Commentary: Wisconsin’s blue wave and the post-Trump era

The depth and breadth of Republicans’ stunning losses in Tuesday’s blue wave are still coming into focus. Unprecedented Democratic wins in red states including Texas, Kansas, South Carolina and possibly Mississippi ushered in a new era. Democrats won big majorities in the House and Senate. They gained control of governorships and legislative chambers across the country, including in Wisconsin. 

Perhaps most dramatic was what didn’t happen. Menacing threats of armed federal agents at the polls melted away as Republicans crumbled. President Donald Trump accepted the results. So did Wisconsin’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany, who voted against certifying the 2020 presidential election, but who conceded early and graciously this week.

Fear itself was vanquished on Tuesday. The dread of an authoritarian government poised to crush dissent with coercion and violence yielded to ordinary citizens voting, by the millions, to oust a self-dealing, out-of-touch party led by a malignant narcissist busy enriching himself at the people’s expense.

Just days before the election, voting rights groups in Wisconsin sent a letter to Attorney General Josh Kaul urging him to provide additional guidance to election workers in case federal agents showed up to seize ballots and tamper with election results.

Instead, voting went smoothly and the results, a massive rebuke to President Donald Trump and his party, now stand.

The lesson of the 2026 midterms was that regular people are not powerless in the face of this aggressive, anti-democratic regime. There is still time and hope left for our country. 

That, more than any particular surprise win, was the biggest thrill of the night.

In Wisconsin, Democrats took over both houses of the Legislature and David Crowley celebrated a convincing, historic win as the state’s first Black governor. Jan. 6 rallygoer and MAGA blowhard U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden was shown the door. The 2026 change election also swept away incumbent U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, who lost to Mitchell Berman in the 1st Congressional District. As Erik Gunn and Heather Asiyanbi report, Berman broke Steil’s four-term winning streak and Republican control of the district stretching back more than three decades, through the Paul Ryan era. 

Berman represented the mood of the country’s fed-up electorate. An emergency room nurse dismayed by seeing patients who could not afford health insurance, he took on the smooth-talking, well heeled Steil on his support for Medicaid cuts, tariffs and his record of coddling the very wealthy and corporations, voting in lock-step with President Donald Trump. Corruption and the abandonment of regular working people were the themes of the 1st District race and of the midterms generally. Not, as Republicans hoped, trans people, “woke” politics and a debate about the decorative aesthetics of the Cheesecake Factory.

It turned out people were too fed up to be distracted from their own very real struggles by these culture war topics. Nor were they dissuaded by the massive infusion of cash from billionaires Elon Musk, Dick and Elizabeth Uihlein and Diane Hendricks.

There will be plenty more struggle ahead. But it’s a good time to bask in the glow of the complete rout of fear, hate and division as our inevitable national political atmosphere. 

In Wisconsin, Democrats set an example for what it means to overcome division. Francesca Hong, after narrowly losing the primary on a progressive, democratic socialist platform, worked hard to help elect Crowley — despite the hard feelings among many of her supporters who felt he big-footed her by getting back in the race after dropping out and narrowly winning with Gov. Tony Evers’ endorsement.

Angela Lang, founder and director of Black Leaders Organizing for Communities, told Isiah Holmes at Crowley’s joyful, raucous victory party that Crowley’s personal history — being evicted along with his parents, who struggled with poverty and addiction when he was a child — and his efforts as Milwaukee county executive to do right by people who have also struggled, moved her.  “I’ve always been nervous. Because sometimes Wisconsin doesn’t always do the right thing. But I always knew it was possible and I’m glad to know that the rest of Wisconsin felt it was possible, too,” she said.

So much is possible if the majority of us unite against the corrosive politics of the Trump era and look out for our shared interests.

This week, it became suddenly clear that a bad era is coming to an end, and a new era of possibility is dawning.