The era of one-party rule in Washington is over. The 2026 midterms dealt a historic blow to the GOP. Democrats swept control of both chambers of Congress and made history along the way. Americans elected their first Muslim senator, Michigan's Abdul El-Sayed, and their first openly gay male senator, New Hampshire's Chris Pappas. The wave reached far enough to unseat five-term Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine, and Kansas sent a Democrat to the Senate for the first time since 1932. And then there was the night's biggest upset, James Talarico's win over Ken Paxton in Texas, the first time a Democrat has won a Senate race there since 1988.

The surge didn't stop at Congress. As of this reporting, Democrats have flipped at least five governorships — in Georgia, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio and Texas — and now hold a majority of the nation's governors’ mansions for the first time since 2010. In Texas, Gina Hinojosa denied Governor Greg Abbott a fourth term, becoming the state's first Latina governor and its first Democratic governor since 1995. In Georgia, Keisha Lance Bottoms made history as the first Black woman ever elected governor of a U.S. state. Legislative chambers across the country swung blue, handing Democrats new trifectas in Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

What explains this "blue tsunami"? Democrats rallied the country around one simple message: affordability. After Republicans won full control of Washington two years ago, Democrats needed a new vision to unite the party, and the party's economic-populist wing stepped forward with one built around working-class Americans across the political spectrum. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani proved that a campaign focused on making life more affordable could beat the special interests and the media voices that dismissed him as too far left. This cycle, Democratic campaigns across the country followed his lead and ran on lowering costs for everyday Americans. El-Sayed built his Michigan campaign on three ideas: "money out of politics, money in your pocket, and Medicare for All." Talarico emphasized on the campaign trail that “the biggest divide in this country is not left versus right; it's top versus bottom".

The message was simple, but it was powerful because it described what working-class Americans actually feel. They are tired of watching gas prices climb while the Trump administration drags the country into a war we should never have entered. They are tired of rising housing and grocery prices under Republican leadership. They are tired of being crushed by health care costs. And they are tired of billionaires and elites buying our politics and building data centers in their backyards. What working Americans feel is the strain of a system that isn't working for them, and they want one that is affordable and that works. The Republican playbook of culture wars is getting harder to run in a political landscape where voters are increasingly economically pragmatic.

If anything, this election showed that the voice of the many can beat the money of the few. AIPAC's super PAC spent more than $30 million trying to stop El-Sayed in Michigan's Democratic primary, and lost. Weeks before the election, AIPAC announced it would stop endorsing candidates and stop giving through its PAC. Critics called it a rebrand, and its super PAC, the United Democracy Project, is still spending. In Texas, Elon Musk poured more than $200 million into advertising to elect Ken Paxton and lost as well. When ordinary Americans make their voices heard, corporate interests and wealthy elites are forced to take notice.

The biggest change may be in who is voting for whom. For a long time, working-class voters have split along cultural lines, and Republicans have won a lot of them. This election cycle suggests that could be shifting. When Democrats talked about costs instead of identity, they won back voters in places like Texas, Kansas, and South Carolina that the party had all but written off. If that holds, the dividing line may look less like left versus right and more like top versus bottom as Talarico describes.

Working Americans have spoken up and asked for change. Now it's up to the new Congress, which convenes in January, to deliver on its campaign promises. But this won't happen automatically. Many Democrats are funded by the same donors who fund Republicans, and we will have to see whether the party is willing to cut the cord to big money. The party also remains split between its economic-populist wing and its corporate-backed establishment, and how that fight plays out will decide whether this wave becomes a lasting realignment or a one-time protest vote.

As for the Trump administration, a Democratic Congress now has a mandate to go after the corruption polluting Washington. We can expect major Republican legislation to grind to a halt — a sharp break from last year, when the GOP majority pushed through the One Big Beautiful Bill. Democrats can use their new power to rein in the war in Iran, whether through oversight investigations or by cutting off funding. And the House could move to impeach President Trump, though removing him would take a two-thirds vote in the Senate, a bar Democrats cannot clear on their own.

But the real test for Democrats isn't how hard they can hit Trump. It's whether a family in Detroit, El Paso or Atlanta feels a difference in their grocery bill, their rent or their insurance premium two years from now. Voters gave Democrats this majority because they expect them to get something done. If the party governs for its donors instead of the people who knocked on doors and waited in line to vote, the same voters who built this wave can wash it away in 2028. The working class has spoken. Washington had better listen.

Edited by: Serena Cajigal, Ari Harris