Source: Politics<\/p>\n
Tuesday\u2019s blue wave didn\u2019t resolve either party\u2019s internal divides. In fact, The POLITICO Poll shows they may even get worse.<\/p>\n
Even ahead of Election Day, Republicans were already torn over how much to blame President Donald Trump for the scale of the defeat, weeks of polling show. While Trump distances himself<\/a> from the electoral blowout \u2014 saying the loss was because he wasn\u2019t on the ballot himself \u2014 some Republicans are beginning to weigh what a post-Trump GOP looks like.<\/p>\n Democrats, on the other hand, have scored a large-enough victory that instead of being united, nearly all factions of the party can claim it as evidence of support for their agenda, according to the surveys conducted by PF Global. Tuesday\u2019s decisive wave, therefore, has done little to move them past the moderate and progressive infighting that has shaped much of this cycle.<\/p>\n One thing is clear: Both party\u2019s leaders have a lot of work to do to stitch together a winning coalition ahead of a critical 2028 presidential race.<\/p>\n Here are some key takeaways from what voters were telling us right before they delivered a historically heavy blow to the president. (We\u2019re polling them again soon to see how they may have shifted in the wake of the election.)<\/p>\n Before the elections, Republican midterm voters told The POLITICO Poll they were confident about a victory in the House and the Senate. Despite that, 29% felt that the GOP would come out of the elections more divided, while another 29% said it would come out more unified.<\/p>\n That\u2019s compared with 45% of Democratic voters who said they expected more unity in their party after the election results \u2014 even before they knew what would happen.<\/p>\n Republican strategists and lawmakers have already issued stark warnings about the future of the GOP if the party doesn\u2019t learn from voters\u2019 frustrations with the economy, the Iran war and the Trump administration.<\/p>\n \u201cTonight\u2019s shellacking should be a wake-up call,\u201d Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) wrote in a lengthy Substack post<\/a> on Tuesday night. \u201cBut if our response is to blame the media, the polls, or the voters, we\u2019ll have learned absolutely nothing. We might start by looking in the mirror.”<\/p>\n Some Republicans are directly blaming Trump, who saw his coalition shatter on Tuesday night. The blue wave spared no region<\/a>: Red counties and blue counties, Hispanic-heavy counties and white counties, urban areas and suburban areas all shifted to the left.<\/p>\n The POLITICO Poll shows there\u2019s been a critical split between Trump voters who identify as MAGA \u2014 his most loyal supporters \u2014 and those who don\u2019t, who make up the softer part of his 2024 coalition.<\/p>\n A majority of MAGA Trump voters said they would see a midterm election loss as a reason to move closer to Trump\u2019s agenda. Non-MAGA Trump voters said the opposite: For them, a defeat in the House and the Senate was a reason to break away.<\/p>\n The fracture will persist beyond the election results \u2014 and it reflects the fact that Republicans\u2019 voter base has been falling apart on a number of issues over the course of the last year. The POLITICO Poll has repeatedly shown that non-MAGA Trump voters break away from their MAGA bedfellows on everything from affordability to ICE to the war in Iran to data centers.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s time to consider what life is going to be like after Donald Trump,\u201d said Jonathan Fletcher, register of deeds and former GOP chair of Gaston County, North Carolina, where failed Senate nominee Michael Whatley\u2019s watch party was held. \u201cTrump has done some excellent things, and I appreciate that, but it can’t be the party of Trump forever.\u201d<\/p>\n The Democratic Party needs to brace for some fiery discussions of its own. Our polling showed that the scale of the victory<\/a> would shape the direction Democratic voters would want to see from the party.<\/p>\n A plurality of Democratic midterm voters said a massive victory Tuesday would be a reason to run progressive candidates.<\/p>\n But that was driven by self-identified progressives, 61% of whom take that position. Moderate Democrats were more torn, with 35% saying the party should run more progressives in that scenario, and 36% saying the party should run moderates.<\/p>\n Already in the aftermath of the election, both sides of the party\u2019s ideological civil war began to claim victory.<\/p>\n \u201cAs the Democratic Party looks to the next presidential election, the lesson from this cycle is unequivocal: high-quality Democrats in the middle were the majority makers in 2026 \u2014 and they are the model for 2028,\u201d the centrist Democratic group Third Way wrote in a memo<\/a> published Wednesday.<\/p>\n Moderates are pointing to Democratic wins in red-states \u2014 from Adam Hamilton for Kansas Senate to James Talarico for Texas Senate to Josh Turek for Iowa Senate \u2014 as examples of the middle-of-the-road approach they need to take to hold onto those victories and set themselves up for 2028.<\/p>\n The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, for its part, argued \u201clabels like \u2018moderate\u2019 and \u2018progressive\u2019 obscure a clear throughline,\u201d according to a memo<\/a> published after the election. \u201cThe center of gravity in the Democratic Party has shifted in an economic populist direction.\u201d<\/p>\n They have their own wins to point to, including Troy Jackson in the Maine Senate race and Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan Senate race.<\/p>\n There\u2019s another core problem for Democrats: It looks likely that the strongest coalition they built was centered on backlash to Trump. Even in the final POLITICO Poll before the election, over half of Democratic voters (53%) said they were casting their ballots to vote against Trump, rather than for or against their local candidates.<\/p>\n That means the Democratic Party has work to do to ensure their new voters stick around once Trump is gone.<\/p>\n Seb Wride is the head of polling at PF Global, the London-based firm that runs The POLITICO Poll.<\/p>\nRepublicans voters were torn over whether the midterms would divide their party<\/h4>\n
Trump\u2019s coalition shattered \u2014 and many of his voters want to distance from him<\/h4>\n
Democrats are not on the same page about what major wins mean for party direction<\/h4>\n