives by a Chinese chipmaker, such as Huawei?

We don't use Huawei chipset. Because we need to sell globally.

On Nov. 1, a seemingly healthy 24-year-old woman from Pennsylvania, Rachel Apa, collapsed near the end of the New York City Marathon. She died later that day despite treatment, and her father told the New York Times that her death was linked to rhabdomyolysis, a condition in which damaged muscle tissue releases substances into the bloodstream that can injure the kidneys and sometimes the heart. Extreme exercise is one possible trigger. The city’s medical examiner was still investigating the cause.

Here’s what to know about the condition.

What is rhabdomyolysis?

Rhabdomyolysis is a process where the muscle cells break down and die, says Dr. Douglas Farrell, a nephrologist at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. “By doing so, they release their contents, which can be quite toxic to the body and to the kidney.” 

A variety of triggers can cause this effect: injuries where part of the body is crushed and drug side effects can contribute to rhabdomyolysis, which manifests with symptoms such as muscle pain and dark urine. Dehydration can worsen the condition. 

When exercise is the trigger, the condition is called exercise-induced rhabdomyolysis. Farrell’s hospital is close to the finish line of the New York City Marathon, and he says he has seen a substantial number of cases over the years. In April, he and colleagues published a paper looking into a worrying trend: 24 people who ran in the 2022 New York City Marathon had rhabdomyolysis treated at nearby hospitals, while only 15 people in the previous five years combined sought help there for the condition after the race.  

"I was a nephrologist on call during this time, and I saw a lot of patients. And I said, 'Man, this feels way more than what I remember,'" he says.

What risk factors make rhabdomyolysis more likely?

Temperature is a big one, says Farrell. When you exercise, your body needs to shed heat fast. When it’s hot and humid, the body might not be able to cool down quickly enough to avoid the muscle damage that could lead to rhabdomyolysis. 

Another factor is sudden temperature shifts. Slow temperature changes the body can handle: “If you are going to go somewhere that's hotter or more humid than what you're used to, your body needs about a week or two actually to acclimate,” he says. But big jumps are harder. He and his colleagues suspect this contributed to the large number of cases in 2022, which was the hottest and most humid year since the marathon moved to November in 1986. Among the years he studied, “2022 was also the only marathon in which it was much hotter the day of the marathon than the previous two weeks,” he says. 

However, most people who run marathons, no matter the temperature, don’t get this condition. “It is difficult to predict who will develop exercise-induced rhabdomyolysis before a race,” says Dr. Marie Vangstad of Oslo University Hospital in Norway, who has studied the condition. “The most important risk factor is unusually strenuous or unaccustomed exercise, particularly a sudden increase in training intensity or volume. Even well-trained athletes can develop rhabdomyolysis under extreme physical exertion. Some individuals also have underlying genetic conditions that increase their susceptibility, but many cases occur in people without any known predisposition.” 

Is it usually life-threatening?

Deaths from exercise-induced rhabdomyolysis are exceedingly rare, Vangstad and Farrell agree. None of the patients from Farrell’s paper on the 2022 marathon died. Treatment centers on fluids and monitoring kidney function and electrolytes. When heatstroke accompanies the condition, doctors try to rapidly cool the body down, often with ice baths. In more extreme cases, dialysis is used to manage kidney failure.

Rhabdomyolysis is diagnosed using symptoms, the circumstances under which a person developed them, and blood tests for markers of muscle breakdown. However, blood markers alone do not establish the cause of death; those could be elevated in someone who died during exercise, but for other reasons than rhabdomyolysis alone.

Two major studies from the last couple of years found no deaths in more than 300 exercise-induced rhabdomyolysis cases. “Overall, exercise-induced rhabdomyolysis generally has a very good prognosis, and serious complications are rare,” Vangstad says.

Artificial intelligence models have, in recent months, hacked a multibillion-dollar company, meddled with government data, and even filed a fabricated homicide tip to police, all under the noses of their creators. They did so not in pursuit of world domination, but to maximize their scores on tests. In other words, they cheated.

On Nov. 5, AI interpretability startup Goodfire unveiled a technique it says sharply reduces that impulse. In a paper shared exclusively with TIME ahead of publication, researchers use signals from inside models to reward them not just for getting the right answer, but for getting there in the right way. In early tests, the technique could also make models less eager to tell users what they wanted to hear and even discourage medical-image recognition models from relying on misleading clues.

The news lands as existing ways for spotting AI misbehavior have begun to break down. Researchers rely on a model’s “chain of thought,” a trail that doesn't really contain its thoughts at all. It is closer to the scrap paper a math student uses to work through a problem. But when models suspect they are being watched, they can be selective about what goes on paper. Increasingly, they can do the work in their heads. 

Goodfire’s technique goes after the thoughts themselves, or at least the ones researchers have already catalogued. So far, it has been tested only on models roughly 1/300th the size of frontier systems. But Goodfire is betting that the larger the model, “the cleaner the representation” of internal concepts, making those signals easier to read, says paper co-author Thomas Fel.

Why AI cheats

After teaching their AIs to predict words, developers put them through a digital obstacle course—ranging from math puzzles to web surfing—and reward them only when they succeed. With each correct solution, the model’s parameters—the strength of connections between digital neurons—update.

Models are rewarded regardless of how they completed their task, incentivizing shortcuts or other questionable impulses, like accruing power.

A version of this problem helps explain why AI is often a suck-up. During training, models are rewarded for answers most likely to receive a “thumbs up” from human graders. Known as “reinforcement learning from human feedback,” or RLHF, the technique was heralded as a safety breakthrough in 2022 for its ability to turn unruly language models into well-mannered chatbots, curbing their tendency to offer racist and misogynistic responses. But it can also make models pathologically agreeable, sometimes indulging and reinforcing users’ delusions.

The underlying riddle is how to train AI to do something without inadvertently teaching it the wrong lesson—known among researchers as the “alignment problem.” 

A new way to steer model behavior

Similar to how neuroscientists use real-time magnetic resonance imaging to identify which regions of brain activity correlate with certain states, interpretability researchers have developed tools for recognizing which patterns of digital neuron activations correspond with concepts like “the Golden Gate Bridge” or “reward hacking,” the technical term for AI cheating. A tiny AI model can then be trained to spot these patterns. The result is known as a “probe,” a narrow window into the model, which fires when it “thinks” about a particular concept. 

Read more: How This Tool Could Decode AI’s Inner Mysteries

Anthropic already uses probes as guardrails, flagging potential trouble before an answer reaches the user. But Goodfire instead used those signals to specify how a model should solve a task. In one example, Goodfire tasked AIs with a series of math puzzles, gave them a file with the answers, but told them not to open it. The ordinary training rewarded success so effectively that the models learned to peek almost every time. Using a probe to penalize “reward hacking” reduced that to near zero.

Whether the technique will work on the sorts of complex tests frontier models undergo during training remains an open question. But early experiments suggest it works across different tasks. After warming up on the math puzzles, Goodfire then tasked the AIs with chess challenges. The one that had not been penalized for cheating on math peeked at the answer sheet 99% of the time, while the one that had did so less than 1% of the time.

It also seemed to work for curbing AI’s other bad habits. The researchers tried penalizing a model when responses were influenced by its internal concept of "sycophancy,” and it learned to be less excessively agreeable. This approach, Fel hopes, could be used to specify which information an AI should disregard, such as an applicant's gender when screening résumés.

Even a perfectly controllable AI won’t resolve the question of who should control it. But “this could be a breakthrough,” says Naomi Saphra, an assistant professor at Boston University, who has spent almost a decade working on language model interpretability. Its practical application will depend partly on whether the improvements justify the human effort required to identify and interpret the model’s internal patterns, she says. 

Penalizing an internal pattern can change its shape, essentially pushing the “thought” elsewhere in the neural network and outside the probe’s narrow view. Dam a stream and the water finds another channel. That risk of losing monitorability has made training on internal signals taboo among some researchers. But a pattern change isn’t necessarily lost, Fel says. In experiments, recalibrating the probe could bring a pattern back into view, and where that fails, more sophisticated statistical tools could recognize combinations of signals simpler probes missed.

Goodfire raised $150 million in a Series B round in February, valuing the company at $1.25 billion. (Investors include Salesforce, where TIME's co-chair and owner Marc Benioff is the CEO.) It publishes its research freely, though it rents its interpretability tools to other AI companies. “The more people are doing interpretability, the more people will use our platform,” says co-founder and CEO Eric Ho. 

“If we manage to scale this technology, and overcome any of the possible hurdles with loss of monitorability,” says Tom McGrath, Goodfire’s co-founder and chief scientist, “I think this would be like one of the biggest advances in alignment technology that has happened.”

Democrats won their largest congressional victory since the 1976 Watergate election—overwhelmingly flipping both the House and Senate. And while the dance music is still playing, a debate has already burst forward over whether those election results were merely a rebuke of President Donald Trump’s failures, and whether it was progressives or moderates who produced the secret recipe for Democrats’ success.

These are the wrong questions. Anyone seeking to understand the midterm’s lessons should start here: Democrats won by being populist economic fighters who were unafraid to call out the corrupt politicians and corporate interests who have rigged the system at the expense of everyone else.

Now, Democrats must deliver. Yes, even with Donald Trump in the White House.

In 2024, Trump swept back into power, declaring he would cut costs on “day one” and bragging he would “end inflation and make America affordable again.” Instead, Trump and Republicans took a wrecking ball to the economy, cutting health care to finance tax breaks for rich people and giant corporations, imposing chaotic tariffs, and launching a war with Iran. With astonishing brazenness, Trump has attempted to reengineer the federal government into a corruption machine designed to rake in profits for himself, his family, and his cronies.

In the most competitive 2026 races, in blue, purple, and red states, including places like Texas and South Carolina that have not elected Democrats statewide for decades, Democrats won by recognizing Americans’ economic pain, denouncing Washington corruption that has made a rigged economy worse by favoring giant corporations over working people, and by pledging to upend this system.

Democrats relentlessly and rightfully criticized Trump’s economy, but we also made a much deeper point—and it struck home. The first Democratic Governor of Texas in 30 years, Gina Hinojosa, said, “The one fight in this country is about economic power.” Red-state winners like Sherrod Brown, James Talarico, and Jon Ossoff called out a “rigged” system. In South Carolina, Annie Andrews pledged to take on “big insurance, big tech, big pharma, and the utility monopolies.” Josh Turek promised to fight for Iowans, “not for billionaires and large corporations.” Chris Pappas declared to New Hampshire voters in his victory speech: “Tonight’s results are a wake-up call for the corporate special interests and billionaires who have been rigging the economy.”

Just campaign rhetoric? Nope. Across the country, Democrats stood up for big policy changes like increasing the federal minimum wage, expanding child care, reining in Big Tech, data centers, and AI, and reforming health care. We came with plans—specific policies to dismantle a rigged system and beat back concentrated corporate power. 

From Mary Peltola in Alaska to Roy Cooper in North Carolina, Democrats called for blocking grocery store mergers that drive up prices. Both Iowa’s Josh Turek and Texas’ James Talarico promised to break up vertical integration between insurance companies, pharmacy benefit managers, and pharmacies. Maine’s Troy Jackson and Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed beat Republicans by proudly campaigning for Medicare for All. And plenty more Democrats like Lindsay James (IA), Zach Dembo (KY), Denise Powell (NE), and Jamie Ager (NC) flipped Republican seats after demanding a public insurance option that is available to all Americans. Not long ago, trying to flip a seat from red to blue by promising to raise taxes on the rich was considered unthinkable. But Democrats did just that—and won.

None of this happened without Democrats putting in the work to earn the trust of voters. Our new housing affordability law—that Donald Trump refused to sign—was a critical proof point. And in races from Kentucky to Indiana to South Carolina, candidates loudly proclaimed their support for blocking private equity from gobbling up housing. Andrews and Kansas’s Adam Hamilton specifically campaigned on cracking down further on Wall Street ownership of single-family homes than the historic provisions that passed Congress this summer.

Now it’s time to act. Donald Trump says he wants to work with Democrats. We should force him to do that on the affordability and corruption issues that drove this election—or call his bluff. I’m ready to team up with any Republican who is listening to the American people. But if Congressional Republicans won’t join us to deliver relief for working families, Democrats will do it without them. 

Some Democrats have already argued that it’s wasted energy to send bold policy changes to the Trump White House. I think that’s just plain wrong. It would be a breach of faith with the people from South Carolina to Texas, who voted for us to address costs and corruption, to spend the next two years waiting for some future Democratic trifecta to hopefully deliver meaningful change. Trump says he welcomes the nickname “Mr. Veto.” Well, let’s test that out by passing legislation the American people support to make life more affordable and our government less corrupt.

First, stop Trump’s war. Second, cut costs. Democrats have power on spending bills that require our votes, and we should use it. No more funding for a forever war with Iran. Cancel the looming cuts to health insurance and nutrition benefits put in place by Republicans last summer. The reconciliation budget process also allows us to pass big chunks of legislation without a single Republican vote, so we should reverse Republican health care cuts, expand health care coverage, and fund universal child care. Third, pay for it by putting a little fairness back in the system. We can start with canceling the tax breaks Trump and the Republicans handed out to corporations, ultra-millionaires, and billionaires. 

Next, where Democrats agree reconciliation is not an option, like with bills to ban stock trading by federal officials or crack down on Trump’s corruption in plain sight, Democrats should put the bills up for a vote. Let the Republicans decide if they want to stay tied to such corruption and, if they do, then let’s clear away Senate filibuster rules and pass the laws anyway.

Finally, accountability. Congress has the power to hold Donald Trump and his cronies accountable for ripping off the American people to make themselves richer. Big Tech CEOs, Wall Street executives, and giant corporations should prepare to answer tough questions and face meaningful consequences if they have broken the law. 

Democrats won this election by claiming we are on the side of working people, and working people are counting on us to deliver. 

Americans need Democrats to deliver now, not in two years. 

Emily Hanford is an education journalist whose reporting, especially the podcast Sold a Story, has been a catalyst for a wholesale change in the way reading is taught in schools in the U.S. Since her earliest reports in 2017, dozens of states have introduced legislation mandating reading curricula that align with the science of reading, a phrase she helped popularize. In the podcast’s second season she pulls back the lens even further and examines direct instruction, a teacher-led style of education, and in particular the teaching program developed in the 1960s by Siegfried (Zig) Engelmann, a former marketing executive, which bears the brand name Direct Instruction. Most schools use a different, more inquiry-based and student-led approach, where teachers act more as guides than instructors, even though some studies suggest it’s less effective. Hanford discussed the huge changes she helped engineer in schools, what makes a great teacher, and why Engelmann’s style of teaching is so controversial. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

How do you feel about the changes that you've helped bring about in the way the U.S. teaches reading?

Let's see. How do I want to say this? I don't think you can plan to have that kind of impact. Making meaningful changes in education seems to take a combination of top-down and bottom-up movement. People listened to the first season of the podcast, including many lawmakers, and thought, “We need a new law,” and I think some of those laws are well-intended and have good results, but passing a law isn't enough and sometimes has unintended consequences. So I have mixed feelings about it all. At least 26 states have made some legislative or policy change around reading instruction since the podcast came out in the fall of 2022, but they are also part of a more than decade-long series of changes in laws and policies related to reading instruction.

Are the laws making a difference in the schools?

There are states where there has been some measurable change in reading outcomes–Mississippi is the one that people point to immediately. Alabama is another—a big report on that came out last week. Legislation is almost always part of the story, never the whole story. One of the reasons we are trying to get inside the question of direct instruction in Season Two is that instruction does matter, and matters maybe more than some people think.

Did you receive a lot of pushback for Season One?

In some ways the field maybe was ready for it. There was a group of parents and teachers pushing for change. Reading instruction was on a lot of people's radar. But one of the remarkable things was particular people, who were very critical of me at first, changing their minds, and writing later to say, "Oh, I didn't know. I understand this differently now." I mean, I still have plenty of critics out there.

One of the things that is surprising about this subject is how politically divisive it is. To what do you attribute that?

Education has always had surprising politics. A lot of the kind of holistic, big reforms in reading have come in more conservative states, more Southern states, states that were further toward the bottom of the reading scale. Maybe they had more pressure on them to make changes. And some of the states that do better in education haven't had as much pressure on them—although changes have been happening in states like Massachusetts and California as well.

I think it was very surprising for some people that this stuff about phonics instruction came from public media—something they perceived as middle left. Explicit instruction has been associated with a more conservative point of view and been embraced by some high-profile politicians, including President George W. Bush. But when you talk to the researchers, or the people who are doing the work in schools, many of them are as left as left can be. And most teachers just want to do stuff that works. I actually understand why education is political, because it matters a lot. The stakes are high.

The new season of your podcast is about a teaching technique known as direct instruction. Would you say it is what some people call rote learning?

I don't think that’s what it is. If you look at the work of someone like Zig Engelmann, he was very much trying to understand what it takes to get kids to understand a concept. Everyone wants the same thing: we want kids to know stuff and we want kids to be able to think for themselves. But the question is, how do you get there? In education sometimes we confuse the ends and the means. What we want is kids to be curious and sitting in a nook reading a book. We know from many, many years of research and from cognitive science that that's not where you start. You don't put a bunch of 5-year-olds in a cozy nook reading books to just mimic that behavior.

One way of describing this season is that it is another resurrection of an old-fashioned technique. Is that accurate?

I don’t think so. Engelmann wasn't resurrecting something old-fashioned. He was trying to create something new.

But he was doing it in the ‘60s, so it's not new now.

What's interesting is that many of the things he did have turned out to line up really well with what cognitive science has been investigating and figuring out for the past 60 years. A lot of people think direct instruction is lecturing, a teacher standing at the front of the room explaining things, maybe droning on and on, like in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. And what's tricky about this is Direct Instruction, the version invented by Zig, is the opposite of lecturing. It's more like a game of catch. A teacher's at the front of the classroom. They're asking a question. They pause first, for a brief second. They give a signal, and they ask all the kids to respond in unison, and then the teacher will ask another question.

How else does it differ from other teaching methods?

There are five elements of Direct Instruction: choral response is one of them. It's cold-calling too–students can be called on at any time. It means they're always paying attention. They can't just zone out. So it's call-and-response, it's individual turns, it's a correction procedure, it's repetition. There's definitely a lot of repetition; it's about getting basic facts into kids' heads. And the other thing that you will see is scripted lessons. Teachers will have a script in their hand, and it tells them what to say and the order in which to teach things. That is the absolutely 100% most controversial part of Direct Instruction. DI is not unique in being scripted; lots of teachers are being handed scripts, and there are clearly bad scripts out there. The thing that's different about Zig's Direct Instruction programs is that those lessons have gone through tons of field testing, and Direct Instruction itself has been rigorously studied many, many, many times, and it consistently works. So the Direct Instruction scripts are worth teaching. That's actually what a lot of teachers will say.

Are the political battle lines drawn in a similar way?

It is certainly true that the indirect approach—discovery and student-led learning—has roots that go back to the progressive education movement, and back even further than that, with ideas that you would associate more with the political left.

You unearth a huge study, Project Follow Through, that looked at 350,000 students and 22 different programs, and found that on average Direct Instruction worked best in nearly all measures. Why was that not the end of the story?

I don't think that the takeaway from Project Follow Through should have been that we all should do direct instruction. It was clear that it was a big, messy experiment, as so much education research is. But we don't get that many examples of such large, long education studies. I don't think there was enough evidence to say everyone should adopt this approach, but in 1977, it offered some clues. If these are the things we care about–kids doing well academically, and kids feeling good about school and themselves, and being able to think for themselves and solve problems–there was one program that stood out above the rest, not just by a little bit. We should have looked at that and been like, "Huh, that seems like a direction maybe we want to go," and that is not the direction we went.

Is Direct Instruction right for every teacher? If you are a very effective teacher, might you not object to having your autonomy and hard-won skills be replaced by this very scripted technique?

We interviewed a lot of teachers, highly skilled, really good teachers who do Direct Instruction and aren't trying to graduate from it. Many of them are like, “This works, and I want to keep doing this.” I think it works well when you do it school-wide, in part because the kids understand the routine. One of the reasons why I think there's so much resistance to Direct Instruction is that we have an idea in the United States that the ideal teacher designs their own lessons. We expect teachers to be like the Beatles or Taylor Swift, singer-songwriters who can do it all. So Direct Instruction is an affront. It’s essentially saying we have a different definition of being a good teacher. You don't design the lessons; the lesson design is done, and that has actually been a really long process that's taken a lot of trial and error over many years. Your job is to teach the lessons, and your job is to focus on the kids. It allows them to look at the kids and see who's not getting it. There are nearly 4 million teachers in the United States, so this is a job that lots of people need to be able to do well. 

Would you want to teach like that?

I thought about being a teacher in my early 20s and I had a friend who was teaching in New Orleans, and a bunch of her third graders couldn't read, and she was supposed to design all of her own lessons. And I thought to myself, where would you even start? It was such a stressful job. It was basically impossible, and she eventually quit teaching, as a lot of people do, because we make this job too hard. The Direct Instruction teachers say, “I teach these lessons, and I know these lessons are really good. And I don’t have to stay up late lesson-planning. I can have a life.” 

Are there students who do better with Direct Instruction than others?

This whole issue is tricky. There's a fairly high percentage of kids who are fine no matter what type of teaching they have, which leads people to theorize that maybe instruction doesn't matter that much. Jean Stockard's big meta-analysis of Direct Instruction found that it does work for lots of different kinds of kids. You are more likely to find teachers who were specializing in special education to have heard of Direct Instruction. Those are the kids that Zig was most concerned about. But the way that he saw it is, if he can make something that works for the most struggling kids, then it'll work for the higher performers too. The higher performers just get through it faster. It's not that kids need different things, it's that they learn at different speeds. Cognitive science has been telling us this: we don't all have dramatically different brains. Sure, there are differences around the edges, but for the most part, we all need to learn the same things and learn in basically the same ways, and some of us just don't need a whole lot of practice or instruction.

But how would that work practically? If it's call-and-response, it's throwing the ball back. Eventually, the child who's getting it quicker is going to tune out.

It's a mastery-based program. You group kids by their skill level, and when it's reading-instruction time, you change the groups, and the kids who are reading at a third-grade level are all learning together, and the kids who are at a second-grade level are learning together.

Fewer than 200 schools in America are DI schools at the moment. That's not many. Why don't schools stick with it?

Direct Instruction is so different from the status quo in America that it just has a really hard time surviving if it doesn't have a champion or multiple champions at the top. It falls apart if you don't make good investments in the training. And the status quo is some combination of lecturing and a sort of discovery experience-based approach, with some direct instruction for the kids who are struggling the most, and the teachers doing a lot of things on their own, and trying to make use of programs and curriculum that they're constantly being handed by the people above them.

What should a parent do if they hear your podcast and are very persuaded by it? Would you go so far as to encourage them to change schools?

Most parents don't know that much about what's going on in their kids' schools, unless and until there's a problem. My best answer for parents is to say you're not alone. There are other parents in your school who have the same questions you do and you should try to find them because you can learn from each other and there's power in numbers.

If Season Two were to have an effect akin to the first season, what would you like it to be?

It would be people starting to ask questions about why we can't agree on some more basic things about teaching and learning. There is a body of evidence in education. It's out there. Established professions—medicine and accounting and nursing and aviation—have a body of knowledge that they agree on. Why don't we have that in teaching and learning? I just don't think we're going to get very far until we have that. 

I was 13 years old and in the middle of one of the Jonas Brothers’ first tours when I knew something was wrong. In just two weeks, I’d lost nearly 25 pounds. I was constantly thirsty, going to the bathroom, getting regular cramps, and my attitude had become more than that of an irritable teenager. While I didn’t know what was wrong, I knew I needed to see a doctor.

Fast forward, I was sitting with the pediatrician and heard the words “You have type 1 diabetes.”

Immediately, I saw my future flash before my eyes: Will I be able to perform again? Am I going to die? This certainly wasn’t what anybody predicted.

I wasn’t just scared for myself; I was scared for my family. As a kid, you think your parents have everything figured out. Seeing mine just as confused and distraught as I was terrified me.

For years, I accepted that my diagnosis was something no one could have anticipated. But now, more than 20 years later, I understand something I couldn't at 13: my diagnosis may have come out of nowhere, but my type 1 diabetes didn't.

What most people don’t know is that 90% of people diagnosed with type 1 diabetes have no family history. Because of this, many families—mine included—have a massive blind spot. We assume we’ll know if we’re at risk. We assume diabetes will give us a warning. Too often, we don’t think about our health at all until something is already very wrong.

But today, we know more. We can identify the early stages of type 1 diabetes months or even years before symptoms appear. For families, that early detection can provide something that I think about often: time. 

I think about what more time could have meant for my own family. While early detection wouldn’t have changed my diagnosis, it could have changed how and when we learned about it. Maybe my parents wouldn’t have had their diabetes “crash course” at the same time their 13-year-old son was sitting in a hospital bed. Maybe my brothers wouldn’t have been scared that they were going to lose their sibling. Maybe I could have known what was happening with my body rather than feeling out of control. Maybe we could have been more prepared. 

And my family’s experience is far from unique. For too many people, the first time they learn about type 1 diabetes is in crisis. Research shows that up to 40% of young people in the U.S. with the condition arrive at diagnosis in diabetic ketoacidosis, or DKA, a serious, life-threatening complication of diabetes.

For years, I thought stories like mine were just how diabetes happened. You got sick. You found out. You figured out how to live with it. But science has changed, and our understanding of diabetes has changed. I’m just not sure the public understanding of diabetes has changed.

That matters because misconceptions about diabetes are everywhere, and they aren’t just about what life looks like after a diagnosis. They also shape whether we recognize our risk in the first place.

I’ve seen the impact of those misconceptions firsthand. It’s one of the reasons I co-founded the nonprofit Beyond Type 1 in 2015: to change the way diabetes is seen and understood, build a community where people don’t have to face it alone, and help create a world where diabetes doesn’t limit a person’s life or possibilities.

And this blind spot isn’t unique to type 1 diabetes. Millions of Americans are living with type 2 diabetes, while millions more have prediabetes and don’t even realize it. But our assumptions about age, weight, lifestyle, and family history shape who we think is at risk. Those assumptions create stigma, which can discourage people from getting tested and finding the support they need. Diabetes is hard. Shame makes it harder.

A diabetes diagnosis is not a personal failing. There should be no shame in understanding your risk and seeking care if needed.

The tools for detecting type 1 and type 2 diabetes are different. But the principle remains the same: knowing you have diabetes sooner gives you more time to act. It’s not about living in fear or trying to predict the future, but about recognizing that we have information today that many families, including mine, didn’t have when I was diagnosed.

If there’s one truth I want to yell out loud, it’s this: you don’t have to wait for diabetes to announce itself. A simple blood test can detect type 1 diabetes before symptoms appear by looking for autoantibodies. For type 2 diabetes, regular blood sugar checks, including an A1C test, can help catch high blood sugar early on. 

So, what's the first step? Just talk to your doctor. Find out if you're at risk and what signs to look out for. Ask about screening options that make sense for you and your family. And if you’re unsure where to start, you can learn more about diabetes risk, screening, and early detection here. 

Now that I’m a dad, I understand my parents’ fear now in a way I couldn’t then. I think about what it must have felt like to watch their child lose nearly 25 pounds, only to learn that he had a lifelong condition that would change his life—and theirs—forever. It's a really tough thing for a parent to go through, and I can see now that it wasn't just about me, it was about all of us.

This also rings true for the physical and mental toll type 1 diabetes takes, not just on the person diagnosed, but on the entire family. From constant monitoring and planning ahead to food calculations and technology management, diabetes burnout is real. My diabetes management tests my resilience daily, and while I’ve been living with type 1 for over 20 years, I know the emotional demands on my parents, my siblings, and, now, my spouse don’t just go away; they evolve.

Whether it’s you or a loved one who’s been diagnosed, the right guidance can make all the difference. 

I wish my family's experience with my diagnosis could have been different, but hopefully, others will be better equipped to handle a diagnosis. While there's a lot about diabetes that's unpredictable, that doesn't mean we can't be prepared for what's to come.

Iranian leaders hailed the Democratic landslide in the U.S. midterms on Tuesday as a rejection of President Donald Trump’s war against Iran.

“The Iranian nation handed Trump a strategic defeat on the battlefield,” Mohsen Rezaei, head of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council, posted on social media Wednesday. “The process of the US’s collapse has accelerated,” Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei posted.

Democrats will take control of both chambers of Congress in January, giving them new leverage to challenge the U.S. and Israeli war effort. Some Republicans had already broken ranks in the months before Election Day to call for an end to the war. Now many have blamed the party’s midterm losses on the war, which drove up energy prices around the world and became increasingly unpopular with Americans.

Read More: Inside the Democrats’ Plans to Take On Trump

“The reason we lost is the war,” Vice President J.D. Vance posted on X on Wednesday. 

While some like Rezaei took credit for Trump’s “POLITICAL DEFEAT,” other Iranian leaders cast the midterm results as a repudiation of his war by Americans.

Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammed-Baqer Qalibaf, the country’s chief negotiator, posted, “Conscience or the cost of living, Americans said NO TO WAR, and we endorse this message.” He characterized potential further attacks on Iran as a betrayal of the American public.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had appealed directly to the American people in a letter last month, urging them to vote against their government. Trump had previously accused Iran of prolonging the war in an effort to damage Republican midterm prospects.

Esmaeil Baqaei, the spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, addressed Trump directly on Wednesday, accusing him of dragging the U.S. into “an unlawful and atrocious war against Iran.”

“Your calculations failed, your assumptions collapsed, and your strategic misjudgments became painfully evident,” he wrote.

“The American people have now sent you a clear message,” Baqaei continued. “Yet, if you continue to disregard reality, dismiss the lessons of history, and persist in this dangerous course, the consequences of this grave miscalculation will extend far beyond what you have already witnessed.”

Republicans blame war for losses

The sweeping Republican defeat has sharpened divisions over the Iran War.

Some lawmakers reportedly want to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was an early advocate for the war. Rep. Thomas Massie (R, Ky.) told CNN that he intends to force a vote when Congress returns next week on his effort to impeach Hegseth. Massie has been a vocal intraparty critic of Trump and his Administration and lost his GOP primary race in May.

“There are Republicans who would support impeaching Hegseth who might not support doing it to Trump,” Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, told TIME last week.

“If the President is serious about anyone taking responsibility for [the midterm losses], it’s Pete Hegseth,” a Republican close to the White House told CNN. “Pete has been either dishonest or incorrect—neither of which are acceptable—about [Iran War] timelines, goals and objectives since the beginning.”

Hegseth, however, may be forced out of his job before Congress steps in. Trump has reportedly spoken to advisers about whether the Defense Secretary should be replaced, CBS reported on Wednesday, citing multiple sources. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican whose gubernatorial term expires Jan. 5, has been floated as a possible replacement for Hegseth, one source told CBS.

Trump told reporters on Wednesday afternoon that Hegseth would be “very popular” if he was appointed to fill the seat that will be vacated by Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who will take office as the state’s governor, although he said he had not heard any talk of the idea from others “at all.”

Still, Trump has publicly backed the Pentagon’s top official, who has been discussed as a possible 2028 Republican presidential candidate, and denied plans to fire him.

“I think he’s doing a very good job,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday.

Where the war could go from here

Democratic leaders have vowed to push for an end to the war following their midterm victory.

“We are going to end the war,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said at a news conference in Washington on Wednesday, citing Congress’s power over federal spending. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries urged Trump to end the war before the new Congress convenes, describing the electoral outcome as a message from Americans that they are opposed to the war.

Their majorities in Congress will give Democrats greater leverage to restrict military spending on Iran and the ability to advance legislation directing an end to hostilities, although they would still need substantial Republican support in the Senate to override a Trump veto. Democrats could also withhold new funding, and put further pressure on the Administration through congressional investigations and hearings scrutinizing the Pentagon’s strategy, spending, and conduct of the war. White House spokesperson Lauren Bis described the potential Democratic approach as “sham investigations and radical left policies” in a statement to CNN.

Read More: Welcome to Trump’s Lame-Duck Era

Some Democrats are also seeking to reduce U.S. military aid to Israel. Abdul El-Sayed, who was elected as Michigan’s senator, said in his victory speech, “We don’t want our money sent to do apartheid, or genocide, or war.” In July, 103 House Democrats supported an unsuccessful amendment by Massie to eliminate $3.3 billion in military aid to Israel. Separately, Rep. Ro Khanna (D, Calif.) and Massie sought to strip a provision from the annual defense authorization bill that would deepen U.S.-Israeli cooperation on military technology, research, and weapons production, although the House ultimately passed the bill with the provision intact.

But the midterm results do not offer a guarantee of a quick resolution to the war.

Iran may harden its stance in negotiations and press for U.S. concessions. “If there are still those who entertain the slightest hope that the hegemonic system may change behavior or shifts in its political parties may bring about change, or that by making concessions to the US, they can persuade it to abandon its hostility, they’re gravely mistaken,” Khamenei wrote in another post on Wednesday.

This week, Iran unveiled a massive billboard in Tehran’s Enqelab Square depicting the U.S. President behind bars, with the words “We Will Kill Trump.” A crowd gathered in the square on Wednesday, as U.S. election results came in, for a rally marking the anniversary of the 1979 takeover of the U.S. embassy. Rallygoers held up signs with the same words and set fire to a poster depicting Trump, Vance, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

William Figueroa, an assistant professor of international relations at the University of Groningen, tells TIME that “the Iranian government has far more reason to seek [nuclear] deterrence and far less reason to trust negotiations” due to the war, which has further “entrenched” the theocratic government by damaging the country’s opposition movement and wrecking its economy.

Although Trump has repeatedly said he expects the war to end shortly after the midterms, the President has also left open the possibility of renewed military action. Last month, Trump said he was considering additional military action against Iran, including a strike on its Pickaxe Mountain nuclear facility, while Hegseth reportedly met with Netanyahu to discuss the possibility of attacking Iran. Despite Trump’s October pledge not to attack Iran before the midterms, U.S. forces struck Qeshm Island on Monday. American officials described the operation as a limited defensive response to Iranian forces firing at a U.S. aircraft.

“Trump has accepted the criticism of the cost,” says Figueroa. “But not the premise.” Figueroa adds that the U.S. President “has little else to lose should he decide to pursue another escalation.”

Israel’s ongoing coalition negotiations add further uncertainty after Netanyahu’s Likud party lost its parliamentary majority in Israel’s Oct. 27 election.

On Wednesday, Trump defended his decision to go to war despite its political cost: “If I had to do it again, I’d have to do it again.”

As Democrats are celebrating a historic blue wave, eyes are on the Senate race in deep-red Mississippi, where the Democratic candidate led the Republican incumbent by a razor-thin margin of 1,138 votes as of Wednesday evening.

The Associated Press has not yet called the race because it is so close, with Democratic challenger Scott Colom ahead by about 0.1%—he has so far earned 49% of the vote compared to Republican incumbent Cindy Hyde-Smith’s 48.9%, with 96% of votes counted. It’s a stunning nail-biter of a race that, in the weeks leading up to Election Day, polls had suggested would likely be won by the Republican incumbent by a narrow margin.

“I can’t recall the last time it’s been this close for a statewide Senate contest—or a statewide election in general,” says Aaron Hitefield, an assistant professor of political science at Mississippi State University. “It’s unprecedented for [Mississippi] to be this competitive for Democrats particularly, certainly in the last 40 years.”

Read More: What Democrats’ Midterm Gains Reveal About Trump’s Voter Coalition

Political experts say it could take a few days before the outcome of the race becomes clear.

If Colom, a district attorney, wins the race, it would be the first time that Mississippi voters have elected a Democrat to represent them in the U.S. Senate since 1982. A Democratic victory would also be a remarkable shift in a state that President Donald Trump won by a nearly 23-point margin just two years ago. 

Such an upset would cap off a string of staggering victories for Democrats, who have so far flipped seven seats in the upper chamber in this year’s midterm elections, including in other staunchly red states like Texas and South Carolina.

Both candidates appeared to be optimistic that the election would ultimately go their way, though they also acknowledged that the race is still too close to call. Colom said in a statement early Wednesday morning, “I am confident we will ultimately flip this seat.”

“The results are all trending in our direction,” Colom said in a speech to his supporters on Election Night. “The reality is, though, we’re not going to get the results tonight. I’m excited about our momentum, I’m excited about where we are.”

Speaking to a crowd of her supporters on Election Night, Hyde-Smith said she was confident that she would hold her seat in the upper chamber.

“We still don’t have all the votes in, so we’re not calling all of it tonight, but we’re in a very good lead and I assure you, I will continue to be your U.S. Senator,” she said.

When asked about Hyde-Smith’s speech at a press conference on Wednesday, Colom replied, “Bless her heart.”

When will we know who won the Mississippi Senate race?

It is possible that the winner of the Senate contest may not be determined until the end of the week—or even next week. 

The state has five business days after Election Day to count affidavit ballots. An individual would turn in such a ballot, which is also called a provisional ballot, in a situation in which they believe they’re eligible and registered to vote but are unable to cast a standard ballot—for instance, if their name is not in their local polling place’s records. These votes are only counted once election workers verify the individual’s information. Mississippi also permits mail-in ballots that arrive within five days after Election Day, so long as they were postmarked by Election Day, to be counted.

All this means that it’s possible the race may not be called until a week after Election Day, says Emily Ommundsen, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Mississippi.

“Because of the razor-thin margins we currently see, I don’t expect any results to be called before then,” Ommundsen says.

How did the Mississippi Senate race become such a tight contest?

The tight race in Mississippi is one of many that illustrate the extremely challenging political environment Republicans have faced this year. 

Historically, the party in the White House loses seats in midterm elections, and that pressure on Republicans was compounded in this election cycle because of historically low approval for Trump driven in large part by the economy, as well as the war in Iran.

Ommundsen says that, while ballots are still being counted, the result in Mississippi, so far, “is consistent with trends that we saw nationally.”

“Nearly all counties that had a Senate election on the ballot moved towards the left compared to how they voted in 2024,” she says, though she notes that there are some exceptions. “Mississippi just happens to be one of those elections that was closer and perhaps more ripe for a flip.”

Hitefield likens this year’s midterms to “a referendum on the President,” adding that “Democrats were turning out to oppose the President and to oppose the President’s policies.”

But he cautions that the close contest in Mississippi is not necessarily a sign that the deep-red state is turning blue or even purple. It’s possible, he says, that Republican voters didn’t cast their ballots for a Democrat, and instead stayed home.

“I wouldn’t necessarily read in, long story short, to Mississippi becoming a Georgia—you know, being a fully competitive every election state,” Hitefield says. “But I think it’s certainly moving toward a state that you shouldn’t sleep on when it comes to electoral competitiveness.”

Hitefield also says that there’s a lot of “voter apathy” within the Republican party with regards to Hyde-Smith, and she hasn’t performed as well as Mississippi’s other Republican Senator, Roger Wicker, in past elections. Wicker won his re-election bid in 2024 by a more than 25-point margin. Hyde-Smith, meanwhile, won her re-election fight in 2020 by about 10 points.

Hitefield adds that Hyde-Smith had some “gaffes” during the campaign, when she made some remarks about the rising cost of living that some voters felt were dismissive. For instance, when asked about soaring costs, including beef prices, during an interview with WLOX in February, Hyde-Smith applauded the passing of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill and went on to say, “It is on everybody’s mind. It is certainly me at my house. And you know, you have so many proteins to choose from. And all commodities go through peaks and valleys.”

National polling ahead of Election Day indicated that an overwhelming majority of American voters felt that the economy was a crucial issue for them heading into this year’s midterms.

Colom’s campaign jumped on Hyde-Smith’s remark, releasing an ad in which people objected to Hyde-Smith’s comment, including one who said in the video, “Pick another protein? Sh**, I’d rather pick another Senator instead.” The ad racked up more than 7.5 million views on Colom’s X account.

Ommundsen points out that Hyde-Smith didn’t make many public campaign appearances in this year’s election cycle; one of the few appearances the Senator made was last week, when she gave very brief remarks at a rally the President held for her in Mississippi.

Hitefield says Hyde-Smith didn’t “do the groundwork necessary to run a successful campaign” in this election cycle.

“I think that it was a real mistake by her campaign, regardless of what the outcome looks like at the end of this,” Hitefield says. “Even if she does win, she didn’t do, really, what she needed to win with any sort of safety. I think that’s something [where] if she does win, she’ll need to think about, moving forward, how to strategize more effectively.”

Colom, on the other hand, ran a “successful campaign” and generated “so much voter excitement,” Hitefield says—so much so that it stirred “this groundswell of hopes within the Democratic party that this seat could be flipped.”

If Colom wins, he would also become the first Black Senator from Mississippi since the 19th century—the last time the state sent a Black lawmaker to the upper chamber was during Reconstruction in the aftermath of the Civil War.

“It would be an unprecedented outcome when it comes to the history of Mississippi,” Hitefield says.

In what is widely being referred to as a “blue tsunami,” the Democratic Party won control of both the House and Senate in the midterm elections, gaining ground in deep-red and battleground states. The sweeping victory will reshape the final two years of President Donald Trump’s presidency and could have a significant impact on the 2028 presidential map.

In formerly reliably Republican Texas, James Talarico defeated the Trump-backed Ken Paxton and became the first Democrat to be elected Senator by Texans since 1988. Texas state representative Gina Hinojosa pulled off a similar victory, defeating three-term governor Greg Abbott. She will be the state’s first ever Latina governor. Kansas, which Trump won by a margin of 16 points in 2024, elected Adam Hamilton, welcoming its first Democratic senator since 1932.

Seth Masket, a professor of political science at the University of Denver, describes the election as “a pretty stunning rebuke of Trump and the Republicans,” one that has given Democrats “a lot more confidence” heading into 2028.

With momentum now behind the party, Democrats are already setting their sights on a return to the White House. “Over the next two years, Democrats will show up where Republicans have failed and work every single day to bring down costs. Up next: the White House,” vowed Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin.

Yet despite their strong showing at the polls, Democrats still lack a clear leader heading into 2028, setting the stage for what could be a hard-fought primary. There are Democratic heavyweights who often appear on presidential contender lists, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, and former presidential candidate Kamala Harris. However, the Democrats’ midterm victories are a reminder that the party’s rising stars should not be ignored, as they will undoubtedly play an important role in shaping what the 2028 race will look like. 

Here’s who you need to be aware of as the Democrats prepare to reset Washington:

James Talarico

Talarico’s midterm victory was made even more significant by the margin. He won the state by 12 points, just two years after Trump carried Texas by 14 points, marking a stunning 26-point swing in the Democratic candidate's favor.

His victory may well shape how many Democrats run their campaigns in the future.

Talarico, 37, a Presbyterian minister-in-training, frequently drew on his Christianity and liberal principles in his speeches, while also touting his record of working alongside Republicans as a Texas state representative. Throughout his campaign, he sought to frame the political divide as top versus bottom, rather than along traditional party lines.

“We just showed that a politics of division is no match for a politics of love,” Talarico said in his victory speech in Austin, standing behind a podium that read “Love Thy Neighbour”—a reference to the biblical commandment.

“A lot of Democrats will be turning to his example, to the way he ran, the particular style he used,” Masket says, pointing to Talarico's use of liberal Christianity and his emphasis on bipartisanship. “He's definitely on the bench for Democrats in future cycles.”

Todd Belt, a professor of political management at the George Washington University, agrees that Talarico’s “common sense themes” and the “plain spoken” way he communicates with voters could be a strong asset ahead of the 2028 race.

“Texas has been the big white whale for Democrats, and it's got 40 electoral votes, so it's going to be a big player,” he tells TIME. “Democrats can put Republicans on the defensive there, and somebody like Talarico will be really interesting to watch.”

Jon Ossoff

Jon Ossoff, delivered one of the strongest Democratic victories in a battleground state, winning re-election and holding the Georgia Senate seat for Democrats, seeing off his Republican challenger Mike Collins. 

Masket notes how Ossoff, 39, ran a “very national campaign over this past year” by taking his re-election pitch to younger voters through various podcast appearances. He discussed health care and the importance of young people being engaged in politics with Georgia rapper Killer Mike in September and appeared on comedy podcast The 85 South Show in October, where he addressed the key issues facing Atlanta. His strong criticisms of Trump and his Administration have often gone viral on social media. He also made sure to include appearances on mainstream media in the months leading up to his campaign. In a February appearance on Stephen Colbert’s now-defunct late-night show, Ossoff discussed "The Epstein Class," a phrase he uses to refer to the ultra-wealthy and political elites who, he says, are operating as if the rules don't apply to them. 

“He is seen as having turned Georgia, which was considered a very red state until pretty recently, to become competitive, and now he had a very strong Democratic result here with his election,” says Masket, who believes the victory strengthens Ossoff's standing as a potential presidential contender in 2028.

A national polling average from Race to the White House places Ossoff fifth among potential Democratic nominees, at 10.8%. Meanwhile, betting site Polymarket places him first in its market for the party's nomination, giving him a 24% chance of winning.

Ossoff, however, had earlier this year ruled out the possibility of a run for the White House, stating: “I am not running for President in 2028. I have no interest in running for President in 2028.” Even if he doesn’t hold presidential ambitions of his own, his impact on the party and its direction will surely be felt as it chooses its contender for the White House.

Abdul El-Sayed

Abdul El-Sayed, 42, won the Senate race in Michigan against Republican Mike Rogers, becoming the first Muslim Senator in U.S. history.

His election was critical to the Democrats’ flipping control of the Senate and his campaign was hard-fought as he encountered a barrage of personal and Islamophobic attacks from Trump, who baselessly described El-Sayed as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood—an Islamist political movement—and repeatedly ridiculed his name.

“Donald, look, I know you struggled with my name, so after [Vice President] J.D. [Vance] swears me in in January, you could just go on and call me ‘Senator,’” El-Sayed said in his victory speech.

El-Sayed also faced an eleventh-hour setback when Haley Stevens, his Democratic primary opponent, endorsed Rogers the weekend before Election Day. The move was strongly criticized by members of the Democratic Party, with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jefferies putting his full support behind El-Sayed, who he described as a candidate that “will always put the American people first.” 

Despite those challenges, El-Sayed won Michigan, a state Trump had also carried in 2024, by seven points. He ran an unapologetically progressive and anti-establishment campaign, focusing in part on criticism of America's involvement in the Middle East and U.S. support for Israel.

Masket argues that El-Sayed’s influence could make an impact ahead of the 2028 presidential race, particularly in the Midwest.

“He could be a real kingmaker in the Midwest, and an influential person in the Democratic nomination, whose endorsement will matter a lot for a Democrat who wants to win Michigan,” he says.

Keisha Lance Bottoms

Keisha Lance Bottoms, 56, made history after defeating Republican Rick Jackson in the race to succeed term-limited Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. She will become the state's first Black governor and first woman governor, as well as the first Black woman to serve as governor of any U.S. state.

Bottoms served as mayor of Atlanta from 2018 to 2022, including during the COVID-19 pandemic, before taking on several roles in former President Joe Biden's Administration, including as a senior adviser and head of the White House Office of Public Engagement.

As the governor of the Peach State, Bottoms’ influence may prove vital for any candidate running for President, with Georgia being hard fought between Democrats and Republicans. 

Georgia backed Trump during his first run to the White House in 2016, but then pivoted to former President Joe Biden in 2020, only to return to Trump in 2024—turning into a bellwether state for the last three cycles.

Bottoms’ victory returns the governor’s office to a Democrat for the first time in over two decades, and will provide the party with a powerful platform in a presidential battleground.

It is also important to note, Belt says, that Georgia borders South Carolina, which was selected earlier this year to kick off the Democratic Party’s 2028 presidential nominating schedule, potentially giving Bottoms further leverage in the Sun Belt area of the country. “She will [likely] be courted by a number of different Democratic primary contenders and would-be's,” he predicts.

Josh Shapiro

Josh Shapiro, 53, comfortably won re-election as Pennsylvania governor against Republican Stacy Garrity by a margin of more than 20 points in the midterms. 

He had a tall task heading into Election Day, with the goal of flipping four congressional seats in the House and retaining a majority in the state House. This was more than achieved with the party flipping four GOP-held seats in the House of Representatives and increasing their majority in the state legislature to at least 111 seats. The party also managed to flip at least three seats of the state Senate, giving them a majority and allowing them to hold a trifecta in the commonwealth state.

Shapiro’s victory further strengthens his standing as the Democrats make plans for 2028, and he is already considered to be a potential contender.

“Shapiro wins [in Pennsylvania] statewide multiple times by very large margins, and that gives him an argument for winning the nomination,” says Masket. “It's an argument for his electability that not a lot of other candidates can claim.”

Shapiro was previously considered a potential running mate for Harris in 2024, but she ultimately selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Still, the fact Shapiro was considered for the role underscored his importance in the Democratic Party and his leading influence in one of the country’s most competitive swing states. 

Rob Sand

Rob Sand, 44, defeated Republican Zach Lahn in Iowa's open gubernatorial race, succeeding Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds and becoming the first Democrat elected governor of the state since 2006.

His campaign emphasized his rural roots and his career as state auditor, instead honing in on local issues rather than close identification with the national Democratic Party.

Having a governor at the state level could be very useful for Democrats, Belt says. “If you have the electoral infrastructure of winning at the state level, your endorsement carries a tremendous advantage because you know how to win the state,” he adds. “You have the donors. You have the volunteer base, and somebody like that could be extremely influential.”  

Sand's influence heading into 2028 could also come from demonstrating how Democrats can compete beyond their strongest metropolitan areas, as well as from his governing record in a politically divided state.

“Iowa is a state that Democrats had largely written off until pretty recently, as it swung hard toward Trump in the last decade,” Masket explains. “Democrats may be making a real play for trying to win Iowa [in 2028]. Sand will be key for that, and they'll be listening to his advice.”

Gina Hinojosa

Gina Hinojosa, 52, is another Democrat who made history Tuesday after defeating three-term Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in Texas.

She will become the first Latina governor of Texas and its first Democratic governor since Ann Richards, who took office in 1991.

Alongside Talarico, Hinojosa could play an important role in Democrats' efforts to make further gains in Texas by helping to mobilize voters. 

Masket says “a lot of Democratic candidates will be seeking her out for her advice on how to mobilize voters and how to get people to show up for women and for Latinas.”

Adam Hamilton

Hamilton is the first Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate from Kansas in 94 years, ending a long dry spell for the Democratic Party. Deep-red Kansas emerged as an unexpected Senate battleground ahead of the midterms, as Hamilton went head-to-head with Trump-backed Republican incumbent Roger Marshall.

In a major upset to the GOP, Hamilton secured 50.9% of the vote to Marshall’s 46.1%, flipping the crucial Senate seat for the Democrats. 

Hamilton, the founding and senior pastor of one of the largest United Methodist churches in the U.S., has described himself as both a “liberal” and a “conservative.” He was a Republican for “most” of his life, and has identified with both parties during the past.

“I became a Democrat during the Obama Administration, when he was running, and so for eight years I was a Democrat… I served in his Administration for a couple years, but then I went back to being a Republican,” he told ABC News last month, adding that he’s now proud to be a Democrat once more.

“What matters to me more than the letter behind your name is who you are, what you stand for, your character, and I think there’s a lot of people like that in our state,” he said.

Hamilton, 62, notably won endorsements from two of Kansas’ former GOP governors, Mike Hayden and Bill Graves ahead of the midterms.

Hamilton’s more moderate approach and his eagerness to engage with voters across party aisles could make him a dependable figure for the Democratic Party as it attempts to build on its current momentum. 

“I think of [Hamilton] as the ‘preacher turn’ in Democratic politics,” says Belt. “For a long time, the moral high ground has been ceded to Republicans. It's not that Democrats don't have a morality or a sense of Christianity, or whatever religion it is, they have just preferred not to talk about it, and by not doing that, they have lost that connection with [some] voters.” 

Having experience speaking to large congregations also means that Hamilton has already proven himself to be an apt orator, which Belt says could incentivize the Democratic Party to give him a "very prominent speaking position" on the road for the 2028 campaign trail or perhaps even at the Democratic National Convention.

Pete Buttigieg

Despite not being on the ballot during this midterm cycle, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was a fixture on the campaign trail ahead of the midterms, making valuable allies as he stumped for candidates across the country.

Buttigieg, 44, has built a reputation as one of the party's most effective communicators, both on the campaign trail and through media appearances. Ahead of the 2024 election, he appeared on Jubilee’s Surrounded debate series, where he made the case for the Democratic Party's achievements to 25 undecided voters.

Belt describes Buttigieg as an “incredibly effective messenger” who “connects with voters in a way that is just spectacular.” 

“Buttigieg is able to explain how policies have made people's lives worse and how policies make people's lives better,” Belt says, pointing to a recent video in which Buttigieg broke down the rising prices under Trump at a local Waffle House.

“He just has that sort of personal touch, and he can speak at a high level without sounding condescending,” Belt says, which makes Buttigieg an “important voice for the Democrats.”

In 2020, Buttigieg became the first openly gay candidate in history to win a presidential primary. He later suspended his presidential campaign to endorse Biden, but he has since kept the door open to another bid.

“I don’t have any news to make about that right now,” he told WNDU in October, when asked if he plans to run again. He nevertheless remains a prominent figure in early Democratic nomination polling averages.

Tuesday’s Blue Wave was powered by voters of color.

That’s a key takeaway strategists in both parties are clocking as they pore through the results. In a memo obtained exclusively by TIME on Wednesday and soon to circulate among the Democratic National Committee’s bigwigs, two of the Democratic Party’s veteran strategists argue that the blowout would not have been possible without that crucial realignment, one that has enormous consequences for 2028’s presidential field. 

“Hispanic and Black voters not only turned out at a massive rate, but also swung back towards Democrats in terms of support levels, relative to the 2024 presidential election,” Tom Bonier and Simon Rosenberg wrote in Wednesday’s memo.

To be clear, every major demographic group shifted left in these midterms, offering a stunning rebuke of President Donald Trump and his brand of the Republican Party. “The final popular vote margin for the House will take weeks to determine, but at this point Democrats are on track to have the largest popular vote margin in a midterm election since 1974,” Bonier and Rosenberg write. “Voters of color were the driving force behind the blue tsunami.”

But the shift in voters of color proved pivotal in many cases. Hispanic voters had a 28-point move leftward from 2024’s presidential levels, according to a New York Times analysis. Black voters moved nine points. Asian American voters? They moved 17 points. 

The party’s base “came home,” in the words of one Democratic strategist on Wednesday. “Back to normal” was the verdict of another.
Hispanic voters proved particularly enthusiastic to cast their ballots. A Bonier-Rosenberg analysis of early-vote data showed Hispanic turnout easily surpassing 2022’s midterms, and potentially topping even the 2024 presidential numbers, before Election Day. 

This shift will have big implications for the candidates mulling presidential runs, but also for the party’s decision last year to rearrange its primary calendar. The DNC’s choice to elevate South Carolina’s presidential primary to lead-off position for 2028 drew some second-guessing from within the party. That decision now looks even more prescient, as it further empowers the true spine of the Democratic Party. A full 26% of South Carolina voters on Tuesday were voters of color, according to exit polls. That’s a far cry from Iowa and New Hampshire—the traditional starting pistols in the presidential race, where less than 10% were voters of color, per exit polls.

Democrats spent much of this cycle courting voters of color they had lost in 2024 by arguing that Trump’s economy had left them behind. Tuesday’s results appeared to prove the wisdom of that effort, Bonier and Rosenberg argue in their memo, pointing to Texas’ Webb County as a prime example. Comparing Trump’s 2024 tally with Sen.-elect James Talarico’s win, the Hispanic vote there swung a full 50 points away from Republicans. “To be clear, 50-point swings don’t happen on turnout alone. In fact, a huge component of this result was clearly due to Trump voters crossing over to support Democrats in this election,” the Democratic strategists wrote to other insiders. 

“Voters of color took a stand in this election, a stand to protect their future,” the memo reads. “Democrats now have the opportunity to deliver where Republicans have failed.”

Following two years of anti-climate legislation from Washington, Tuesday’s blue tidal wave—giving Democrats control of both the Senate and the House—could provide an opportunity to change course.

Following his 2024 reelection, President Trump withdrew from the Paris Agreement, rolled back the landmark endangerment finding, and leased public lands for oil and gas drilling—with Democrats unable to do much about it. 

The next two years likely won’t bring aggressive climate policy, nonetheless a shift is expected as a result of the midterms. “Are we going to see ambitious climate action? The answer is no,” says Ken Gillingham, professor of environmental and energy economics at the Yale School of the Environment. “We still have an executive branch with a veto power controlled by President Trump, and so anything that is done would have to make it through the veto.” 

But while Democrats might be unable to reverse many of the rollbacks, the midterms now give them, “a stronger hand to play,” says Geoffrey Henderson, assistant professor of environmental policy and planning at the University of Michigan. 

One priority might be to reinstate billions of dollars in climate funding that President Trump has withheld. Chellie Pingree, a Democrat who won reelection in Maine, serves on the House Appropriations Committee and has said that she plans to force the administration to spend climate money. 

Democrats also have the power to focus on bulking up the permitting reform bill, which aims to overhaul the permit process to speed up energy projects. The bill appeared likely to pass even before the election, but was filled with concessions. “Prior to the election, the bill included a number of provisions to weaken core environmental laws like the National Environmental Policy Act,” says Henderson. “What Democrats can now do is basically ask for a better deal.”

Increased support for domestic battery manufacturing is also likely—which could be a key part in meeting clean energy targets. “There would be an appetite for domestic onshoring of some of the supply chain that goes into electric vehicles, and I think that this is pretty bipartisan,” says Gillingham. 

Gillingham also notes that we could see Democrats pursue “all of the above” climate policies, which often include oil and gas concessions along with clean energy growth. 

“There's just not going to be an appetite among a whole set of members of the Democratic Caucus for ambitious climate action, even if they may be sympathetic to climate action, they don't have the political backing to do it from where they are sitting,” he notes. “But they do have the political backing to do all of the above energy policies.”

Democrats also achieved trifectas—controlling the House, Senate, and governorship—in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Nevada. In Pennsylvania, for example, this opens the floodgates to pass legislation to regulate data centers, allow community solar, and to require utilities to store excess electricity. 

This election—in which energy affordability took center stage—also proved that climate change isn’t the taboo subject many have made it out to be. 

“The results create new opportunities and give some breathing room to bring climate back into the energy discussion, especially if those discussions can deliver both economic benefits and emissions reductions, particularly around electricity affordability, grid infrastructure, and clean-energy investment,” Bethany Patten, executive director of the  MIT Climate Policy Center, said in an email. 

Florida Democrat Kathy Castor, and Marcy Kaptur, an Ohio Democrat, are both candidates who did not give in to the “climate hushing” many other Democrats fell victim to. “Their victory suggests that being a vocal advocate for climate action is consistent with winning tough races, even in red states,” says Henderson. “Going forward, I think candidates should feel more empowered to talk about the issue.” 

The Democratic victors in the midterm elections included people who have spent their careers treating patients, studying viruses, and solving equations. Among the winners: a pediatrician in South Carolina, a microbiologist in Georgia, and a mathematician in Illinois—all bringing experience in health and science to government. Several are joining Congress. One is the next Governor of Ohio. 

Working in medicine, in particular, provides an opportunity to connect to voters, says Erik Polyak, executive director of 314 Action, a political organization that recruits and supports Democratic candidates with scientific and medical backgrounds. “You go into the ER and your doctor doesn’t ask what party you are,” he says. Doctors, nurses, and others who work in health care may have heard patients describe their struggles and might have personally fought insurance companies to get treatment covered.

Still, having health credentials alone does not guarantee that someone will craft good policy, cautions Brian Castrucci, an epidemiologist and president and CEO of the de Beaumont Foundation, which works to strengthen public health through funding, training, and research. What matters is how they use their training. “Congress needs people who know how to weigh evidence, ask hard questions, and admit what we do not yet know,” he says.

Here’s what to know about some of the health and science professionals who won political seats in the midterms.

Dr. Annie Andrews

The pediatrician is South Carolina’s incoming U.S. senator. She has researched childhood asthma and the aftermath of gunshot wounds, and helped teach young doctors how to talk to parents about storing firearms safely. Now, she’s taking those concerns to the Senate after unseating Republican Sen. Darline Graham in one of the night’s biggest upsets. South Carolina hadn’t elected a Democratic senator since 1998.

Andrews previously ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2022. This time, she had a particular motivator: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom she has called her “professional arch-nemesis.” She said his nomination to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services convinced her to run for Senate.

Polyak points to her proposals to end prior authorization for routine and emergency care and prohibit private-equity firms from owning hospitals as examples of how doctors could bring their clinical experience into policymaking. Andrews’ campaign agenda also includes keeping rural hospitals open, lowering prescription prices, and strengthening vaccine access. “Everyone deserves the peace of mind that if they or their child get sick, they can see a doctor without going broke,” she writes.

Dr. Georges Benjamin, who leads the American Public Health Association (APHA), hasn’t worked directly with Andrews, but her approach to firearm safety has caught his attention. By emphasizing children’s safety, he says, she has found a way to discuss the issue with strong gun-rights supporters. He hopes that approach can help lawmakers have “an intelligent conversation” about protecting children and communities from firearm violence.

Dr. Abdul El-Sayed

As a medical student, El-Sayed—Michigan’s incoming U.S. senator—helped take care of a woman who had fallen and hit her head. He pushed to have her admitted to the hospital, where further examination revealed serious underlying illnesses, and arranged for her to enter a rehabilitation facility. Instead, she said she would go home with her daughter. Two weeks later, he found her sleeping on the subway, he recalled in a 2016 interview with Columbia Medicine magazine. The encounter helped convince him to withdraw his residency application and pursue public health. “I realized that I was a lot more interested in what happens before a patient gets to the door than what happens in the hospital,” he said at the time.

El-Sayed went on to lead health departments in Detroit and Wayne County. Now, after defeating Republican Mike Rogers for Michigan’s open Senate seat, he’s headed to Washington as the nation’s first Muslim senator.

His health-care platform supports Medicare for All, reversing Medicaid cuts, and increasing support for local health departments. He also wants stronger protections against political interference in federal health agencies.

“He’s brilliant. He’s thoughtful,” says Benjamin, who knows El-Sayed through APHA meetings. “He’s respectful, and he follows the evidence wherever it goes.”

Jasmine Clark

Clark, who won an open seat for Congress in Georgia, is used to explaining things people don’t immediately understand. “Being a professor, the whole job is explaining difficult concepts to people who are hearing it for the first time,” says Clark, who teaches biology at Emory University, in an interview with TIME. Ideally, her students leave understanding the material well enough to explain it to someone else.

The microbiologist earned her doctorate at Emory in 2013 studying retroviral particles with live-cell imaging. She directed Atlanta’s March for Science in 2017 and won a seat in the Georgia legislature a year later. After a decade teaching at Emory’s nursing school, she joined its biology department in 2024..

One early priority for her is scientific research funding. Clark says she wants to use the federal budget process to restore support for research and reverse what she describes as damage done by Elon Musk’s efforts to overhaul government spending. “That’s very top of mind for me,” she says.

She expects her teaching experience to help fellow lawmakers make sense of complicated science. “I look forward to bringing that to the caucus,” she says.

Elaine Luria

Luria has operated nuclear reactors and helped build a business around plaster mermaids. The Naval Academy graduate spent 20 years in the Navy, earning a master’s degree in engineering management while serving and operating reactors aboard the USS Enterprise. She and her husband also opened Mermaid Factory, where customers can paint and decorate plaster mermaids.

Politics came next. Luria served two terms in Congress and helped investigate the Jan. 6 attack before losing her seat to Republican Jen Kiggans in 2022. This year, she won back Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District seat.

Her health-care plan includes restoring enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies, expanding prescription-drug negotiations, and simplifying insurance paperwork and prior authorization. She also wants to expand telehealth and help recruit doctors and nurses to rural communities.

Dr. Amy Acton

Ohioans got to know Acton during the early months of the COVID pandemic. As the state’s health director, she appeared alongside Republican Gov. Mike DeWine at near-daily briefings, explaining an unfolding crisis to people watching from home. Polyak remembers her as “Ohio’s caring doctor,” someone who told residents exactly what was happening. “She led with the facts and compassion,” he says.

That visibility also brought a backlash, including protests outside her home; she resigned in June 2020. Now, she’s returning to state government with a different title. Acton defeated biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to become Ohio’s first elected female governor and its first Democratic gubernatorial winner in 20 years. Her proposals include medical-debt relief and an Ohio prescription-drug program.

Benjamin describes Acton as an extraordinary public-health practitioner with a skill that could prove particularly useful as governor: “She’s got the ability to talk to both sides of the political aisle,” he says. Polyak puts it this way: “She is kind. But not weak.”

Mitchell Berman

Berman, the incoming representative for Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District, is an emergency-room nurse who, according to his campaign website, still works night shifts. He’s spent 23 years in health care, including a decade caring for veterans at the VA. “I've watched patients ration medication they can't afford and families lose everything because they got sick,” he writes.

Berman grew up in rural Wisconsin, with a father who ran a roofing business and a mother who worked in a foundry. According to his campaign biography, he earned a nursing-assistant license by age 17 and worked three jobs while becoming the first person in his family to graduate from college.

He defeated Republican Rep. Bryan Steil in an upset in Wisconsin’s 1st District. His priorities include a public insurance option, lower prescription costs, and faster answers to prior-authorization requests. He also wants protections against violence toward health-care workers—and for bedside nurses to help determine staffing standards.

Christina Bohannan

Bohannan is the incoming representative for Iowa’s 1st Congressional District. Her interest in health care is personal: Her father, a construction worker, developed emphysema and lost his insurance, she recounts in her campaign biography. With a pre-existing condition, he couldn’t obtain another policy. The family struggled to pay for groceries, bills, and the care needed to keep him alive. “We lost everything trying to save him,” she writes.

Bohannan grew up in a mobile home in a town of 700 people, became the first in her family to attend college, and studied environmental engineering. She worked on water quality before attending law school and beginning a 26-year teaching career at the University of Iowa.

Her congressional breakthrough took persistence: She defeated Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks on her third attempt, after losing the 2024 race by just 799 votes. 

Her goals include expanding Medicare’s ability to negotiate prescription prices and capping insulin at $35 a month for everyone. She also supports expanding clean energy and lowering families’ living costs.

Daniel Biss

Biss, who will succeed longtime Rep. Jan Schakowsky in Illinois’ 9th District, has a résumé that includes a doctorate in mathematics from MIT, a stint on the University of Chicago faculty, and more than a decade in elected office. He served in the Illinois House and Senate before becoming Evanston’s mayor in 2021.

His math background taught him to question the information put in front of him. “A lot of people come to policymakers with information that is maybe self-interested or reflects only one point of view,” he says in an interview with TIME. He says his training helps him figure out what else to ask before making a decision.

As mayor, Biss helped establish a program that sends social workers and other responders to certain low-risk calls, including mental-health needs, according to his campaign. His record also includes work on reducing building emissions, supporting abortion rights, and strengthening technology privacy.

In Congress, he wants to reverse federal health-care cuts, expand prescription-drug negotiations, and establish Medicare for All. He’s also eager to work on legislation addressing AI’s implications for jobs, democracy, energy use, climate, and safety. “Artificial intelligence is changing the world right now,” he says.

Dr. Adam Hamawy

In 2004, Hamawy helped save the life of a soldier whose helicopter had been shot down in Iraq: future Sen. Tammy Duckworth. Two decades later, Duckworth advocated for his evacuation when the surgeon became trapped in Gaza during a humanitarian medical mission. Now, they’ll both serve in Congress.

Hamawy, who won New Jersey’s 12th District, is a plastic and reconstructive surgeon, Army veteran, and medical-practice owner. According to his campaign biography, he began volunteering on humanitarian medical missions more than three decades ago, when he traveled to Bosnia as a medical student. He also describes treating victims and responders at Ground Zero during residency and later establishing a practice in Princeton.

His frustration with insurance barriers helped motivate him to run for office: surgeries delayed while awaiting approval, patients struggling to afford care, and rising premiums for his own employees. “For a doctor this isn’t abstract. We see it every single day,” he says. “People who can’t afford their medications, people who can’t get appointments, you know, the care being denied, we’re dealing with it. So I think having that experience in Washington gives a different perspective.”

His platform supports Medicare for All and argues for spending more federal resources on health care and communities. He plans to co-sponsor Medicare for All when he takes office. “The problem isn’t in our offices, the problem’s in Washington, and that’s where we need to go fix it,” he says. “That’s gonna be an easy signature for me.”

Dr. Richard Pan

Pan, who just won California’s 6th District in his U.S. House bid, says he ran in part because he wanted to question Robert F. Kennedy Jr. under oath. The pediatrician and former California state senator had already spent years fighting over vaccine policy. “He’s gone toe-to-toe with Kennedy multiple times already in California,” Polyak says.

In 2015, Pan helped pass a California law eliminating personal-belief exemptions from vaccination requirements for schoolchildren. Four years later, he pushed to tighten oversight of medical exemptions. That triggered backlash: Threats intensified in 2019, and he needed a restraining order and a personal security detail. He was also physically assaulted.

Pan continued treating low-income children during his 12 years in the legislature, which ended in 2022. His more than 35 years in medicine, public health, and health policy have included training pediatricians, chairing legislative health committees, and overseeing health-budget decisions.

His campaign priorities include protecting federal health agencies, lowering prescription costs, and limiting insurers’ interference with physician-prescribed care. “I am running for office because medical decisions must be guided by scientific research, not ideology,” he said in a campaign statement.

Jacqui Irwin

Before winning election to the House in California’s 26th Congressional District, Irwin was an engineer. A systems-engineering graduate of UC San Diego, she worked at Teledyne Systems and Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory before serving on the Thousand Oaks City Council and in the California Assembly.

Her record includes a significant investment in mental-health care: She authored the behavioral-health bond legislation included in California’s Proposition 1, approved by voters in 2024. The measure authorized approximately $6.4 billion in bonds for treatment facilities and housing connected to behavioral-health needs. She has also worked to remove barriers to mental-health services for military members.

Irwin told KCLU that her congressional priorities include holding the Trump Administration accountable and addressing living costs. Her approach, she says, is simple: “My degree is in systems engineering. My approach to issues is very logical, and I always try to solve problems.”

The 2026 midterm elections saw historic gains for Democrats, who won control of both chambers of Congress and flipped key seats in states like Texas, Kansas, and South Carolina. The electorate’s leftward swing was diverse and widespread, but three demographics showed notable shifts that helped support Democrats on Tuesday.

Distinct gains came from young, rural, and Hispanic voters—all of whom were key to President Donald Trump’s victory in 2024. National polling on how these groups voted in House races offers a broad measure of their support for Democrats, while Senate contests reveal how those trends played out in key states. Experts weigh in on what may have prompted the shifts.

Read more: Inside the Democrats' Plans to Take On Trump

Young voters

Young people overwhelmingly supported Democratic candidates this election cycle.

According to the AP Voter Poll, which was conducted Oct. 19 through Nov. 3, about 7 in 10 voters ages 18 to 29 said they supported the Democratic candidate in their local House races, while about 3 in 10 said they voted Republican. 

Although Trump was not on the ballot, the poll found that 60% of young voters said their House vote was intended to “express opposition to Donald Trump.” 

This marks a sharp change from the presidential election in 2024, when Trump won an estimated 39% of young voters, making historic gains among the demographic. But the Republican Party was unable to capitalize on those gains just two years later.

Outside of commentary on the President, 43% of young voters said that their top issue was the economy. 

Santiago Mayer, the executive director of Voters of Tomorrow, tells TIME that young people felt “betrayed” by Trump’s economic policies.

“Young people trusted Donald Trump to bring prices down and work on affordability,” the 24-year-old explains. “He betrayed everything that he told us: He made prices higher with tariffs, he did not work on housing, and he started an illegal war.”

Mayer says that while it's undeniable that Trump won over young men in 2024, he did so at the time with a $1.2 billion investment in youth in the five years preceding 2024, outspending the left 10 to 1.

“The difference this year is that the money just didn’t cut it, there was a misread by Republicans of what drove young people toward them in 2024,” he says, claiming that Trump had targeted young men at a time when they felt particularly “left behind.” This year, it was the opposition that was able to best speak to those sentiments. 

If Democrats are to retain the support they won in this election, however, Mayer says they will need to deliver in Congress.

“Democrats got the trust of young people this time, so they need to deliver, or else they might swing again, or stay on the couch for the next election,” he says, pointing out that the latest data, which is still being tallied, already shows that Gen Z is on track to either match or exceed its record turnout in 2018, the first year for which the generation was eligible to vote. 

“Young people need to be able to afford the lives they were promised by older generations,” he says. 

Hispanic voters

About 6 in 10 Hispanic voters said they chose the Democratic candidate in their local House race in 2026, according to the AP Voter Poll.

In Texas, they were particularly instrumental in flipping the open Senate seat. Roughly 6 in 10 Hispanic voters in the Texas Senate race supported Democrat James Talarico, compared to just 3 in 10 who supported Trump-endorsed Republican Ken Paxton.

Stephanie Valencia, a co-founder of Equis Research, tells TIME that one of the big takeaways from Tuesday’s midterms was how consequential the Hispanic vote has become in America.

“Key takeaway from last night is that Latinos are the key swing voter,” she says. “People love to call the Latino vote the ‘sleeping giant,’ but we are the swinging giant.”

The latest swing was largely informed by two areas of discontent, according to recent polls: Trump’s presidency overall and, specifically, his handling of the economy.

Trump’s approval rating among Latino voters dropped from 38% in February 2025 to 24% in September and October, according to a Pew Research Center poll from last month. Of those who backed him in 2024, the decline was even greater, with approval down from 93% in 2025 to 57% in October. 

A survey by BSP Research and the African American Research Collaborative found that specific economic grievances included the cost of living and inflation. More than 7 in 10 Latino voters disapproved of Trump’s handling of the economy, according to an AP-NORC poll from October.

Valencia says that Tuesday’s vote was a “middle finger to Trump and Republicans and their misplaced promises” from the Hispanic community. It’s the same way they showed dissatisfaction toward Democrats when they supported Trump in 2024, she says, and therefore it should be noted that “while the shifts and the gains are real, they are not necessarily permanent.”

“The lesson for Democrats is not to interpret their opponents' loss as their victory,” she says. “The worst they could do is see 2024 as a blip and not see how they are in a probationary period with Latinos.”

In 2024, when Trump drew near even with his opponent Kamala Harris among Hispanic voters, Valencia said that the demographic was driven by the same priorities they have expressed in 2026: cost of living, inflation, and immigration.

“For both Biden and Trump, the common thread is rising costs and not rising wages,” Valencia says. The challenge for a Democratic-controlled Congress, now, is to figure out how to work with Trump and provide “clear delivery” to Latino voters, she adds.

Rural voters

Traditionally, there is a large party divide between urban voters and rural voters—with the former overwhelmingly voting for Democrats and the latter more often voting for Republicans.

The Pew Research Center shows a pronounced gap in 2024, with nearly 70% of validated voters who described their communities as rural voting for Trump, and 29% voting for Harris.

Rural voters still favored Republican candidates in 2026, according to the AP Voter Poll, but the demographic shifted significantly to the left: 57% of rural voters opted for the Republican candidate in the House, versus 41% opting for the Democratic candidate.

The shift influenced several key battleground states. In Kansas, for example, Democrat Adam Hamilton was elected to the Senate—the first Democrat sent to the upper chamber from the state in almost 100 years. 

According to a New York Times analysis of Senate votes in Kansas, every single county—even the rural counties in the northwest of the state, which Trump won in a landslide in 2024—shifted toward Democrats.

Hamilton also notably flipped three rural counties in the southwest of the state: Finney, Ford, and Seward counties. According to Alexandra Middlewood, an associate professor of political science at Wichita State University, this flip can at least in part be attributed to unannounced immigration enforcement operations at meatpacking plants in all three of these counties in September. It may have soured locals on the leadership of the Republican Party, she observes.

“If we look at those counties, their voter registration increased in the month of September, and that was when those ICE raids were happening,” Middlewood tells TIME. “The correlation is there.”

Democrats also flipped 20 seats in the Kansas House of Representatives, which Middlewood calls “insane.”

She notes that economic issues are also hitting rural voters in Kansas and across the U.S. in unique ways that might be driving dissatisfaction with the Trump Administration.

An AP/KFF poll released in September found that about half of rural American voters believe the economy is worse off than when Trump first returned to office.

“I think part of that is just they're paying more for gas because they have to drive cars to travel everywhere,” Middlewood says, pointing to the trend of rising gas prices since the war in Iran began in February. “A lot of those rural areas have farmers and cattle ranchers, and they are paying more for harvest season. So, in general, rural Kansans have been particularly impacted by these economic policies coming out of the Trump Administration.”

We counted, and this midterm election cycle, there were just seven major-party candidates for Congress who had working-class jobs when they first got into politics. The last ballots are still being totaled, but many of the politicians from working-class backgrounds who ran won, or seem poised to win. 

During national elections, we often hear a lot about the rare candidates who had working-class jobs. If you follow politics, you’re likely to know that Maine’s newly elected Senator Troy Jackson was a logger, or that New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was a bartender. But these candidates are the exceptions to an often-unspoken rule of U.S. politics: the working class doesn’t govern.

Our research shows that people in working-class positions—manual labor jobs like construction worker, service industry jobs like restaurant server, and clerical jobs like receptionist—almost never go on to hold elected office. Working-class jobs make up over half of our labor force, but historically, the share of members of Congress who last had a working-class job has never cracked 3%. The same pattern holds in state and local politics: as of 2024, in the average state legislature, less than 2% of members have, or last had, a working-class job.

This kind of polarized inequality has real consequences. Research from across multiple countries shows that when politicians from working-class jobs are scarce, people tend to trust their governments less. Studies from the U.S. and elsewhere show clearly that a shortage of politicians from the working class tilts economic policy against the concerns and priorities of working people—and in favor of the wishes of the well-off. As the old saying goes, in politics, if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.

What keeps working-class Americans out of office then? It isn’t that they run and lose, or that voters dislike them—it’s that they so rarely run in the first place. 

How candidates with working-class roots performed in the midterms

Yesterday’s midterms were a case in point. According to our tallies, there were 933 Republican and Democratic candidates for Congress, but the two major parties ran just seven candidates in the general election whose campaign websites listed a working-class job as their most recent non-elected occupations: Tim Rogers, a delivery driver (Wisconsin-4), Brian Poindexter, an iron worker (Ohio-7), Sam Forstag, a smoke jumper (Montana-1), Ray Pooley, a machinist (Michigan-9), Christopher Reichard, an electrician (Missouri-8), Rebecca Cooke, a waitress (Wisconsin-3), and Troy Jackson, a logger (Maine Senate). These seven candidates—so few you could easily write all of their names on a Post-It note—have recent experience in the kinds of jobs that most working Americans go to every day.

Studies generally find that when working-class candidates run, they tend to do about as well as other candidates—and the 2026 midterms were no exception. The one major-party Senate candidate from the working class, Troy Jackson, unseated incumbent Republican Susan Collins; she trounced her Democratic opponent 51-42 when she last ran in 2020. In the House, the six major-party candidates from the working class all ran for seats their party had lost in 2024; so far, two have been declared winners (Poindexter and Cooke) and a third is leading as the final votes are counted (Forstag). 

As the vote totals stand now, we estimate that the Democratic House candidates from the working class performed about 9.3 percentage points better than the Democrats who ran in their districts in 2024; nationally, the average Democratic House candidate is doing about 8.8 percentage points better than in 2024. The one Republican House candidate, Tim Rogers, performed 5 percentage points worse than in 2024; nationally, Republicans are down about 7 percentage points.

The candidate class divide

In short, where workers ran, they won votes and flipped seats at reasonable rates. Why, then, didn’t more workers run?

We’ve spent the last 15 years trying to understand this thorny problem in the U.S. and in democracies around the world. We’ve chased down explanations that turned out to be wrong, like the idea that working-class people are less qualified or less interested in running (there’s no real evidence for either claim). We’ve considered explanations that don’t take us very far, like the idea that things were better back when labor unions were stronger, and elections were less expensive (they weren’t).

What we’ve learned suggests that workers rarely hold office because, like this year, they rarely run. And they rarely run because of what it means to run for office in our current political system.

Running for office means taking on significant personal burdens, like taking time off work, giving up control over your day-to-day life, and taking massive risks with your reputation and future. Working-class people are less likely to be able to shoulder those burdens. In our research, we consistently find that qualified people in working-class jobs are more likely to express basic concerns about running. As Representative-elect Brian Poindexter said in the opening words of his acceptance speech on Tuesday night, “Who would have thought we’d put a worker in Congress?”

Political powerbrokers know exactly how hard it is to put a worker in office. Party leaders, interest groups, and sitting politicians are constantly recruiting the next generation of political candidates, sometimes with splashy candidate schools and recruitment programs, and sometimes with routine encouragement and quiet offers of support and resources. None of the leaders who do this work have infinite resources; most pass over qualified workers in favor of qualified professionals who they think will have an easier time running. Workers almost never hold office because they face more obstacles, and the people who could help them will usually prioritize candidates who have an easier time running.

How to boost working-class political representation

It doesn’t have to be this way, of course. There are successful models for recruiting working-class candidates, like the New Jersey AFL-CIO Labor Candidates School, which identifies, recruits, trains, and supports candidates every election cycle and boasts a 75% win rate. There are also models of how political parties can create deep institutional partnerships with unions and other pro-worker organizations to create a pipeline of working-class candidates, like the British Labour Party did at the start of the 20th century. And there are ways to modify elections, like reserving seats for underrepresented groups or making campaigns shorter. There are also ways to sidestep elections entirely, like the randomly selected citizen assemblies that are used all over the world to advise elected leaders about the viewpoints of ordinary citizens.

Working-class people rarely hold office in the U.S., but the results of yesterday’s midterms remind us that it doesn’t have to be this way. The obstacles keeping working-class people out of office are built into our elections. But every year, a handful of working-class people manage to beat the odds, overcome the barriers, and get into office. If parties and interest groups get serious about supporting them, more will run next time.

When Bobby Pulido, a well-known Tejano singer, decided to run for Congress in Texas’ 15th congressional district, many dismissed his candidacy as a long shot. When he decided to make playing at quinceañeras a cornerstone of his campaign’s voter outreach strategy, there were many naysayers. 

On Tuesday, Texas voters proved them wrong. Pulido won about 62% of the vote, shifting the recently-redrawn 15th congressional district 42 points toward Democrats compared with the 2024 presidential election, and unseating incumbent Trump ally, Rep. Monica De La Cruz. 

During her campaign, De La Cruz dismissed Pulido’s background, saying "this isn't about who you would want to perform at your niece's quinceañera." Pulido flipped the attack on its head, proudly stating he had performed at 75 quinceañeras while on the trail. When speaking to voters, he kept a tight focus on the economy, healthcare, and immigration. 

Pulido’s overwhelming victory on election night suggests that meeting voters where they’re at and engaging with them at cultural events that are deeply meaningful is an excellent way for politicians to connect with and mobilize Latino voters across the political spectrum. 

An estimated 75% of voters in the district Pulido won were unknown voters, and his strategy was effective because it made people feel seen. That is what we have been hearing from Latinos in focus groups for a number of years now—they are struggling daily to make ends meet, and no one seems to care enough to do anything about it. Latino opinions in this regard are not all that different from those of other Americans. What is different is the degree of economic hardship Latinos are facing and the extent to which those struggles, along with concerns about immigration enforcement, may have moved Latinos away from the Republican Party.

The economic pain is real

Since 2020, polling has consistently shown that affordability—concerns about prices for basic necessities, housing, and stagnant wages—are what concern Latinos most. In a 2025 Equis poll Latinos surveyed reported high levels of economic precarity, with 29% reporting they had “trouble meeting expenses” and 32% that they “could just meet expenses with nothing left over.”

Similarly, an October 2025 Pew Research poll found that 48% of Latino respondents had struggled to pay for groceries, medical care, or their housing costs in the past year. Latinos who worked full time were just as likely as those who were unemployed to say they have struggled to pay for food, medical care, and housing. Given that, it is not surprising that 61% of Latino poll respondents said that their economic situation had worsened since President Donald Trump took office in 2024.

Immigrant connections

When asked by pollsters what their top concerns are, Latino respondents rarely include immigration on that list, but this misconstrues the fact that immigration is a key Latino concern. 

The truth is that Latinos are much more likely to be connected to the immigration experience than other Americans. Forty-four percent of Latino adults in the United States are immigrants. The October 2025 Pew Latino survey found that 52% of Latino respondents said they worry a lot or some that they, a family member, or a close friend might be deported. Fifty-nine percent said that they had seen or heard of ICE raids in their communities over the past six months. 

The violence around immigration enforcement has left its mark on many Latino communities. One of the most powerful images to come out of Texas on Election Day was the hundreds of “I Voted” stickers affixed to the shrine in honor of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican immigrant who was killed by ICE on July 7, 2026. In addition to the stickers, people wrote statements, saying they were voting for Lorenzo, for a better future, and a future without hate.

No political home

According to Equis Research, from 2016 to 2024, Latinos shifted more in favor of Trump than any other U.S. racial group: a 16-point gain. It is important not to over-interpret those changes. It seems clear that there were aspects of Trump’s message that resonated in important ways with Latino voters. But there is much political discontent in the community. In the 2025 Pew survey, 68% of respondents said that Latinos’ situation in the U.S. was worse than a year ago. This was the first time in over two decades of Pew surveys that a majority of Latinos said their situation had worsened. Among those who voted to give Trump a chance in 2024, polling suggests that many have lost faith in President Trump’s promises, particularly around economic issues. 

The election results from Texas’ Rio Grande Valley suggest another shift may have happened, back to the Democrats. Over 90% of the valley is Latino, and Democrats swept all Congressional districts, including those that had been drawn to favor Republicans. Again, overinterpretation is a danger, particularly the assumption that electoral shifts of this type will be durable. That remains to be seen. Latino poll respondents have long indicated that they do not trust either party; the fastest-growing party identification among Latinos is no party preference. Few candidates or party operatives, in either political party, invest the time needed to authentically engage targeted Latino voters around what matters to them. As a result, either outreach does not happen or, in the rare cases that it does, it is symbolic rather than substantive. Latino voters can tell the difference. 

It seems like every electoral cycle, the question is whether the Latino vote will “swing.” This framing is reductive. It suggests that Latino voters are not voting based on their substantive concerns, but rather that they can be won over by one Spanish-language advertisement. But the polling makes clear that the stakes are real. 

Latino families are struggling every day to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads. They are trying to ensure that they have access to medical care when they are sick. And they are worried their loved ones might be deported at any moment. These are grave concerns, with potentially dire consequences for families and the community if they are not addressed. Until political candidates begin to take these issues seriously and find solutions, Latino voters will continue to search for a stable and supportive political home. To build that home, the parties have a great deal of work to do.

Cheryl Groskopf, a marriage and family therapist in Los Angeles, once lived next door to a very loud little dog. It barked for hours at a time, including as she worked from home and tried to sleep at night. She initially chalked up the barking to puppyhood, but it kept getting worse. “The tiniest little jingle of the keys would set it off,” she says. 

Eventually, she stopped barbecuing in her backyard—her favorite pastime—because her presence there triggered the dog. But then she realized the absurdity of the situation. “Wait, no,” she recalls thinking. “I should be outside.” She finally texted her neighbor to ask if everything was OK. Her neighbor’s response: “Oh my God, I didn’t know it was this bad.”

By then, Groskopf had developed a less charitable explanation. “She doesn’t care about her dog,” she recalls thinking. “She doesn’t care about her neighbors.” Having a therapist’s tools hadn’t made her immune to resentment—and it didn’t make the prospect of speaking up any less awkward. “You want to maintain a relationship with someone you have to see regularly,” she says.

So how do you ask for quiet without making every subsequent encounter uncomfortable? We asked experts what to say—and how to follow up if the barking continues.

How to talk to your neighbor about their barking dog

If you decide it’s worth speaking up, choose a calm moment. (Not an afternoon when you’re fired up from a constant soundtrack of barking.) Enter the conversation with an open mind. Your neighbor might not have any idea how much of their dog’s day you’re hearing—or how much it’s disrupting yours.

That can feel like a particularly generous interpretation when you haven’t had a decent night’s sleep all week. “You’re exhausted, you’re frustrated, and there’s 15 arguments in your head about why this person sucks,” Groskopf says. Before sending that pivotal text, she poured her unfiltered feelings into her Notes app first—cuss words included—then waited an hour before drafting something she could actually send.

If you’re going the face-to-face route, ask if it’s an OK time for a conversation before launching into a complaint, advises Sarah Gershman, an executive speech coach who teaches communication at Georgetown University and Johns Hopkins University. She likes this wording: “I was hoping we could talk about something that’s been bothering me. I’d love to share my perspective, hear yours, and see if we can figure out a solution together.”

Then explain what’s happening on your side of the wall or fence. Gershman suggests: “I’ve been waking up at night because of your dog barking, and it’s been hard to get back to sleep. I realize you may not even know this is happening. I’m wondering if we can figure something out together.” Ask whether they’ve noticed the barking and what might be setting it off. “You don’t know what their intent is,” she says, “but you do know the impact it’s having on your life.”

A few specifics can help keep everyone from barking up the wrong tree. Instead of complaining that the chihuahua next door howls “all day,” provide exact times and durations, suggests Kate LaSala, a dog trainer and behavior consultant in New York who specializes in fear, aggression, and separation anxiety. Perhaps the dog barked from 9 to 9:42 a.m., then again from 10:10 to 10:20. Those details can help the owner connect the noise to a delivery, a visitor, or being left alone.

If you’re concerned about the dog, say so. LaSala suggests explaining that “your dog sounds like they might be in distress or panicked.” You’re giving the owner information they can use to help their pet, which could improve life on both sides of the fence.

What to say if your neighbor gets defensive

Your neighbor might have a simple retort to your complaint: “Dogs bark.” Resist the urge to bark back. Before explaining why this particular barking is a problem, show them that you understand their perspective, Gershman suggests. If you live in a pet-friendly building, for example, acknowledge that they’re allowed to have a dog and that some barking is inevitable. “They’re more likely to listen because they feel understood,” she says.

Then bring the conversation back to what you need. Groskopf suggests saying: “Of course, I completely understand that dogs bark, and I’m not expecting total silence. I’m just hoping we can figure out something that helps with the barking in the mornings because it’s really affecting my sleep.” You can be understanding without downplaying how much it’s bothering you.

If the exchange keeps getting heated, give yourself permission to end it. “This might not be the best time,” Gershman suggests saying. Offer to revisit the conversation later, when you both have a better chance of hearing each other.

What to do if your neighbor’s dog keeps barking

Maybe your neighbor was apologetic and promised to work on it, and you returned home feeling hopeful. A week later, you’re still getting an unsolicited 6 a.m. wake-up call. Follow up without assuming they’ve forgotten—or decided your sleep is expendable. Groskopf suggests: “Hey, I really appreciated you talking with me about this last week. The barking is still happening around the same time, so I wanted to check in about what else we could try.”

If the owner is working with a trainer or veterinarian, allow time for progress. The cause of the barking matters, LaSala says: A dog reacting to deliveries needs different help from one who panics when left alone. “Behavior change takes time,” she says. Ask what they’re trying, and talk about what might reduce the disruption in the meantime. Depending on the situation, that could mean keeping the dog inside during early-morning hours or finding someone to stay with them while the owner is out. 

Resist the urge to bang on the ceiling to make your point. Doing so can startle the dog and make the barking worse, LaSala says. If repeated conversations get you nowhere, bring your record of barking times to your landlord, building manager, or homeowners association, LaSala suggests. If you don’t have one, check which local office handles noise complaints. You can also use earplugs or a white-noise machine for some immediate relief while you pursue a solution.

And remember that being considerate doesn’t require giving up ordinary pleasures in your own home. Groskopf eventually moved, after the initial improvement following her conversation gave way to more problems. Only afterward did she recognize how much she’d been adjusting her life around the neighbor’s dog. These days, she reads on her porch every day. “Just having that back is everything,” she says.

On the eve of an election that threatened to upend his presidency, Donald Trump went to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, where he had overseen a multimillion-dollar renovation that went awry when its new coating peeled and algae turned the water green. Aides hoped the President would focus on the concerns weighing on ordinary Americans: soaring gas prices, expensive groceries, a new war in the Middle East. Instead, Trump spent much of his 53-minute speech talking about construction projects rather than the struggles of the nation he had been elected to serve.

It was a bewildering capstone to a strange campaign. Allies marveled at Trump’s inability to stay on message as he crisscrossed the country. He boasted that oil companies were making a fortune as Americans struggled with energy costs. He claimed New Yorkers were no longer allowed to call their mothers “mom,” suggested renaming New Mexico “New America,” and repeatedly mimicked a Democratic Senate candidate vomiting at the sight of meat. Time and again, he veered into bizarre digressions about men's physiques. As one Trump aide put: “It’s hard to reach voters who can’t afford gas when your candidate keeps talking about Arnold Palmer’s endowment and Jon Husted’s ass.”

The scale of the Democrats’ victory was staggering. They seized control of both the House and Senate with ease. They captured governorships and Senate seats by commanding margins in traditionally Republican states, and prevailed in House districts gerrymandered to favor the GOP. The wipeout was a clear repudiation of Trump. Across the country, the President’s handpicked candidates went down to resounding defeats, including scandal-plagued Ken Paxton in Texas and Darlene Graham, the sister of the late Senator Lindsey Graham, in South Carolina—nominees he had elevated over the objections of party leaders who believed other Republicans stood a better chance. By night's end, Trump acknowledged the opposition's victory and recognized that the war in Iran was a factor in his loss. "We actually have the greatest economy," Trump told Fox News. "But because of the gasoline prices people don't see it as much as they would have without it. And the gasoline was caused by Iran." 

Trump’s confidantes often remarked that he cared little about the outcome of the midterms. He regarded his party's loss of seats in Congress as an inescapable historical pattern. He had a point: Barack Obama's Democrats took a beating in consecutive midterms, and George W. Bush's Republicans were drubbed in 2006. Trump himself oversaw the loss of dozens of House seats in 2018. Advisers tried convincing the President that he had some agency over the election’s trajectory, but “he had trouble getting past the history,” one of Trump's top advisers says. He grew resigned to the gridlocked slugfest ahead and dismissive of the investigations and potential impeachment proceedings Democrats could embark upon. “They’ll probably go after me,” he told TIME in late September, “and I’ll go after them.”

For more than a decade, Trump has commanded a degree of loyalty from Republicans unmatched in modern politics, bending lawmakers to his will and making dissent a career-ending proposition. The trouncing the GOP suffered on Nov. 3, coupled with the growing perception that Trump has become a political liability, could usher in a very different final two years for a lame-duck President, causing his grip on the GOP to finally slacken. An NBC News exit poll on Tuesday revealed that 43% of voters said they cast their votes to express disapproval of Trump. 

Presidents in the final two years of their second terms often pivot toward foreign policy, where they can exercise executive power with fewer constraints from Congress or the courts. Trump was already signaling his readiness to resume military strikes against Iran. Another senior Administration official says Trump plans to concentrate even more heavily on the Western Hemisphere in the final years of his presidency, where a succession of pro-Trump heads of state have risen to power and where he and his allies see an intensifying competition with China and Iran for regional influence. “It's such an opportunity to align,” says one senior Administration official. “There'll be an expanded focus there.” 

But after two years wielding executive authority freely, there will be new checks on Trump’s power. He will struggle to secure confirmation for his nominees. Aides anticipate Supreme Court battles over his expected reliance on officials serving in an acting capacity in positions that ordinarily require Senate confirmation. And yet those closest to Trump insist he will be anything but constrained. They predict him to grow more brazen, more defiant, and more determined to fight at any cost. “Don’t expect a kinder, gentler Trump,” one close ally says. “This may be the end of one chapter of Trump’s presidency, but it’s also the beginning of another. ”

With the midterms ramping up in late September, Trump's aides thought he seemed more checked out than usual. He had yet to dip significantly into the $400 million war chest of his allied super PAC. Republicans were pleading with him to pour money into one particularly desperate contest: the fight to defend Ken Paxton in ruby-red Texas. Trump eventually authorized the two men he had tapped to oversee his outside political operation, Chris LaCivita and James Blair, to begin spending heavily to preserve Republicans' chances of maintaining control of the Senate and limit their losses in the House.

Chief of staff Susie Wiles and other advisers urged Trump to hit the campaign trail, appealing to him as a savior. He planned an ambitious campaign sprint to help Republicans stave off a midterm disaster: 32 competitive congressional districts in a single month, a rush of the trademark rallies that had powered his political rise. But even as Trump returned to the trail with renewed intensity, he repeatedly veered off message, generating the kinds of controversies his advisers hoped he would avoid. At a rally in South Carolina, he praised a supporter who appeared to punch a protester, comparing him to former heavyweight boxing champion Evander Holyfield. He even seemed to mock the unquestioning loyalty of his own supporters. “I could say the stupidest things and you’d clap me,” he told one crowd in Clarksville, Tenn. 

Trump tried to recreate a strategy from his 2024 campaign, seeking to reach low-propensity voters through nonpolitical channels and the alternative media platforms that Americans were increasingly consuming. Aides enlisted professional athletes and other celebrity validators who could lend local appeal at campaign stops. They brought Baltimore Ravens players to an event in Maryland and University of Georgia football legend Todd Gurley to a rally in the Peach State. They brought the boxer Jake Paul to another in Youngstown, Ohio. They brought Nicki Minaj, the best-selling female rapper of all time, onto the campaign trail in Michigan, where Trump praised her for having “one hell of a beautiful ass” that was “hard to miss.” Later, aides mischievously floated the prospect of Minaj serving as Trump’s next White House press secretary.

Throughout the midterm cycle, Trump’s political instincts seemed increasingly out of step. He promised Americans $5,000 checks if they kept Republicans in control of Congress, drawing condemnation from ethics watchdogs who likened the offer to an attempt to buy votes. He replaced White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt with Katie Zacharia; the untested Newsmax personality who lasted just five days after a disastrous press conference and revelations that she had presented herself as a lawyer despite having passed the bar in China but not the United States. Against the advice of advisers, including Vice President J.D. Vance, Trump endorsed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for re-election, despite the Israeli leader’s unpopularity among Americans. The endorsement came only after two of Netanyahu’s staunchest American allies—U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and Fox News host Mark Levin—personally urged Trump to intervene, according to a source familiar with the matter. (Huckabee and Levin did not immediately reply to requests for comment.) Trump joked about withholding disaster aid from states that failed to elect Republican senators. As often as not, his interventions compounded his political troubles. A Washington Post–Ipsos poll found that 67% of Americans believed he did not carefully consider important decisions. 

The dismal performance of Republicans closely aligned with Trump, despite his personal interventions and nearly half a billion dollars in spending by Elon Musk, offered a stark measure of the backlash against his Administration. Voters were grappling with record-high gas prices, an unpopular war in the Middle East, and persistent economic hardship as the Administration faced scrutiny over its handling of the Epstein files and allegations that Trump and his allies had profited from their positions of power. The discontent extended beyond the cost of living. An October Fox News poll found that 60% of registered voters were extremely concerned about government corruption, surpassing even concerns about inflation and high prices.

As the returns rolled in on Tuesday night, allies at the White House knew they were witnessing the end of one period of Trump's radical, norm-shattering second presidency. But they also understood that another, potentially more perilous phase was beginning. The voters had rendered their verdict on Trump and the party that had enabled him for the past two years, delivering a resounding demand for change. 

Read more: Inside the Democrats' Plans to Take On Trump

But those closest to him expected the President to grow only more ferocious and less conciliatory in the face of Democratic oversight. Advisers suggest Democrats will overplay their hand, allowing him to recast himself as the victim of political persecution rather than the architect of his own predicament. “Historically, he has always done well when he’s the target,” says one aide. “He knows better than anyone how to use that to his advantage.”

Aides are bracing for a wave of staff turnover, a combination of attrition and Trump dispensing with officials who have frustrated him. The result could be a further retreat into an insular circle of loyalists who are unable or unwilling to deliver bad news or curb his impulses. Inside the White House, advisers have been contemplating the implications of divided government. “His natural inclination is to work with Democrats or Independents or whatever,” says another senior aide. “But he’s aware of the investigations and the games the other side will play, and he’s prepared to fight back.” Already, the Democratic wave had already emboldened the party’s leaders. The expected incoming chair of the House Oversight Committee delivered a succinct warning on X: “LAWYER UP.”

But the road ahead will be unlike any Trump has traveled before. Constitutionally barred from seeking another term, the President may find that Republicans face a new political calculus as they begin contemplating a post-Trump future. As the 2028 presidential race takes shape, Vice President J.D. Vance will confront the delicate task of forging an identity independent of Trump without alienating the man whose endorsement he may still need. Those tensions could strain not only their relationship but the broader coalition Trump has spent a decade assembling—one already showing signs of fracture as once-loyal allies like Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene have turned against him. The question is whether the fear and loyalty that have sustained Trump's dominance of the GOP will endure as his party begins looking beyond him.

When Hakeem Jeffries took the stage at an election-night celebration just south of the U.S. Capitol, well before midnight, the crowd was already chanting “Speaker Jeffries! Speaker Jeffries!” The Brooklyn Democrat emerged to the strains of “Unbelievable” by the Notorious B.I.G., then looked straight into the camera and declared, “America is back.” He paused, breaking into a broad grin as he savored the moment. 

After nearly two years in the minority, Jeffries is likely to become the first Black Speaker of the House, his party riding a stunning wave of victories that swept Republicans from power on Capitol Hill. “I learned very early on that a setback was nothing more than a setup for a comeback,” he told the jubilant crowd. “Today begins the great American comeback.” Minutes later, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer had his own victory to celebrate a few blocks away: “We have five words for the American people: Relief is on the way,” he told campaign staff.

It was a coast-to-coast rout that exceeded the Democrats’ high expectations. As of Wednesday morning, the party had flipped at least 29 House seats, including victories in swing districts in Pennsylvania, Colorado, and Virginia, while Senate victories in deep red states like Texas, South Carolina, Kansas, and Iowa gave them control of the upper chamber. The results were a decisive rebuke of a President whose handling of the economy, rising prices, and the war with Iran had fueled widespread discontent, and who spent the closing days of the campaign musing about candidates’ anatomy and dismissing Americans’ concerns over their bottom line.

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For the first time since Trump returned to Washington, Democrats will be empowered to do more than stomp and shout. They will be able to set the legislative agenda in both chambers of Congress, compel testimony from Administration officials, investigate allegations of corruption, force Republicans to take difficult votes, and block new Cabinet nominees or federal judges. Party leaders see an opportunity to turn the public's discontent with Trump into a sustained argument for returning Democrats to the White House in 2028. “This feels like 2018 on steroids,” says Representative Ted Lieu of California, vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus, referring to the election during Trump’s first term when Democrats won control of the House. The ensuing two years were marked by a lengthy government shutdown and two impeachments.

The next two should be similarly contentious. Interviews with more than two dozen Democratic leaders, strategists, and members of Congress in the days before the election revealed a party itching to fight on nearly every front the President has opened. “LAWYER UP,” Representative Robert Garcia of California, who is in line to chair the powerful Oversight Committee, posted on social media as returns came in. Democrats are preparing a legislative offensive aimed at reversing some of the Administration's most unpopular policies, including cuts to Medicaid, the expiration of federal health insurance subsidies, Trump's sweeping tariffs, and the war in Iran. They plan to advance proposals to lower the costs of housing and health care while pursuing aggressive investigations into the President's Administration and business interests. Some party officials are already looking beyond the next two years, hoping to develop a more expansive economic agenda that could define the next presidential campaign.

After two years in which Republican majorities on the Hill deferred to Trump, Democrats are poised to reassert Congress’s role as a coequal branch of government. They know much of their agenda stands little chance of becoming law; already, Trump has embraced the moniker “Mr. Veto.” But members believe they can make political gains even when they cannot achieve legislative victories. By advocating for policies that command broad public support, party leaders hope to expose divisions among Republicans, force Trump to defend unpopular decisions, and demonstrate what a government fully led by Democrats would prioritize. 

But when the midterm victory laps conclude, the Democrats’ challenges will be waiting for them. Even leading up to their commanding win, surveys showed the party remained unpopular. Its leaders are divided over how far left to move, what kind of economic message will win back the voters who abandoned them in 2024, and how aggressively to confront Trump. Democrats are split on how seriously to pursue a third Trump impeachment, a path that many party leaders see as a political dead end. “If we make Donald Trump the center of our focus, we will lose this moment in history,” says Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey. “We need to deal with the American people’s problems.”

There’s also a risk that Democrats have raised expectations they cannot meet. After campaigning on promises to lower prices, restore government accountability, and rein in a President they portray as dangerously unconstrained, they now have to demonstrate their governance can make a tangible difference in Americans' lives. The temptation to interpret the election as a sweeping mandate could be especially perilous for a party whose recent victories have owed as much to dissatisfaction with Republicans as to enthusiasm for its own leadership. 

“I'm really worried that we're going to misread victory as an endorsement of us or America falling in love with Democrats,” says Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut, the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee. “We need to remember that we have been asked to audition for a role in which the party has failed.” The warning hangs over the plans Democrats are preparing to put into motion. The next two years in Washington are likely to be defined by confrontation and gridlock. Now Democrats have the task of convincing Americans that this is what victory looks like. 

In mid-September, House Democrats gathered in a basement conference room in the U.S. Capitol to discuss strategy. National polling predicted a blue wave and Democrats were giddy about the prospect of making gains across the country. But they had yet to settle on a message for the final weeks of the campaign. Members swapped tales from the campaign trail that revealed dueling frustrations among the electorate. In competitive districts, constituents were furious about soaring gasoline and diesel prices. In Democratic strongholds, voters were obsessed with corruption, expressing the belief that Trump and his inner circle appeared to be profiting off the presidency. 

Then Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland spoke up, offering a formulation that crystallized the party’s closing argument. “We're talking about the same thing,” Raskin told colleagues. “Accountability and affordability are not a fork in the road for us politically. They are two sides of the same coin.” Candidates in swing districts began hammering the idea that corruption in the federal government and a cost-of-living crisis were intertwined. 

Their agenda will be guided by the same concept. Democrats are preparing a flurry of investigations into Trump and his allies, with the goal of exposing alleged abuses of power and putting the President's financial dealings under public scrutiny. The idea is to tie as many of these probes as possible to Americans’ economic stress. Joshua Miller, director of Congress Watch at Public Citizen, a progressive think tank, says members of his organization have been meeting with Democratic officials for months to discuss how to hold hearings Americans will see as meaningful, not merely performative. “This is the first step to actually auditioning for what a significant reform agenda would look like if Democrats were given unified control in 2029,” Miller says. “It’s also the first step to regaining the American people's trust.”

In the Senate, the Judiciary Committee, expected to be chaired by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, and the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, under Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, are preparing to play central roles in the investigative offensive. Their House counterparts on the Judiciary and Oversight committees are gearing up for an equally aggressive push. Raskin, a Maryland progressive and former constitutional law professor who led Trump’s second impeachment prosecution, is likely to become House Judiciary Chair, while Garcia is expected to take the helm of Oversight. Both committees have been hiring, recruiting several dozen additional lawyers and staff. 

According to staffers familiar with the committees’ plans, the committees intend to probe Trump’s cryptocurrency dealings; Truth Social’s sale of faster access to his market-moving posts, a service that could give paying trading firms an edge over other investors; the luxury presidential aircraft donated by the Qataris; and allegations that wealthy and well-connected donors and allies secured tariff exemptions or other government favors in exchange for contributions to Trump pet projects like the White House ballroom or Trump-aligned PACs. They’re also demanding records of Trump’s AI chatbot usage, citing a TIME report that the President consulted Elon Musk’s chatbot Grok before launching the January raid that captured Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro. 

Democrats are keen to scrutinize Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, over alleged conflicts of interest (which Kushner has denied) stemming from his central role in Middle East peace negotiations and his investment firm’s ties to Gulf states. Democrats also want to investigate whether 1789 Capital, an investment firm where Donald Trump Jr. is a partner, profited from political connections or advanced knowledge of federal funding decisions affecting companies in its portfolio. Among them is Vulcan Elements, which secured a $620 million Pentagon loan months after 1789 invested. (1789 denies wrongdoing and says Trump Jr. does not participate in its investment decisions.) “You have endless amounts of grift coming out of the White House from the entire family,” Garcia alleges. “It’s like watching The Sopranos,” adds Raskin. (In a statement, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said “there are no conflicts of interest” and insisted that “President Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public—which is why they overwhelmingly re-elected him to this office, despite years of lies and false accusations against him and his businesses.”)

Looming over these investigations is the question of whether to try to impeach Trump for a third time. Jeffries, who declined an interview for this story, isn’t tipping his hand, saying only that Democrats “haven't ruled anything out.” But many Democrats are wary about another impeachment. Senator Adam Schiff of California, an impeachment manager in Trump’s first term, says his party needs to be clear-eyed about public sentiment. “We're going to need to see where the country is,” he says. But voter appetite alone would not set them up for success; Democrats know there would be little chance to obtain the two-thirds supermajority in the Senate required to convict and remove Trump from office.

The hesitancy surrounding a Trump impeachment could fade. In 2018, Democratic leaders talked down the prospects of impeachment, only to start proceedings a year later. The lawmakers already in favor of impeachment hearings call it a matter of historical precedent and public duty. “The base will also demand it,” says Representative Ro Khanna of California, who is exploring a run for president in 2028. Voters themselves are torn on impeaching Trump again, with a slight majority of those polled in an October NBC News Decision Desk Poll supporting it. 

For now, according to conversations with more than two dozen lawmakers, Democrats are coalescing around a compromise option: targeting Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for impeachment instead. A resolution was introduced earlier this fall to impeach Hegseth for allegations of unauthorized military operations in Iran, Yemen, the Caribbean, and the eastern Pacific Ocean. Additional articles allege extrajudicial killings, ignoring laws to minimize civilian casualties, and the unauthorized capture of Maduro. Representative Adam Smith of Washington, who is positioned for a second round as chair of the House Armed Services Committee, says by targeting Hegseth instead of Trump, Democrats believe they may be able to draw enough Senate Republicans to join them. “It's got a bigger chance of getting a stronger bipartisan vote, and sort of building momentum,” Smith says.

With ten days to go until the midterm election, Bob Harvie, the Democrat running against Representative Brian Fitzpatrick in Pennsylvania’s 1st District, stood before an auditorium of prospective voters to take their questions. Sarah McBride, a 43-year-old single mom and self-described independent, approached the microphone in the newly renovated school. She sounded tired and a little nervous. “I guess what I’ve been left wondering is like, are you a fighter?” she asked. “The last thing we need in Congress is another wallflower Democrat who is going to be too afraid to make a move and do anything.”

Harvie, who unseated Fitzpatrick, hopes to show voters like McBride that he and nearly 30 newly- elected colleagues in the House can turn their campaign trail rhetoric into legislation that can improve their lives. In the first week of the new Congress, according to lawmakers and aides, House Democrats plan to advance legislation to rescind Trump’s tariffs, restore expired Affordable Care Act premium subsidies, and reverse $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts. They also plan to put forth a resolution to require Trump to either end the war in Iran or obtain congressional authorization to continue it. Senate leaders have been less clear about their immediate agenda, though members echoed many of the same priorities as House Democrats. 

Democrats see repealing the tariffs and ending the war as their two biggest opportunities to address the country’s economic downturn. “If we are able to reverse at least one or both of those things, that would be massive,” says Representative Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, who is in line to become the next chair of the House Budget Committee. “I look at that as basically the whole ballgame.”

It’s not clear how they intend to win it. Senate Democrats may look to a process known as budget reconciliation as a way to pass tax and spending legislation with simple majorities, bypassing the 60-vote filibuster threshold. But those bills would still need to get through Trump. Democrats will need Republican support in the Senate to override presidential vetoes. Congress has already passed nonbinding measures under the War Powers Resolution to end military action in Iran, which Trump has rejected and ignored. “We don’t have an off switch,” Smith says. The party could also attempt to block Iran war funds through appropriations, or threaten a shutdown over the issue. But that would require members, including those in competitive districts, risk being accused of withholding support from troops in the field. Their best option may be ramping up pressure through messaging votes. But many in the party, especially the progressive wing, see value in picking fights that force Trump to defend unpopular decisions, illustrating for voters what a Democratic government would prioritize. “We need to demonstrate to Americans that we’re willing to take shots,” says Representative Summer Lee of Pennsylvania. “I think that that is going to be just as important as making them.”

Some Democrats fear looking feckless if they pursue an agenda that’s laser-focused on fighting the Trump Administration and gets nowhere. Many are keen to maintain the emphasis on affordability that helped lift them to power. One slate of proposals, authored by the center-left New Democrats caucus, urges the party to focus on five areas: the costs of groceries, housing, health care, energy, and family care. A separate agenda from the Congressional Progressive Caucus includes bills to fund expanded affordable child care, another to provide downpayment assistance for first-time homeowners, and to raise federal overtime pay. "Every single week we should be passing clear, bold policy that would reduce prices and increase paychecks,” says Representative Greg Casar of Texas, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Other priorities include measures tackling AI regulation, data centers, and reproductive health. 

Even if none of these become law, party strategists see upside to forcing Trump to veto popular bills. “We’re telling the country that these are our priorities,” says Schiff, “and if you give us the White House in two years, then we’ll be able to more fully deliver.” It’s an approach that echoes the party’s strategy a generation ago. When Democrats seized control of Congress under an unpopular Republican president in 2006, they used the ensuing gridlock to build their case for gaining more power. “We got a lot done in Congress,” says former Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison, “but it was all vetoed and stalled by George W. Bush, and then we hung that obstruction around the necks of the Republican Party going into ’08.”

Democrats could find opportunities to send Trump bills he would actually sign, particularly on pocketbook issues where their proposals overlap with his promises, such as lowering prescription drug prices or expanding the housing supply. The president has signaled some willingness to cut deals. “What happens is I veto everything,” Trump told reporters in October of the possibility of a Democratic-controlled Congress. “You veto, veto, veto, and then they come and they say, ‘How do we get it done?’”

As Democrats take power, a central question is how well they can work together to wield it. The first test will come as both chambers choose their leaders. The Senate victory puts Schumer in a strong position to return as majority leader, several Senate Democrats and strategists tell TIME. It marks a turnaround from March 2025, when his decision to help advance a Republican funding bill to avert a government shutdown prompted calls for him to step aside. “If you bring home the bacon and you bring us to victory, then you deserve to stay,” says Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona, who credited Schumer with recruiting candidates who flipped Republican-held seats this cycle and largely holding the caucus together against Medicaid cuts last year. Danny Weiss, a onetime chief of staff to former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, noted the 75-year-old Schumer could be challenged in a moment when there’s an appetite for younger leadership. “But usually,” he notes, “you get rewarded for pulling off a miraculous win.”

Within the incoming House Democratic caucus, support for Jeffries to be Speaker is wide, but not necessarily deep. Allies describe him as a politically savvy but cautious leader. Interviews with a wide range of current and incoming members suggest he is well positioned to become Speaker when the caucus convenes to elect one on Jan. 3. But some members see his caution as a liability in a moment when Democrats need to show their strength. A handful of progressive members have not committed to backing him. The incoming freshmen include democratic socialists like Darializa Avila Chevalier and Chris Rabb who won their races in part by running against the party establishment. “Is Jeffries willing to meet us halfway?” Rabb asks. 

Unlike Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, Jeffries appears poised to lead a majority large enough to pass legislation without unanimous support from either wing of his caucus. But vocal dissenters could still undermine his efforts to project party unity. The five incoming socialist lawmakers have been quietly coordinating their strategy since the summer, holding meetings in person and over Zoom and exchanging messages in a group chat as they weigh how to advocate for progressive causes. They have discussed what concessions they might extract for support on pivotal votes, which procedural tools could give them greater influence, and whether they could enlist other lawmakers dissatisfied with the party's direction. The group is slightly larger than the so-called Squad, the group of legislators that has been pushing Democrats to take far-left positions for the better part of a decade, and it’s yet to settle on a formal list of demands, let alone a name for the nascent socialist wing of the party. “Every piece of leverage needs to be on the table,” says incoming Representative Claire Valdez of New York, a member of the group, who refers to her comrades as “the bloc” for now.  

The newcomers, in coordination with progressives already in Congress, may call for votes on Medicare for All, abolishing ICE, and blocking weapons sales to Israel. “If they start pushing Medicare for All, that causes a lot of political problems within the caucus,” says Representative Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, a moderate democrat. “To ensure we actually win the White House, it would be smart for us to put out a practical agenda.” Israel may be an even dicier issue for Jeffries, a longtime supporter of the Jewish state whose Brooklyn district includes an Orthodox community. Over the past year, nearly half of House Democrats voted to cut off aid to Israel. The public falling-out between Michigan Senate candidates Abdul El-Sayed and Haley Stevens over Israel policy offered a reminder of the divisions bubbling beneath the surface. 

How Jeffries enforces consensus is an open question. After two centrist Democrats, Representatives Jared Golden of Maine and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, broke with their party on a procedural vote in September, Democratic leaders discussed establishing guardrails to limit dissent within the ranks. One idea, proposed by Jeffries’ leadership team, was to penalize members who voted against the party’s own procedural rules governing legislation, potentially costing them coveted committee assignments or leadership positions. Another idea tied a member’s ability to advance within the caucus to their financial contributions to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The suggestions sparked quick backlash from progressives, who saw the proposals as an attempt to consolidate power just as a new generation of left-wing lawmakers was preparing to enter Congress. “I think it's ludicrous,” says incoming Representative Melat Kiros, a DSA-backed progressive from Denver. “For them to be punishing other members for not meeting their agenda goes in direct conflict with what the American people want.” 

Some of these disagreements go to the heart of a question Democrats have struggled to answer since their defeat in 2024: whether their path back to national power lies in embracing the economic populism championed by their ascendant left wing or rebuilding the more ideologically diverse coalition that once made them more competitive nationally. Both factions believe the election vindicated their approach. Representative Jason Crow of Colorado, who helped recruit Democratic candidates in competitive districts, says the party has just started bringing back voters in working-class and rural communities and can’t squander that. “The Democratic Party has to be very honest that we have fallen short in the past,” Crow says, adding that people want a government “that can respond to how quickly the world and Americans' lives are changing." 

The midterm election may have proven that Americans sought a check on Trump in Congress. But it offered no clear answer about the kind of Democratic Party voters would be willing to send back to the White House. The next two years will offer an opportunity to shape that conversation, and the candidates who emerge in 2028 will have to navigate the divisions that Democrats have yet to resolve. “If we mess up,” says Gallego, “those voters will swing right back to Republicans in 2028, and we'll lose the next election.”

For the past year, a faction of the AI industry bent on unfettered development looked poised to use its wealth to tip the 2026 midterms in its favor. But on Nov. 3, that accelerationist wing could hardly have had a worse night.

An NBC exit poll found that 56% of voters said that AI and data centers were a “crucial or major factor” in their vote for Congress. Democrats spent more than $100 million on broadcast ads casting their Republican opponents as being overly cozy with Big Tech and data centers—and decisively won in many of those races, including Ohio, Kansas, and Iowa. 

Data center bans or moratoriums passed in counties across the country, from Edgewater, Fla., to Bloomington, Ill., while the mayors of Piqua, Ohio and Yukon, Oklahoma were recalled for their previous support of data center projects. 

Data center and accelerationist super PACs failed to make a major dent in influencing elections through spending. One of the key candidates they spent money on, Darline Graham, lost to Annie Andrews, who nicknamed Graham “Data Center Darline” and called for a two-year moratorium on new projects. The accelerationists' ineffectiveness opened a pathway for “pro-safety” PACs to outspend them in key races. Several candidates backed by those groups, including Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed and Colorado’s Manny Rutinel, won.

Don’t expect sweeping federal AI regulation soon. Even with both chambers, Democrats need substantial Republican support to pass over a potential Presidential veto. 

But this election served as the stunning capstone in a year of mounting anti-AI populism, during which Donald Trump has spurred on the industry and said that opponents of data centers “want to end up being backwards and poor.” Now, Congress could haul executives before committees to answer questions and undo Republican efforts to block state-level laws. 

Even without law change, politicians may think twice before siding with the AI industry. “Voters had their say tonight: they are overwhelmingly in support of AI safety and security, and very much against data centers and flock cameras,” says Brendan Steinhauser, a Republican strategist and the CEO of The Alliance for Secure AI. “The AI industry is going to have to get ready to deal with it because I think there's a big deluge of bills at the state and federal level coming their way.”

Data centers became a political liability

Americans would rather live near a prison, methadone clinic, or a nuclear power plant than an AI data center, according to comparative polling done by progressive research firm Blue Rose Research. Existential concerns about AI have grown, says Ali Mortell, the firm’s director of research, but data centers’ concrete local impacts—including higher energy bills, noise, and environmental concerns—were far more salient.

Accordingly, Democratic candidates who opposed data centers more strongly than their opponents won in many races. In Ohio, Senator-elect Sherrod Brown ran millions of dollars of ads calling Husted “the face of data centers in Ohio." Brown won by five percentage points. The National Republican Senatorial Committee even acknowledged that Husted’s ties to the industry were a problem, writing in an August memo that “more than any other thing in this race, data centers are the anchor hanging around Husted’s neck.”

In Kansas, Cindy Holscher led in the governor’s race on Wednesday morning after running an ad calling for a pause on data centers until Kansas set guardrails to protect its communities, farms, jobs, and budgets. Her opponent Ty Masterson had received $1.5 million from a data center super PAC. 

In Arizona, Democrat Amish Shah, who pledged to “stop data centers from being built,” led Jay Feely, who said American data centers were necessary to beat China in the global AI race, on Wednesday morning.

Comparisons suggesting that U.S. data centers use less water than the nation’s golf courses have done little to reassure voters. Developers’ promises to cover higher energy bills soften opposition but win few supporters. Trust in institutions is low, so when tech companies and politicians offer reassurance, Mortell says, “voters are not positioned to believe that's true.”

An October Politico poll found that nearly half of Americans identify Republicans as the party most eager to build data centers. But Democrats could find themselves on the other side of the backlash. In Wisconsin, Republican Tom Tiffany derisively called his opponent “Data Center David Crowley.” Crowley shifted toward tighter restrictions in October—and won.

“There's not a clear divide between Democratic voters and Republican voters on how they're thinking about [data centers]. Opinion has soured with everyone,” Mortell says.

AI money backed both sides

AI accelerationists also struggled to translate their considerable campaign contributions into electoral victories.

The super PAC Leading the Future was created with more than $100 million in funding to support pro-AI candidates in August 2025. But because public skepticism of the AI industry has become so widespread, the PAC's financial contributions were met with backlash, creating headaches for candidates who received the money. 

According to one survey, three-quarters of likely voters said that they would be less likely to vote for a candidate if they found out they had accepted a donation from an AI super PAC. As the general election approached, big donors like OpenAI’s Greg Brockman and Ron Conway backed away from previously promised donations, and Leading the Future mostly kept their powder dry. 

Elon Musk didn’t fare well either. The AI leader was the biggest donor in this cycle at $446 million, $168 million of which effectively went to supporting Ken Paxton in Texas. But Paxton was crushed by James Talarico, who has called for the ending of "sweetheart tax deals" for Big Tech and other guardrails.

Leading the Future and associated PACs were far outspent by pro-safety PACs designed specifically to counter their influence. Those pro-safety groups had a wealthy supporter of their own. Anthropic contributed more than $40 million to Public First Action, which advocates for stronger safeguards. That money was restricted from election activities, though Anthropic employees separately donated another $5 million to support campaign efforts.

Pro-safety PACs notched wins in Michigan (Thomas More Barrett faced $896,250 in opposition funding); Colorado (Manny Rutinel, who has called for a conditional moratorium, received $1.5 million from pro-safety groups); and Wisconsin (where Rebecca Cooke defeated Derrick Van Orden after a pro-safety group spent more than $880,000 opposing him). 

But neither side's cash proved decisive. The largest spending battle of the cycle among AI-focused super PACs was a New York congressional primary. Pro-safety groups spent $21.3 million supporting Alex Bores, while accelerationists spent $8.2 million opposing him. Bores lost—but the winner, Micah Lasher, had co-sponsored the same AI safety law that made Bores an industry target.

What about AI misinformation?

Another major worry from AI critics was that AI deepfakes would spread misinformation about candidates. While AI deepfakes were circulated, they do not appear to have had an outsize impact in many races. 

For instance, deepfaked videos of Maine Senator-elect Troy Jackson appearing to threaten his campaign staff circulated the week before the election, but Jackson went on to win by more than seven percentage points. In Wisconsin, Van Orden posted several deepfake videos on social media of Cooke saying things she never said. Van Orden lost.

AI could become a bigger election issue

After two years of a pro-acceleration agenda, the AI industry is now preparing for a harsher political climate. OpenAI plans to launch a policy and PR offensive, Axios reports, including an effort to rebrand data centers as “AI compute campuses.” Meanwhile, Meta is reportedly building a bipartisan team to strengthen its relationship with Democrats, while maintaining its ties with Republicans. “There's going to be a lot more questions from Congress,” says Steinhauser, whose Alliance for Secure AI Action is a bipartisan nonprofit that advocates for guardrails.

With Trump in the White House, sweeping federal AI legislation would likely require either his signature or enough bipartisan support to overcome a veto. With anti-AI sentiment crossing party lines, cross-party collaboration isn’t out of the question. “I think this is a good chance for Trump to have a bipartisan win,” Steinhauser says. 

"I also think you're going to see more movement at the state level," Steinhauser says. Democrats in Congress might not be able to pass sweeping federal regulation, but the ban on state AI regulation Republicans have sought will be harder to enact. “If Congress is gridlocked, what happens in California will govern AI for the U.S. and the world,” says Scott Singer, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who was a lead writer of a report commissioned by California Gov. Gavin Newsom, which informed SB-53—the first U.S. law governing frontier AI systems.

Blue Rose’s polling finds AI is ranked 29th out of 39 issues. But in the last year, its salience has risen more than any other issue, including war in the Middle East. As AI advances, its effects on jobs and people’s safety could make for a very different political debate in 2028, Mortell says. “This was the first cycle where AI showed up in the political discourse, and it’s arguably the least important that it will ever be again.”

Every so often, I taste something that reminds me of the cherry-flavored lollipops my local bank used to give to children who came in with their parents. I never liked the taste, but I ate the candy anyway. I was a kid, dragged along on my parents’ chores, and it was a treat in an otherwise boring stretch of adult obligations.

I assumed this would one day be part of my life, too: regular trips to deposit checks, buy groceries, fill prescriptions, pay for photo prints, return rented videos, and occasionally compare screw sizes in the hardware store. But in my high-tech adulthood, I can do all of these chores from home. Banking happens in an app. Groceries and just about anything else can be delivered. Video stores and photo labs are practically extinct in the age of camera phones and streaming. 

On the whole, I’m glad to give up balancing a checkbook and waiting in several lines every week. But as my conveniences pile up and tasks turn into taps on a screen, I increasingly feel like I’m missing something other than a treacly lollipop. 

Errands were a burden, sure, but they were a reason to leave the house. Without the obligation to go places, it’s easy to spend all day alone, switching from paying bills on my phone to watching videos on my phone to passively scrolling on my phone, ignoring the outside world and the people in it. Even the indulgences running errands allowed—a gourmet coffee or a fast-food combo meal—can be ordered ahead or dropped off.

Some of these high-tech offerings let us do our errands from anywhere, while others insist we stay home. Miss a grocery delivery, and you risk warm yogurt or potential theft. 

For nonperishable deliveries, a doorbell camera lets you avoid going to the door to greet a stranger. You can stare through a virtual peephole all day, monitoring when packages arrive and clandestinely recording any passersby who look at them. 

These replacements are sometimes easier, but not always better. Many meals don’t travel well, and even the most reliable personal shopper might not pick out the same fruit you would’ve chosen. For a delivery devotee, what was once a series of social interactions is now a chain of one-tap transactions, which can reshape how we see other people: not as human beings occupying a shared space, but as hirable servants in a world made just for us. 

“It gives us this false sense of control and individuality if we’re just staying in our little box and having things come to us,” says Dr. Gillian Sandstrom, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Sussex and the author of Once Upon a Stranger, a book on the value of small interactions. Sandstrom cites research showing that people who have a wider variety of encounters—a polite nod with a stranger, a short conversation with a clerk, or a deep chat with a friend—tend to be happier. 

Like everything else, many of these small social interactions have gone online, and again, replacement doesn’t mean improvement. I can see hundreds of strangers in a short scroll through TikTok or Instagram. But I see them on a curated feed that’s mine and mine alone. And unless I also make content, they don’t see me as anything more than a metric: a like or a view. Parasocial relationships with influencers or podcast hosts may have some value, but the socialization remains one-way.

Outings also give us a chance to practice how we interact with the world. There’s a reason they’re called social “skills,” Sandstrom notes. “How are you going to make a new friend? How are you going to go to a job interview?” she asks. “It feels like a really horrible idea to not have all these little opportunities to practice.”

The smartphone has undoubtedly made it easier than ever to stay in touch with our real-life friends. But here, too, the interaction has changed. Texting gives me a drip of connection throughout the day, which maintains a feeling of socialization without giving me the full experience of hearing someone’s voice or seeing their body language. Virtual hangouts are like the grocery delivery order that’s just-about right: good enough, yet still a little disappointing. 

Errands could be a time for deeper socializing: an opportunity to catch up with a friend who had to do the same chores or who was bored at home and might come along. The places where we did chores and the pit stops in between served as de facto “third places.” As patronage drops, these centers of casual social interaction can’t stay open. Big box megastores and, later, e-commerce have led to empty storefronts in many towns’ main streets. High urban rents and a more isolated population make the business model for third places increasingly precarious. 

The places that do remain are built more for people who aren’t in them. With the rise of delivery and online ordering, coffee shops and fast casual restaurants increasingly serve mobile customers. The result: workers are slammed even when there’s no physical line, takeout orders pile up, and a constant stream of people pass in and out. 

Now, the in-person customer is often secondary to the virtual one. Sometimes the in-person customer becomes a virtual one, as businesses push visitors to order from digital kiosks. Some commercial restaurant space has been taken over by ghost kitchens—restaurants that only serve customers who order online and get their food delivered.

Yes, errands were boring. I’m sure I told my mom this about 100 times as we went from store to store, aisle to aisle. But I’m not less bored now, I’m just bored in a different way. 

I’m tempted to spend the time I save with digital errands watching TV or a movie. But as producers increasingly make “second-screen” content designed for people to watch while they also look at their phones, it can feel like there is no escape from a phone-centric life. The two-screen experience is just distracting enough to keep me from thinking about what else I could do with my time. 

There was more excitement and novelty out in the real world: an odd interaction with a stranger, an overheard conversation in an aisle, or any of the little dramas of daily life that play out in public. 

It’s a little dystopian to imagine using every replacement for errands at once—streaming and scrolling while waiting for groceries and a fast-food delivery; sitting alone and being waited on by gig workers and digital assistants. 

Not everything needs to be done in-person, but as technology advances, the analog alternatives become harder to find, and we’re pushed to predictable interactions on screens instead of the softly social and occasionally surprising world outside. 

The upside of digitization, perhaps, is that without the need to run as many physical errands, we could devote more time to activities that are more rewarding. That’s if we can find a place for them and if we can recognize what we need, instead of just getting whatever we want.