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Democrats' Midterm Blowout, Trump Blames Candidates For Losses, Democratic Agenda

Democrats' Midterm Blowout, Trump Blames Candidates For Losses, Democratic Agenda

Up First from NPR
Nov 4, 2026 13 min
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About this episode

Democrats swept control of Congress with historic Senate victories in Texas, South Carolina and Kansas, giving the party new momentum even as its broader brand remains unpopular.<br>President Trump’s hand-picked candidates suffered major losses, leaving Republicans to wrestle with how closely to stay tied to him as he prepares for two years of divided government.<br>Democratic control of the House and Senate will give the party new power to block Trump nominees and launch investigations, with Hakeem Jeffries poised to become the first Black Speaker of the House.<br/><br/><em>Want more analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? </em><a href="https://www.npr.org/newsletter/news"target="_blank" >Subscribe</a><em> to the Up First newsletter.</em><br/><br/>Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at <a href="http://plus.npr.org/"target="_blank" >plus.npr.org</a>.<br/><br/>Today’s episode of Up First was edited by Megan Pratz, Miguel Macias, Padma Rama, Rebekah Metzler, Mohamad ElBardicy, and Adam Bearne.<br/><br/>It was produced by Ziad Buchh and Nia Dumas. <br/><br/>Our director is Christopher Thomas.<br/><br/>We get engineering support from Neisha Heinis and Patrick Murray.<br/><br/>Our technical director is Carleigh Strange.<br/><br/>And our Supervising Producer is Michael Lipkin.<br/><br/>(0:00) Introduction<br>(01:55) Democrats' Midterm Blowout<br>(05:20) Trump Blames Candidates For Losses<br>(09:12) Democratic Agenda<br/><br/>See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.<br/><br/><a href="https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy">NPR Privacy Policy</a>

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