共和党处处失利，唯独斯蒂芬·米勒例外Republicans Lost Everywhere. Except for Stephen Miller.

What does a rattlesnake do when it’s trapped? Appoint Stephen Miller chief of staff. There is no question Donald Trump suffered a self-imposed body blow of enormous proportion last Tuesday. There is, in turn, no question that Trump will continue to refuse to take responsibility for an election outcome he wrote and directed.

At 10:37 p.m. on Election Day, the president declared on Truth Social: “I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP.”Reality: Trump was not on the ballot, but he and his policies were on voters’ minds as they pulled the Democratic lever in states ranging from deep blue to dark red.

The norm for a president suffering devastating midterm losses is to take responsibility, humbly: Bill Clinton in 1994, “I accept my share of the responsibility in the result of the elections”; George W. Bush in 2006, a “thumping”; Barack Obama in 2010, a “shellacking.”No such nonsense for Donald J. Trump.

Trump’s intransigence reflects his intense aversion to acknowledging that in the midterms the nation’s voters rejected, en masse, the most corrupt, anti-democratic president in the nation’s history, bringing an abrupt halt to our descent into authoritarianism.

In this context, Nov. 3, 2026, ranks high among those moments when American democracy survived a crucial challenge.

These include the nation’s first peaceful transfer of power after the 1800 presidential election, the re-election of Abraham Lincoln in 1864 in the midst of the Civil War, the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1974 and Trump’s rejection of the 2020 results, which culminated in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol.

But Election Day a week ago is, in some respects, even more consequential: The opposition to Trump and the MAGA movement found expression in every contest in which candidates had an R or a D beside their names, from state legislative seats to seats in the U.S. Senate.

Doug Sosnik, a former top aide to President Bill Clinton who is now a political consultant, posted data on his blog that gives a sense of the scope and depth of the Democratic victory: Democrats flipped governorships in Alaska, Georgia, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio and Texas and now control 30 governors’ mansions in states with 75 percent of the population (pending final results in Alaska and Kansas). The party now holds trifectas (governor and both branches of the legislature) in 22 states while Republicans have 18. Nationwide, Democrats gained at least 452 state legislative seats while flipping 12 legislative chambers.

As a reporter who has covered the South for decades, I find it hard to put into words my reaction to seeing Georgia elect a Democratic Black woman governor, Texas elect a white liberal senator and, as seems increasingly likely, Mississippi elect a Black man to the U.S. Senate.

Despite its historic nature, the elections’ outcome has not yet cleansed the political system of the rot clogging the system of rules and procedures crucial to a democratic government. e side of the aisle, Republican leaders equipped with integrity and purpose have yet to emerge.

On the other side, Democrats are watching the most impressive new generation of prospective Democratic presidential candidates materialize in recent memory: Jon Ossoff, Josh Shapiro, Rahm Emanuel, Andy Beshear, Mark Kelly and JB Pritzker.

Whoever emerges with the Democratic presidential nomination will, however, have to cope with the public’s currently dismal assessment of the party.

A Feb. 3-5 CBS News poll found, for example, that 64 percent of voters describe the Democratic Party as weak compared with 43 percent who say the same of the G.O.P.; 23 percent say Democrats are “strong” versus 46 percent for Republicans; 23 percent see Democrats as “effective” and 40 percent see Republicans as “effective.”In other words, after an election signaling that this is a moment of opportunity for Democrats, it is not at all clear the public perception of the party will let them take it.

William Frey, a demographic specialist at Brookings, does not share my doubts. He wrote by email in response to my queries: I think this is a long-awaited tipping point election where the South — especially rapidly growing, diverse Southern states, like Texas and Georgia, North Carolina and perhaps even Florida — is reflecting the political demographics which will continue to impact their future.

Younger, Hispanic, Asian and Black populations led the charge in the Democratic surge overall — both nationally and in Southern states. The Democrats now have an opportunity to capitalize on their demographic advantage with these traditionally Democratic-leaning voting blocs, which will be a large part of the region’s future growth.

Frey provided The Times with poll and census data showing huge shifts toward voting Democratic among young voters and minority voters and their growing share of the population in key, previously Republican states in the Sunbelt, driving Democratic victories in the region.

From 2024 to 2026, the margin of support for Democratic candidates grew among 18- to 29-year-olds by 33 points and among voters 30 to 44 by 25 points, far more than their elders.

At the same time, these younger voters make up a far larger share of the electorate in most Sunbelt states than elsewhere, according to demographic data compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau.

Take the distribution of population growth from 2020 to 2025 in Texas, for example: Under age 18, it was 8.12 percent; among 18- to 44-year-olds, 38.0 percent; 45- to 64-year-olds, 22.26 percent; and age 65 and older, 31.56 percent.

Compare that with California and New York, where the share of the population in every age group declined except for those 65 and older.

In addition to strong growth in the number of Democratic-leaning young voters in the Sunbelt, if, in Texas for example, Democrats can hold on to the governorship and the State House in 2030, they will dominate post-census redistricting, reversing the recent history of Democratic losses.

“My new blog,” Frey wrote, shows that, nationally, the under age 30 population is now minority white, which is especially the case in Southern states.

The 2020 census was the first to report that more than half of the nation’s population under age 18 was made up of Americans who identified either wholly or in part with nonwhite racial or ethnic groups.

Now, the latest Census Bureau population estimates show diversity moving up the age spectrum, such that now more than half of the population under age 30 identifies with racial or ethnic minority groups.

Frey described on the blog how the blue wave of 2026 was driven in part by the slow but steady rise of pro-Democratic nonwhite minorities: The 2020-to-2025 shifts in nonwhite racial and ethnic minority population shares have now led to a tipping point for the under-30 population, such that more than half identifies all or in part with a nonwhite racial or ethnic group.

This is the case for each individual age between zero and 29, as well as for the entire under-30 population, where the combined minority groups comprise 52.8 percent of the population — substantially higher than those groups’ 43.9 percent share of the total U.S. population.

One of the crucial questions in the South is whether nonwhite minority populations will grow large enough to produce more Democratic victories in governors’ races and state legislative contests, preventing Republicans from taking full advantage of redistricting before the 2032 election.

“The democratically elected governments in these Southern states,” Frey wrote, “now have the opportunity to reach out to new fast growing voting blocs and younger generations by addressing their issues, be they economic or cultural, in order to sharply change the politics of this fast-growing region.”Some scholars of politics are more cautious than Frey in drawing broad conclusions from the midterms.

Gary Jacobson, a political scientist at the University of California-San Diego and an expert on Congress, wrote by email in response to my inquiries: I’d never read one election as indicating “a real, long-lasting shift in partisanship.”The 2026 midterm was clearly a rejection of Trump, especially by younger and minority voters, but they had swung toward the Republicans only two years earlier and there is no reason to think they are permanently settled on the Democratic side.

Much will depend on what happens in the next two years. If Trump continues as before — and his appointment of Miller as chief of staff indicates that he plans to do so — it may solidify the recent alienation of voters who have shifted from his party. And what the Democrats are able to do to please these voters or at least to convince them that they are trying to address affordability and other matters, even if Trump stymies them, will also be a factor.

Jacobson acknowledged that “long-term demographic shifts — the population becoming more ethnically diverse as older white voters die off — favor the Democrats, but it is a slow and somewhat erratic process.”

Jacobson suggested, however, that the demographic trends described by Frey may pay off for Democrats during redistricting: The results show that what appeared to be solidly red states can be won by the right Democrat and this will surely figure into both parties’ calculations for 2028. The movement of people from blue to red states and the reallocation of House seats that will follow in 2030 will not help Republicans much if the receiving states become less red in the process.

This seems to be happening in Texas and elsewhere in the South, although we can’t be sure how durable the change is for another couple of elections.

The Democrats are now better positioned going into a presidential election than they have been for decades, perhaps going as far back as 1974. But two wild cards — Donald Trump and his enforcer, Stephen Miller — will be major players over the next two years. Whatever else happens, they will be sources of chaos and disruption.

Trump is still wincing from his 2020 defeat and the current public repudiation of his presidency — an intolerable mark to leave on the history books.

Few could match Trump’s recklessness in the face of loss, except he may have met his match in Miller.

If Democrats are a “radical left group of lunatics” in Trump’s view, in Miller’s assessment the left is a threat to the survival of America as we know it.

Here’s Miller on the Democratic Party in an Aug. 25, 2025, interview by Sean Hannity on Fox News: The Democrat Party does not fight for, care about or represent American citizens. It is an entity devoted exclusively to the defense of hardened criminals, gangbangers and illegal, alien killers and terrorists. The Democrat Party is not a political party. It is a domestic extremist organization. Or take Miller’s remarks at the Sept. 21, 2025, Charlie Kirk Memorial Service: To those trying to incite violence against us, those trying to foment hatred against us, what do you have?

You have nothing. You are nothing. You are wickedness. You are jealousy. You are envy. You are hatred. You are nothing. You can build nothing. You can produce nothing. You can create nothing.

Trump, in other words, has unleashed a man who sees Democrats and liberals as “devoted exclusively” to the protection of criminals, gangs and terrorists, an ideologue who feels called upon “to save this civilization, to save the West, to save this republic.”No one is safe when Stephen Miller — a man bent on destroying the opposition, a man who would treat half of the nation as mortal enemies — is the guiding hand behind the president’s agenda. Matthew Tobin contributed research to this essay.

Thomas B. Edsall has been a contributor to the Times Opinion section since 2011. His essays on strategic and demographic trends in American politics appear every Tuesday. He previously covered politics for The Washington Post.