https://www.texastribune.org/2026/11/04/texas-democrats-blue-wave-no-spaces-short/
Gov. Greg Abbott, the most powerful and well-resourced governor in modern Texas history, was unseated by Gina Hinojosa.
Attorney General Ken Paxton, who in past elections cast off impeachment, indictment and infidelities, fell to James Talarico in his bid for the U.S. Senate.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the iron-fisted ruler of the Texas Senate, went down to a little known state representative.
Republicans lost the attorney general’s office, one of the most influential conservative legal positions in the country. The new congressional map Republicans drew yielded them no gains — in fact, they lost one seat overall.
…nothing could have prepared either side for what happened Tuesday night — a full flip of statewide political control on a scale unseen in this state since Reconstruction
They have a serious lacking of candidates with any charisma left. They’re too ghoulishly out of touch.
Trump was their most charismatic candidate (lol), and when he’s gone they have a bunch of unlikable dweebs who don’t even know how to pretend to be relatable.
The Republican party was in a very similar position in 2008, with Bush being toxic. Yesterday’s election is in fact being compared with the wipeout in 2008. And yet, the Republican party did not die in 2008.
Bush II campaigned on “no foreign adventures” and “no nationbuilding”, then went into Iraq and did exactly that. Along with all kinds of corruption and incompetence.
Don’t get me wrong, the Republican party absolutely deserves to die - anybody who votes for them is evil and an idiot. But recent history teaches us that pronouncing their demise can be premature.
It’s a little different now though because of how Trump committed various political sins. He was unapologetic. He doubled down. He was a dismissive jackass and a bully. He pulled every political trick republicans have always used, but the execution was so poor even his own base knew started to recognize what he was doing, like sexualizing candidates to make them seem more desirable to dumbfucks.
But he’s so loud and obvious there was never any chance to launder those behaviors into anything other than “Trump is a dumbass.” So next time the republicans try this shit, it will compared to Trump and dissected immediately.
Trump ruined it for all of them by being the worst political magician imaginable.
He was no different in 2016, yet the Republicans still kept him as their chosen candidate and put the full weight of the party behind him for the 2020 and 2024 elections.
The GOP had multiple opportunities to ditch Trump, but they willingly stuck with him for a decade.
They kinda haven’t had the ability to ditch Trump after 2016, the key problem here is that Trump basically took over the Republican party so they couldn’t really excuse him lest the base turn on them. Personally I suspect that the post 2012 analysis they did will come true wherein once the party loses the Trump cult they’ll be left with a microscopic base of corpos and christofascists before mode or less imploding.