Midterm Elections Open Up Political Map11/05 06:08

   For a decade, the political map has been largely stagnant, locked into the 
same half-dozen or so political battlegrounds, reflecting a polarized, evenly 
divided country. On Tuesday, voters took a wrecking ball to that map, electing 
Democrats in states that were long considered reliably Republican.

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- For a decade, the political map has been largely 
stagnant, locked into the same half-dozen or so political battlegrounds, 
reflecting a polarized, evenly divided country. On Tuesday, voters took a 
wrecking ball to that map, electing Democrats in states that were long 
considered reliably Republican.

   Kansas, South Carolina, Texas, Ohio and Iowa -- all states that President 
Donald Trump easily won two years ago -- backed Democrats for the U.S. Senate 
and, in several of them, for governor, too.

   Though it's unclear whether the results represent a durable tectonic shift, 
they at least open the conversation about whether the country may move beyond 
its geographic deadlock, and whether Democrats can compete in nominally red 
states in the next presidential campaign, most notably in Republicans' 
electoral stronghold of Texas.

   "Even though Democrats haven't won Texas in a presidential race since Jimmy 
Carter, last night's historic results may entice them to make a real run at the 
state's robust 40 electoral votes," said Texas Republican strategist David 
Polyansky. Only California has more electoral votes.

   "At a minimum, that would cost Republicans countless millions of dollars and 
untold manpower to defend against," he added.

   Such a shift would also signal a sea change in the way political parties 
function, said Joshua Huder, a Georgetown political scientist. For Democrats to 
hold onto their gains in the red center of the country, they would likely need 
to embrace causes like the farm bill that are vital to voters there but not on 
the mind of your typical liberal activist.

   "Are they willing to compete in places like Kansas, Iowa and Texas?" Huder 
asked of Democrats. "That fundamentally changes politics if they do."

   The path to the presidency will not be redrawn overnight, Democratic 
strategists cautioned. Most of Tuesday's results stemmed from Trump's deep 
unpopularity and voters' unhappiness with the cost of living.

   But Democrats' widespread, statewide and down-ballot victories in 
conservative states and onetime swing-states like Iowa and Ohio allow the party 
to start building an organizational structure they've not had for more than 10 
years.

   Democrats won their first Texas Senate race in 38 years, but they also 
knocked off three-term Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and won control of the state 
House. It was part of an electoral shock wave that swept across the entire 
country, knocking out incumbents in long-safe conservative strongholds, 
flipping reliably right-leaning statehouses in places like Arizona and 
Wisconsin and delivering the biggest shift in political power since the 
post-Watergate election of 1974.

   "It clearly was some type of a breakthrough; the level of discontent with 
Trump and his policies was so strong," said Alan Abramowitz, a political 
scientist at Emory University. He doesn't expect it to last. "We remain very 
polarized, despite what happened in this election," Abramowitz added. 
"Supporters of each party perceive the other side as a threat to their way of 
life."

   But Abramowitz and others noted that the dynamic that fueled the historic 
election will still be around in 2028. Democrats have for months hoped to 
repeat the successes of the 2006 and 2008 elections, when they won back 
Congress and then, two years later, expanded their margins in Barack Obama's 
first presidential run.

   Jim Messina, who worked on that 2008 campaign and managed Obama's 2012 
reelection team, said Democrats will now be able to build up their local 
apparatus in Texas while taking a careful look ahead of 2028.

   "Texas is a hundreds-of-millions-of-dollars decision for a presidential 
campaign manager, and you're going to wait as long as you can to decide," 
Messina said.

   That's why the analysis begins now in states such as Ohio, Iowa and Texas, 
said Democratic pollster John Anzalone, President Joe Biden's chief pollster 
and senior adviser in 2020 and pollster for Obama's 2008 and 2012 campaigns.

   "What we'll do is research it. We'll go into these states, do polling and 
focus groups and see what the rate of return might be," said Anzalone, who 
polled for and advised former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper's winning Senate 
campaign. "It's all about the resources."

   Still, the Democratic wins were about more than resources. The party was 
outspent across much of the country, but still racked up wins, including gains 
among demographics that normally favor Republicans.

   Democrats nationwide fared better this year, relative to 2024, among white 
voters without college degrees, according to The AP Voter Poll and AP VoteCast, 
although Republicans still won them overall. This group was critical to Trump's 
success in onetime battlegrounds like Iowa and Ohio after Obama carried them 
twice.

   The erosion of Republican support in rural areas was especially pronounced 
in Iowa, where Trump had dominated in his three presidential races. About 6 in 
10 Iowa voters who say they live in a rural area or small town backed 
Republicans in 2022, but their vote was more closely split this year as tariffs 
and high fuel prices weighed on farmers' profits. Republican candidate Ashley 
Hinson won just over half of rural or small-town voters this year, The AP Voter 
Poll found, while Democratic candidate Josh Turek won about 4 in 10 voters in 
this group.

   Turek also triumphed in lightly populated, rural counties in eastern Iowa 
that no Democratic Senate candidate had carried since former five-term Sen. Tom 
Harkin won in 2008 before retiring.

   "We're in a very volatile political era," said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a 
Republican who is finishing his second term, during a news conference Wednesday.

   DeSantis will be replaced by Rep. Byron Donalds, a fellow Republican who was 
only narrowly elected as his successor despite the state's recent reputation as 
a conservative stronghold.

   "Things shift quickly, and leaders just got to recognize that," said 
DeSantis, "and don't act like whatever worked even two years ago in a campaign 
is necessarily going to work today or would work going forward."

   Republican strategist Kristin Davison said her party shouldn't panic, urging 
members to dig into the results, learn what happened and chart a path forward.

   "I think anyone immediately presuming 2028 implications as the dust settles 
today will need to make revisions," she said.