The establishment press is desperate to declare the Trump era dead after Democrats posted their best midterm performance in 68 years — but even the consultant class they rely on for analysis admits that's wishful thinking. The real story for working Americans: neither party owns the voters who keep swinging elections, and the ruling class still has no idea what to do about it.
NJ.com convened two veteran consultants — Democrat Julie Roginsky and Republican Mike DuHaime — to dissect the so-called "blue tsunami." Both agreed the Trump era is far from over. Roginsky: "He has fundamentally transformed both his party and this country. He will have an outsized role in the 2028 Republican primaries." DuHaime went further, noting Trump "can veto any bill" and "set the media's agenda every day" and "could likely handpick the GOP presidential nominee if he were so inclined."
The exit polls tell the story the press doesn't want to grapple with. Black men swung back to Democrats by 16 points. Noncollege white voters by 14. Hispanics by a staggering 28. Voters under 30 by 32. Men under 30 went Democratic by a 38-point margin. These are the same voters who swung to Biden in 2020 and back to Trump in 2024. DuHaime nailed it: "They were Trump voters, temporarily. They are not Republican voters in perpetuity."
Why did they swing back? Roginsky was blunt: "Voters were not happy about their personal economic circumstances in 2024 and decided to give Trump a chance to fix it. It's gotten worse. You can't gaslight people about what they spend to fill up their gas tanks or pay for groceries." There it is — the kitchen-table reality the Beltway class keeps trying to talk around.
But here's what the "blue tsunami" cheerleaders are burying: Democrats are not popular, either. On Election Day, 53% of voters held an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party. A CBS News poll found 57% said the party has no clear vision for the future. A Pew Research Center survey showed a mere 15% of registered voters said Democratic candidates explained their plans and vision extremely or very well. Roginsky's prescription — "For God's sake, learn how to communicate" — underscores the void.
The establishment wants this to be a story about Trump's decline. It's actually a story about millions of Americans who refuse to be owned by either party, who vote their wallets, and who will swing again the moment either side fails to deliver. DuHaime called it "the height of hubris" for Republicans to have redistricted based on the performance of one election. The same hubris infects every走廊 in Washington.
The populist movement was never about one man. It was about millions of Americans the ruling class still refuses to represent. The blue tsunami is real — but so is the red riptide that preceded it, and the one that will follow if Democrats mistake a swing for a permanent home.
