He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.2 Corinthians 3:6
Texas woke up red on Tuesday and went to bed blue.
Why it matters: Just months ago, Democratic campaigns in the MAGA heartland appeared quixotic — obligatory more than realistic.
Now those Democratic candidates have swept to power, led by two state representatives from liberal Austin — James Talarico, soon to be seated in the U.S. Senate, and Gina Hinojosa, who will take her place in the new year in the governor's mansion.
Zoom in: The Democratic victories were comprehensive. State Rep. Vikki Goodwin (D-Austin) unseated three-term Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, per the Associated Press.
Democrat Nathan Johnson, a state senator from Dallas, defeated Republican Mayes Middleton, state senator from Galveston, in the race for attorney general.
What they're saying: "We shocked the world tonight. With a Texas chip on our shoulder, we showed the world that anything is possible tonight," Hinojosa said.
"We just took back Texas," Talarico told his supporters.
What happened: An unpopular president and high gas and grocery prices deep-sixed red-state GOP candidates across the country.
But the Texas GOP was further hampered by an unpopular U.S. Senate candidate (even members of his own party impeached him) — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
And Greg Abbott, who had served as governor since 2015, was unwilling to debate his gubernatorial opponent.
Meanwhile, the Democrats were disciplined, with Talarico and Hinojosa staying on message about affordability even as their Republican opponents tried to make the race about social issues.
Follow the money: Republicans went down despite a rescue mission from Elon Musk, who gave north of $150 million in support of Paxton's campaign in a single quarter this year — and gave at least $5.5 million to Abbott's campaign this cycle.
The big picture: The Democratic wins have huge implications for the 2028 presidential race.
Democrats have proven, after years of flailing, that they could win statewide in Texas, potentially putting the Lone Star State and its 40 electoral votes in play.
Political pundits will be wondering: Was this a one-off wave amid a terrible midterm climate for Texas Republicans — or a sign of foundational change?
The bottom line: Fireworks were shooting off in Austin last night, and state agencies so long occupied by the GOP will now be run by Democrats, opening the way for wide policy changes in long-conservative Texas.
Automakers are charging monthly for remote start and extra horsepower already built into cars. Next to a record $787 average car payment, the fees are easy to overlook.
Democrats won shocking victories all over the map and flipped the Senate and House with ease, leaving the president weakened. “There was a mood in the air, I guess,” he said.
The four largest gifts to democracy programs from 2021 to 2025 created or expanded university institutes named for Leonard Schaeffer, the Rooneys, the Karshes, and the Kinders, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy.
Gov. Katie Hobbs defeated her Republican challenger, Representative Andy Biggs, despite a concerted campaign by Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk’s organization.
Democrat Abdul El-Sayed defeated Republican Mike Rogers in Michigan's closely watched U.S. Senate race, the Associated Press projected. He will become the nation's first Muslim senator.
Why it matters: El-Sayed's win shows how an unapologetically progressive candidate can win in a battleground state President Trump carried just two years ago.
The two candidates competed for the seat vacated by retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, with Republicans hoping to flip a seat Democrats have held for decades. But the GOP failed in its endeavor — and already lost its Senate majority.
The race took a stunning turn in its final days, when Democratic U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, who narrowly lost the August primary to El-Sayed, endorsed Rogers.
The move sparked furious backlash from Democrats and prompted several of Stevens' staffers, including her chief of staff, to resign.
The big picture: El-Sayed, a former Detroit health director, ran on a progressive platform centered on Medicare for All, taxing billionaires, and reducing corporate influence in politics.
His victory comes after a contentious Democratic primary and a bitter general election campaign that featured personal attacks over his background, medical credentials and Muslim faith.
Rogers, a former congressman and FBI agent who narrowly lost a 2024 Senate bid, sought to portray El-Sayed as too extreme for Michigan. El-Sayed cast Rogers as a Washington insider aligned with Trump.
Trump himself escalated the attacks in the final stretch of the race, questioning El-Sayed's loyalty to the U.S., and making unsubstantiated allegations of extremist ties. El-Sayed rejected the accusations.
Between the lines: El-Sayed's win offers progressives a powerful new argument in the Democratic Party's debate over how to win back voters.
Zoom out: Both candidates put affordability at the center of their campaigns, but offered sharply different solutions.
El-Sayed called for universal health care, tackling medical debt and higher taxes on billionaire wealth.
Rogers emphasized tax cuts, expanding domestic manufacturing and more transparent health care prices. He also campaigned on stronger border security and immigration enforcement.
What's next: El-Sayed will arrive in Washington with an ambitious progressive agenda — but turning campaign promises into legislation will be a different challenge.
His signature Medicare for All proposal faces steep political obstacles, even if Democrats win control of the Senate.
His victory also gives progressives a new national figure as Democrats begin looking toward the 2028 presidential election.
The Democratic Party wrested control of Congress from Republicans in a wave of midterm victories as voters delivered a scathing rebuke to President Trump.
In red states and blue, Republicans suffered losses on a scale even Democrats would never have dared to dream about 24 hours ago.
Why it matters: Democrats worried that polls showing a blue wave were overestimating the party's strength. It turned out polls underestimated the size of the Democratic romp — by a lot.
The margins Democrats racked up in red states were stunning:
Georgia: Sen. Jon Ossoff won reelection by nearly 18 percentage points.
North Carolina: Former Gov. Roy Cooper won his Senate race by roughly 19 points.
Texas: State Rep. James Talarico cruised to victory by approximately 12 points.
These weren't nail-biters in competitive states. They were landslides in states President Trump carried just two years ago.
1. The Texas trifecta
Democrats won the Texas House, Senate and governor's mansion, giving the party unified control of state government for the first time since 1995.
The sweep came alongside Talarico's double-digit victory in the U.S. Senate race.
Texas, long the GOP's biggest electoral stronghold, delivered Democrats victories up and down the ballot.
2. North Carolina was a bloodbath
The man in charge of steering House Republicans to victory — Rep. Richard Hudson, chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee — lost his own seat.
He'll join the ranks of other defeated party leaders — Speaker Tom Foley in 1994 and DCCC Chair Sean Patrick Maloney in 2022 — who spent so much time trying to build a majority that they failed to protect themselves.
The carnage extended across the state. North Carolina's congressional delegation could shift from 10 Republicans and four Democrats to five Republicans and nine Democrats.
3. The ridiculously cheap wins
Democrats are leading in districts that received little or no outside spending from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) or House Majority PAC, the party's main House super PAC, according to AdImpact.
In North Carolina's 6th, 9th and 13th districts, Missouri's 2nd and Tennessee's 4th, Democratic candidates are on track to win despite receiving little financial support from national Democratic groups.
North Carolina's 6th: Democrat Cyril Jefferson didn't spend a dime on advertising, according to AdImpact.
Tennessee's 4th: Democrat Victoria Broderick spent just $90,000 on her entire campaign as of Oct. 14, according to her FEC filing. AdImpact has no record of any paid TV advertising.
4. Hispanic voters swung back in South Texas
Democrats are poised to control three congressional seats in the Rio Grande Valley that President Trump carried in 2024 — and the margins weren't even close.
Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) was leading Republican Tano Tijerina, 66% to 30%.
Democrat Bobby Pulido was leading Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz, 62% to 38%.
Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas) was leading Republican Eric Flores, 56% to 40%.
The results were a dramatic reversal in a region where Republicans had made significant gains with Hispanic voters during the Trump era.
5. Democrats won deep in Trump country
Democrats didn't just flip swing districts — they broke through in some of the reddest corners of the House map.
In Tennessee's 4th Congressional District, which Trump carried by 24 points, Democrat Victoria Broderick was leading Rep. Scott DesJarlais by roughly 200 votes.
Two years ago, Broderick received just 26.8% of the vote to DesJarlais' 70%.
The bottom line: The wave didn't discriminate. It washed away good candidates and bad, senators, governors and seasoned Republicans alike.
Republicans tried to save their House majority with a bold wave of mid-cycle redistricting. It failed in spectacular fashion on Tuesday.
Why it matters: Republicans not only fell short of winning seats in several districts they redrew to favor their candidates, they put some GOP incumbents in danger of losing by spreading their support thin.
Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.), who has mostly won landslide reelections since entering Congress in 2010, trailed his Democratic opponent by 200 votes, according to the Tennessee secretary of state's unofficial final results.
Republican state legislators carved up his district in an effort to shore up neighboring Republicans, making his district nearly 20 percentage points less GOP-leaning.
State of play: While Republicans succeeded in picking up a Democratic district in Tennessee to make up for that loss, they largely failed to pick up the seats they tried to make reliably Republican in other states.
Florida: Republicans are set to go 0-for-4 in redistricted seats, failing to unseat Democratic Reps. Darren Soto, Kathy Castor and Jared Moskowitz, or capture a new seat that Democrat Pia Dandiya won.
Texas: Republicans are set to narrowly win just one of the five districts they redrew heavily in their favor, with Democrats easily hanging onto several Rio Grande Valley and San Antonio-area seats.
Ohio: Democratic Reps. Greg Landsman and Marcy Kaptur held on despite Republicans drawing them into more hostile territory.
Alabama: Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures is also set for a comfortable win in a district Republicans had planned to fall into their hands.
Louisiana: The district of retiring Democrat Rep. Cleo Fields, which Republicans made significantly more GOP-leaning will go to a December runoff between Democrat Patricia Moore and Republican Gabe Firment.
One of the most stunning results of the night was Democrats' multiple apparent victories in North Carolina, where House candidates were boosted by Sen-elect Roy Cooper's strong performance at the top of the ballot.
Democrats are on track to flip several seats that were rated as likely or even solidly Republican by Cook Political Report, likely unseating Republican Reps. Addison McDowell, Brad Knott and Tim Moore.
They are also likely to unseat Rep. Richard Hudson, the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Virginia Foxx, who chairs the House Rules Committee, is behind by about 100 votes.
In all, the state's House delegation could go from a 10-4 Republican majority to a 9-5 Democratic one.
Between the lines: The North Carolina result is the product of a brutal 2024 gerrymander in which GOP state legislators diluted most solidly Republican districts to draw out several House Democrats.
They redistricted again last year, only to put Democratic Rep. Don Davis in more hostile territory.
GOP Rep. Greg Murphy — whose district was packed with more Democratic voters to make Davis' seat redder — barely hung on Tuesday night.
Former Democratic Rep. Kathy Manning, who was one of the Democrats drawn out in 2024, told Axios that Tuesday's result was "absolutely" a result of GOP redistricting backfiring.
The bottom line: Republicans "tried to break the laws and go against these norms in your massive authoritarian power grab," DNC vice chair Shasti Conrad told Axios.
Proponents of the initiative had blamed the abortion ban on a steep decline in the number of obstetricians and gynecologists in the state, but they could not overcome Idaho’s conservatism.
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed will become the nation’s first Muslim senator. He triumphed in one of the country’s most bitter and expensive races, keeping his party in control of a crucial seat.
El-Sayed's campaign tested how an antiestablishment candidate on the left would fare in a perennial Midwest battleground. With the win, he'll become the first Muslim American to serve in the Senate.
JW Anderson has officially unveiled the campaign for its collaborative collection with UGGThe visual series stars model Kaia Gerber and musician Dev Hynes captured across intimate domestic settingsThe collaborative collection is currently available in physical stores and online via the JW Anderson webstore
British fashion house JW Anderson has officially debuted the campaign for its collaborative collection with UGG, starring Kaia Gerber and Dev Hynes. Captured by photography duo Tanya and Zhenya Posternak, the visuals showcase the cross-disciplinary creative pair in a series of intimate, domestic vignettes that explore the boundary between everyday ease and considered dressing.Continuing Jonathan Anderson’s longstanding practice of casting talent across distinct creative fields, the campaign brings together Gerber’s presence across fashion and acting alongside Hynes’ musical artistry. Throughout the series, the pair are styled in garments from JW Anderson’s latest namesake collection, sporting graphic argyle jumpers, structured leather jackets, and the brand’s signature twisted seam jeans. Set against quiet interior backdrops, the photographs examine the intersection of elevated tailoring and the relaxed rituals of daily domestic life.Under the creative direction of Jonathan Anderson, the editorial was styled by frequent collaborator Benjamin Bruno with set design by Julia Wagner. Beauty and grooming directions were executed by hair stylist Hos Hounkpatin, makeup artist Jamal Scott, and nail artist Yukie Miyaka, with full production facilitated by Studio Boum. The resulting images ground the collaborative footwear and ready-to-wear styling within authentic living spaces.The JW Anderson x UGG collection is available now in physical stores and online.Set your reminders and get ahead of what’s dropping next on Hypebeast Drops.
Elon Musk cracked jokes early Wednesday morning after the Republican candidates he spent record sums supporting got drubbed in a historic midterm election.
Why it matters: No one has ever spent as much as Musk for so little payoff — especially in Texas, which ended up with a massive blue wave.
He spent an estimated $445 million in this cycle, making him the largest individual donor in modern history.
What they're saying: "Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn't work this time 🤷♂️," Musk posted to X just before 1:15am ET.
The intrigue: Musk also nodded at the results in the Texas governor's race, where anti-data center Democrat Gina Hinojosa won a shock victory.
"Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now," he wrote.
What to watch: It's not clear how the massive power shift in Texas will affect Musk's ambitions for his companies in the state — or how the loss will impact his appetite for more spending in 2028.
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has added a security flaw in WordPress Core to the Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, citing evidence of active exploitation.
The high-severity vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-119977 (CVSS score: 8.1), is a case of Time-of-check Time-of-use (TOCTOU) race condition that could be exploited to achieve arbitrary code
Sarah Trone Garriott, a Democratic state senator and Lutheran minister, beat Representative Zach Nunn, a Republican who had tied himself closely to President Trump.
Latino voters helped Democrats break Republicans' decades-long grip on Texas and reclaim both chambers of Congress on Tuesday, casting doubt on President Trump's historic 2024 gains with the fast-growing electorate.
Why it matters: Republicans bet Trump's Latino breakthrough two years ago would create a lasting GOP realignment in Texas and beyond. Tuesday's results exposed how quickly those gains could unravel — and raised new questions about Republicans' coalition heading into 2028.
Early results show Hispanic voters' shift aided Democrats in capturing a Senate seat and the governorship in Texas for the first time in a generation.
Tuesday's results — particularly in South Texas border counties — reflected some of the anger among Hispanics over high prices and the Trump administration's immigration enforcement.
"This is what happens when you mess with the Latino community. We are sending a clear message," said Hector Sanchez Barba, president and CEO of the voting group Mi Familia Vota.
Democrats' 16-point advantage in Latino party identification grew from 10 points in 2024, according to NBC's polling.
Some 43% of Latino voters identified as Democrats, up from 39% in 2024. Republican identification slipped from 29% to 27%.
In the early NBC exit poll, 75% of voters nationally described the economy as struggling, while 65% said Trump's policies had made economic conditions worse.
State of play: Democrats reclaimed the House and Senate while ending Republicans' statewide winning streak in Texas dating to 1994.
Early returns also suggested Latino voters helped Democrats win crucial House contests in Colorado and Georgia.
Comedian Cristela Alonzo attends an election night watch party for Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa at Assembly Hall in Austin, Texas. Photo: Joel Angel Juarez/Getty Images
What they're saying: "You know how Tim Russert would always say 'Florida, Florida, Florida?' For the last two cycles, I kept saying Texas, Texas, Texas. That's how I feel right now," Voto Latino CEO Maria Teresa Kumar told Axios.
Kumar said the Democrats' historic Texas wins changes 2028 and will transform how presidential candidates talk to Latino voters and see Texas as purple.
"There was this notion that we're a sleeping giant. Now, we're jumping up and down and waving our fist above the head," Janet Murguía, president and CEO of the Latino civil rights group UnidosUS told Axios.
Zoom in: The clearest tests of the Latino shift came in Texas counties that Republicans had celebrated as evidence of their growing strength.
Cameron County, which includes Brownsville and South Padre Island: Talarico led by 38 points in early, unofficial returns. Trump won by 6 points there in 2024.
Hidalgo County, another majority-Latino border county: Talarico led by 47 points. Trump won it two years ago by 3 points.
Webb County, home to Laredo: Talarico led by 49 points; it was Trump +2 in 2024.
Context: Trump's 2024 success shattered longstanding assumptions about Latino voters.
An August Axios-reported poll of 17 competitive House districts foreshadowed the reversal, showing Democrats leading 58%–35% among Latino registered voters.
Supporters react during a midterm election night watch party for Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico at the Long Center in Austin, Texas. Photo: Brandon Bell/Getty Image
Reality check: A Democratic rebound doesn't mean Latino voters have returned to their old political loyalties.
Democrats' 16-point advantage in Latino party identification remains far below their 33-point advantage in 2018, according to NBC.
Republicans may have mistaken Trump's appeal for lasting GOP loyalty. Democrats risk confusing a backlash against Trump with renewed allegiance to their party.
A September Axios analysis found 62% of Latino registered voters in 17 battleground districts trusted Democrats more to lower prices, compared with 36% who trusted Republicans.
Economic frustration gave Democrats an opening without guaranteeing lasting support.
The bottom line: Trump's Latino breakthrough reshaped politics in 2024. Two years later, those voters reminded both parties that winning their support once doesn't mean keeping it.
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![](https://image-cdn.hypb.st/https%3A%2F%2Fhypebeast.com%2Fimage%2F2026%2F11%2F03%2Fjw-anderson-ugg-collaboration-campaign-starring-kaia-gerber-dev-hynes-release-info-000.jpg?w=800&cbr=1&q=90&fit=max" /></p><p><strong>Summary</strong></p><p>JW Anderson has officially unveiled the campaign for its collaborative collection with UGGThe visual series stars model Kaia Gerber and musician Dev Hynes captured across intimate domestic settingsThe collaborative collection is currently available in physical stores and online via the JW Anderson webstore)
