The Reckoning At The Ballot Box

A week before Tuesday’s election, TIPP’s Direction of Country Index posted its best reading in a year. Nearly all of the gain came from Republicans. Independents moved the other way, and on Election Day they broke decisively for Democrats.

The result was a Democratic sweep. The party won the Senate and is projected to control the House. Its Senate gains came in states Republicans had long counted as safe. Texas elected its first Democratic senator since 1988 and Kansas its first since 1932. Democrats also flipped seats in North Carolina, Maine, South Carolina, Ohio, and Iowa. For President Donald Trump, the outcome is a serious setback. It also raises hard questions about the coalition that returned him to the White House two years ago.

Before the Vote

Prices dominated the campaign. In TIPP’s final pre-election poll, conducted October 27–30, 48% of likely voters named the cost of living and inflation among the country’s three most pressing issues, well ahead of the economy at 33%. It was the top concern for Democrats, Republicans, and independents alike.

The late signals were mixed. The Direction of Country Index rose 2.6 points to 46.0, driven by a 6.4-point jump among Republicans, and the final I&I/TIPP Poll showed Trump’s favorability improving to 43%, from 40% in October. Taken alone, those numbers suggested a Republican rally.

That rally was confined largely to voters who already supported the president. Among independents, the index fell to 32.0, near its low for Trump’s second term, and nearly seven in ten independent likely voters were dissatisfied with the country’s direction. They were also the most concerned about gas prices: 43% named gasoline as a leading economic worry, compared with 36% of Democrats and 26% of Republicans. They favored Democratic control of Congress by 50% to 30%.

Voters were also asking for restraint. In an October I&I/TIPP Poll, 49% of registered voters said they wanted Congress to check Trump’s policies, while 30% wanted lawmakers to support them. Independents favored a check by 46% to 20%, and a third of Republicans agreed.

Election Day

Independents made up a third of Tuesday’s electorate, and according to the NBC News Exit Poll, they backed Democrats 56% to 39%, close to the 20-point margin TIPP measured a week earlier. The broader electorate was just as unhappy. In the AP Voter Poll, 75% of voters were angry or dissatisfied with the country’s direction, Trump’s approval stood at 38%, and 71% wanted Congress to do more to rein in the president. CBS News found that about nine in ten voters called the cost of living a major factor in their decision, and higher energy prices tied to the war with Iran added to the strain.

Republicans also struggled to get credit for what they had delivered. The 2025 tax law cut taxes for most households, by about $2,300 for the typical taxpayer this year according to the Tax Foundation, and the IRS reported in March that the average refund was up nearly 11%. Yet an April I&I/TIPP Poll found that 40% of Americans believed their taxes had risen, while only 10% thought they had fallen, a pattern that held across party lines. Republicans did little during the campaign to close that gap. Even so, a larger refund in the spring was always going to be hard to remember after months of rising prices.

A Shifting Coalition

In October, TIPP’s “Great Inversion” analysis traced how Trump’s support had changed since his first midterm in 2018. His ratings had risen among urban residents, investors, younger adults, and college graduates, and fallen among rural Americans. It was unclear whether his newer admirers would vote Republican or whether his longtime base would turn out despite its doubts.

The early exit polls suggest an answer. Young and Hispanic voters moved toward Democrats after shifting to Trump in 2024, and Democrats gained ground in places that had swung Republican two years earlier. Higher ratings for Trump among some groups did not translate into Republican votes.

Divided Government

Few voters asked for divided government. In the October TIPP poll, only 7% preferred split control of Congress, while the rest divided almost evenly: 40% wanted Democrats to run both chambers and 39% wanted Republicans to. Divided government is still what the country got, and it need not be a bad outcome. Some of the most durable laws of recent decades, including the 1986 tax overhaul and the 1996 welfare reform, were passed under it.

Democrats would be wise not to overread their win. A month before the election, voters were nearly tied on which party should control Congress, and what they wanted most was a check on the president, not a new agenda. Trump keeps the veto, so Democrats will need Republican votes for anything significant. Wave elections also fade, as Democrats learned when they lost House seats in 2020, two years after their 2018 landslide.

The next Congress may spend much of its time on investigations and confrontation. If it accomplishes little else, the new majority will face the same judgment Republicans faced on Tuesday. Republicans, meanwhile, have two years to show that their agenda answers the rising costs families face. Whichever party does that more convincingly will head into 2028 in the stronger position.