It's a Numbers Game: TRUMP GETS THE BLAME! Republicans HUMILIATED in 2026 Midterm Elections

Ryan Girdusky (0:01)

Welcome back to A Numbers Game with Ryan Girdusky. Thank you all for being here. So let's talk about the midterm elections. It wasn't a wave, it wasn't a tidal wave, it wasn't a cyclone, it was the collapse of the Republican coalition, the Trump coalition, a total collapse. I was very hesitant to believe the New York Times polling. And I said on the last episode, I think they got something wrong. And they did get a few things wrong. To my point, they got Michigan completely wrong. They had Democrats up 16 points, that didn't happen. They also had things wrong where they oversample Republicans in places like Texas. So they did get a few things wrong, but overall, they were correct. And I always want to be honest to the audience, they were definitely right, and I was definitely wrong. Let's just start off with the numbers as they are right now, or as they were late last night. Well, a bunch of races are still uncalled. As of this taping, on Wednesday morning, Republicans lost Senate seats in North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Iowa, Ohio, and Kansas. Alaska and Mississippi were too close to call as the last time I saw it. Six seats in total, as many as eight, the worst loss for any party since 2014 during Obama's second midterm where he lost nine Senate seats. Republicans likely lost 42-41. House seats with eight more being too close to call. The New York Times estimates the Democrats will have 255 seats at the end of this election. Republicans will have about 180, which is not quite as bad as the 2006-2008 midterms. Those midterms are the wave elections that after those two wave elections, Pelosi had 257 seats. So it's not up to that level, but it's very, very close. Almost at the Pelosi majority, only in one midterm, not two. Republicans also lost the governor's mansion in Georgia, Texas, Alaska, and Ohio. It was so bad for Republicans. They lost every statewide office in Arizona, Texas, although some haven't been called yet, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Democrats have new trifecta governments in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Minnesota. Republicans lost state legislatures all over the country, including, most importantly, the Texas state house. Democrats came close to surpassing Kamala Harris' election numbers in most states. In Alabama, the Democrat running for Senate, who lost by a pretty substantial margin, they were 25,000 votes short of reaching Kamala Harris' total numbers. Talarico, James Talarico, the new senator from Texas, he surpassed Harris' numbers by 100,000 votes. In South Carolina, Amy Andrews surpassed Kamala Harris' numbers by 7,000. John Ossoff was 80,000 votes shy in Georgia. Charlie Booker, who also lost in Kentucky, a person I didn't hear with the entire election cycle. He got 50,000 more votes than Harris in Kentucky. In Iowa, Josh Turek was 30,000 votes away from Harris' numbers. In Mississippi, a nail-biter Senate race, Democrats are 4,000 votes short of Harris' numbers. And in Kansas, Adam Hamilton received 10,000 more votes than Kamala Harris. This is what I was talking about when I said the blue wave would hit differently in different places. Most other states did not hit the Kamala Harris' numbers for Democrats. Like, New York did not hit Kamala Harris' numbers for Democrats. Kathy Elkall, let alone Kamala Harris' numbers, she didn't even get Trump numbers from 2024

In most big blue states, you'd main nowhere near election turnout. Massachusetts, nowhere near. Illinois, nowhere near. These super blue states did not show up in nearly as high motivating numbers as the red states did.

And where we see both persuadable independence and high Democratic turnout really making quite the difference.

Republicans, on the other hand, not a single Republican reached Trump levels anywhere. Some did not reach their 2022 numbers. Greg Abbott, who has been governor of Texas for 12 years, did not receive as many votes in 2026 that he received in 2022, despite more than 2 million new people moving to the state of Texas over the last four years. You have to think some of those people were probably Republicans, right? Not all of them were Democrats. And yet he could not find enough votes, despite millions of new people to surpass 2022

None of these states would have flipped towards the Democrats. If Republicans had shown up in the same numbers that Trump received. No, no, not one. Obviously, I shouldn't even have to say that, but I think that's really important. In many of these states, like in Tennessee, Marshall Blackburn won the governor's seat by two points. Democrats showed up at 93% of Kamala Harris numbers. Republicans showed up at 49% of Trump numbers. You cannot afford to have your base level of support. Republicans didn't show up. I just have to say this. Republicans voted like it was a normal midterm. Democrats voted like it was a high-stakes presidential election. Some of that is because Republican candidates didn't work to preserve their seats. Republican candidates did not do the job. Let's just talk about it. Let's have an honest conversation. Roger Marshall in Kansas didn't hire a campaign manager until the end of October a few weeks ago.