Even with votes remaining to be counted, it’s safe to say GOP candidates at all levels — national, state, and even local councils — got demolished, shellacked, and were folded, spun, and mutilated on Election Day 2026. The question now is what comes next on immigration — and how will it shape the 2028 presidential election?
‘A Complete Collapse’
Let’s start with the following tweet from Sean Trende at RealClear Politics, one of the best and most-even handed pollsters around:
This isn’t a tsunami or anything like that. This is a complete collapse of the Republican coalition.
— Sean T at RCP (@SeanTrende) November 4, 2026
You can quibble at the margins with Trende’s points, but that seems like a fairly apt description of what occurred overall.
‘The Public Still Wants Law Enforced’
Interestingly, on election day eve, outgoing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) appeared on “Straight Shooter” with erstwhile (or sometime) sports analyst Stephen A. Smith, and he made many insightful points.
In the interest of full disclosure, I served as staff director to DeSantis for about 20 months when he was the chairman of the House Oversight Committee’s Subcommittee on National Security, but I have not spoken to him in years.
Let’s just say, however, that he’s a man who speaks his mind plainly, and has rare political instincts.
